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<\/p>\nWorld leaders warned on Thursday that time is running short for urgent and decisive action to prevent the worst effects of climate change, and blasted the US for its retreat from those efforts, as they gathered at the edge of the Amazon rainforest for the annual United Nations climate summit.<\/p>\n
UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres opened a gathering of heads of state in Belem, Brazil, with harsh words for world powers who he said \u201cremain captive to the fossil fuel interests, rather than protecting the public interest\u201d.<\/p>\n
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Prince William in Balem.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Guterres said allowing global warming to exceed the key benchmark of 1.5 degrees, laid out in the Paris Agreement, would represent a \u201cmoral failure and deadly negligence\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven a temporary overshoot will have dramatic consequences … every fraction of a degree higher means more hunger, displacement and loss,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brazilian President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva sought to mobilise funds from world powers to halt the ongoing destruction of tropical rainforests and advance the many unmet promises made at previous summits.<\/p>\n
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The Amazon rainforest has been under great threat in recent years through deforestation, mining, infrastructural development and exploitation of other natural resources.<\/p>\n
In a rousing speech, Lula warned that the \u201cwindow of opportunity we have to act is rapidly closing\u201d and said there was \u201cno greater symbol of the environmental cause\u201d than the Amazon rainforest.<\/p>\n
Known as the \u201clungs of the world\u201d for its capacity to absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that warms the planet, the biodiverse Amazon rainforest has been choked by wildfires and cleared by cattle ranching.<\/p>\n
Seventeen per cent of the Amazon\u2019s forest cover has vanished in the past 50 years, swallowed up for farmland, logging and mining.<\/p>\n
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The Amazon is one of the world\u2019s most biodiverse regions.Credit: iStock<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is only right that it is the turn of the Amazonian people to ask what the rest of the world is doing to prevent the collapse of their home,\u201d Lula said.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump, who calls climate change a hoax and withdrew his country from the Paris climate accords the day he entered office, did not send any senior officials to Belem.<\/p>\n
Even American lawmakers struggled to get to Brazil as US airlines cancelled hundreds of flights due to the government shutdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cExtremist forces fabricate falsehoods to gain electoral advantage and trap future generations in an outdated model that perpetuates social and economic disparities and environmental degradation,\u201d Lula said, without naming Trump.<\/p>\n
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Colombian President Gustavo Petro says Donald Trump is wrong for not attending the summit.Credit: AP<\/p>\n
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, however, called out Trump directly, saying his absence was \u201c100 per cent wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump is against humankind,\u201d said Petro, whose feud with his American counterpart escalated recently as Trump accused him of being a drug kingpin and imposed financial sanctions on him and his family.<\/p>\n
Leaders spoke as the UN weather agency announced that 2025 was on track to be the second- or third-warmest year ever recorded.<\/p>\n