Brazil rejected aid from G7 countries to fight wildfires in the Amazon, with a top official telling French President Emmanuel Macron to take care of “his home and his colonies.”
The G7 will give US$20 million (€18 million) to send firefighting planes to tackle the blazes engulfing parts of the Amazon, the presidents of France and Chile said on Monday.
Hundreds of new fires have flared up in the Amazon in Brazil, data showed on Monday, even as military aircraft dumped water over hard-hit areas and G7 nations pledged to help combat the blazes.
Thousands of people gathered on Friday in front of Brazilian embassies in different cities around the world and Montevideo was no exception. Several hundred protesters, mostly young people, cut off busy Bulevar Artigas Avenue at the embassy of the Amazonian country, whose government is widely criticized for its environmental policies by countless NGOs around the world.
As wildfires rage through the Brazilian Amazon, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has said Dublin will vote against a trade deal between the European Union and Mercosur unless Brazil takes action to protect the rainforest.
Climate change activists chanting slogans and waving banners demonstrated outside Brazil's embassy in London on Friday, urging President Jair Bolsonaro to do more to halt the fires in the Amazon rainforest.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro following a Thursday meeting with his ministers at the Planalto Palace announced the creation of a crisis cabinet to address the Amazon rainforest situation.
France and the United Nations called on Thursday for the protection of the fire-plagued Amazon rainforest as Brazil's right-wing president blamed NGOs for promoting an “environmental psychosis” to damage the country's interests.
Bolivian authorities warned this week that 70% of the department of Santa Cruz — where more than a quarter of the country's population lives — is under “extreme risk” from forest fires. According to the government, nearly 500,000 hectares of forest have now been turned into ashes.
Wildfires in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil have ignited a firestorm on social media, with President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday suggesting green groups started the blazes. Images of fires purportedly devouring sections of the world's largest rainforest have gone viral on Twitter.