The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States of America and Brazil on the occasion of the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
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Minister Fernando Haddad of Brazil and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry of the United States met in Dubai and recognized the urgency of the climate crisis and reaffirmed the commitment of the two countries to work together to combat climate change.
Building on these shared priorities and values, Minister Haddad and Special Presidential Envoy Kerry announced the intention to cooperate bilaterally, and with other partners, to advance implementation of the Ecological Transformation Plan, including through efforts to:
- Improve and expand the use of diverse instruments to enhance the flows of financing and support by government, philanthropic, private sector, and multilateral partners for the implementation of the Ecological Transformation Plan and other climate priorities; and
- Assemble a coalition of interested actors in the technology sector to explore how technology, including artificial intelligence, can accelerate the implementation of regulatory frameworks related to the Ecological Transformation Plan, and enhance relevant forest monitoring systems.
To initiate these efforts, the Government of Brazil plans to convene task forces of government, philanthropic, private sector, and multilateral partners, including the United States, to explore how their diverse instruments and tools can support the implementation of the Ecological Transformation Plan and other climate priorities. These task forces anticipate meeting for the first time in February 2024, in advance of the G20 Finance Ministerial.
Beyond this, Minister Haddad and Special Presidential Envoy Kerry recognized that the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation's (DFC) climate investment priorities in Brazil share overlapping goals of the Ecological Transformation Plan and other Brazilian strategies leading towards net zero.
They welcomed the announcement by President Biden in April 2023 that he would request from Congress US$500 million over five years for the Amazon Fund and related activities, recognized the initial transfer of funding, and noted the ongoing efforts to work with Congress on further appropriations.
They recognized the importance of recent structural reforms in Brazil in improving the investment environment, a key factor for the success of the Ecological Transformation Plan. To further accelerate investment, Brazil announced that it intends to join the United States in the First Movers Coalition, becoming the first Latin American country to pledge help create early markets in clean technologies through policy measures and private sector engagement, with an aim to decarbonizing the hard-to-abate heavy industry and long-distance transportation.
Minister Haddad and Special Presidential Envoy Kerry further decided to explore opportunities to coordinate assistance to third parties to help increase climate ambition, accelerate implementation of ambitious climate targets, and enhance monitoring, reporting, and verification capacity.
These areas of cooperation reinforce the work of the bilateral Climate Change Working Group, relaunched by Presidents Biden and Lula in February 2023, as well as the U.S.-Brazil Energy Forum and bilateral Consultative Committee on Agriculture. They build on the September 2023 Green Tech Mission convened by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and supported by seven U.S. government agencies. They also promote the goal of advancing worker-centered approaches to the clean energy transition that Presidents Biden and Lula committed to advancing in launching included in the Partnership on Workers Rights announced in September 2023.
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