Politics
G7 agrees
funding to
fight fires
in Amazon
By David Chazan in Paris
ENVIRONMENTAL groups yesterday
dismissed a G7 pledge of £16 million to
fight fires engulfing vast expanses of
the Amazon as “inadequate”.
Emmanuel Macron, the French pres-
ident, who hosted a three-day summit
of the world’s seven major industrial-
ised countries in the coastal resort of
Biarritz, said the world’s largest rain-
forest was the “lung” of the Earth.
“We must respond to the call of the
forest which is burning today in the
Amazon,” he said.
The emergency aid is to go mainly to-
wards fire-fighting planes, but Green-
peace France said: “The response is
inadequate given the urgency and mag-
nitude of this environmental disaster.”
The package was agreed a day after
Boris Johnson announced that Britain
alone would give £10 million towards
the longer-term restoration of the
world’s biggest rainforest – a much
larger contribution in relative terms.
An environmental group headed by
Leonardo DiCaprio, the Hollywood
star, has also pledged $5 million
(£4.1 million).
Clément Sénéchal of Greenpeace
France said: “No global vision on the
struggle against climate change came
out of this summit of the world’s most
powerful heads of state.”
It was unclear on Monday night if
Brazil would cooperate with the G7’s
move, even as hundreds of new fires
were reportedly breaking out. After it
was announced, Jair Bolsonaro, the
Brazilian president, accused rich coun-
tries of treating the region like a “col-
ony or no-man’s land”. In a social media
tirade, he said that respecting national
sovereignty “is the least one can expect
in a civilised world”.
Satellites have spotted more than
77,000 fires in the Amazon since Janu-
ary, an 85 per cent increase from last
year. Experts have blamed Mr Bolson-
aro for allowing farmers and ranchers
to clear forest for crops or grazing.
Donald Trump, the US president, left
his chair empty at the climate session
where the aid package was agreed, al-
though it was a priority issue for the
summit.
Mr Macron said he hoped to defuse
escalating tension with Iran over its
nuclear programme by brokering a
meeting between Mr Trump and his
Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani,
“in the coming weeks”.
Mr Trump caused consternation
among his European allies by pulling
out of a 2015 international agreement
placing limits on Tehran’s nuclear ac-
tivities in return for trade and invest-
ment. Mr Macron expressed optimism
that a new agreement could be reached,
and Mr Trump said he might be willing
to meet Mr Rouhani. “If the circum-
stances were correct, I would certainly
agree to that but in the meantime they
[the Iranians] have to be good players.”
Mr Trump said Mr Macron had in-
formed him in advance that he was go-
ing to hold talks with Mohammad
Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minis-
ter, who made a surprise visit to Biar-
ritz on Saturday. Mr Macron said the
talks had laid the groundwork for a
Trump-Rouhani meeting.
He and Mr Trump emphasised that
the G7 leaders shared the common goal
of preventing Iran from acquiring nu-
clear weapons. There is “great unity”,
Mr Trump said. “We’ve come to a con-
clusion, more or less.”
Mr Trump also appeared to soften
his tone on his trade war with China
during the summit, saying he was
ready to return to the negotiating table.
“I think they [the Chinese] want to
make a deal very badly.”AFP/GETTY IMAGESSummit leaders make the
catastrophe a priority, but
promise of aid fails to
impress environmentalists
PM ‘marginally more optimistic’ about reaching deal with the EU
Continued from Page 1
from Mrs May’s deal, but believes they
are unlikely to do so if Brussels believes
that MPs would otherwise simply de-
lay Brexit or block the UK’s departure
altogether. His administration’s focus
on leaving on Oct 31 has led some
anti-Brexit Tories to concede it may
now be impossible to block the move.
As the G7 summit in Biarritz, France,
closed, Mr Johnson said he was now
“marginally more optimistic” about the
prospects of reaching an agreement.
“I think that our German friends and
our French friends have certainly lis-
tened very carefully to what we have
had to say,” he said. “It all depends on
how seriously they wish to get a deal.”
Yesterday, senior EU figures insisted
that Brussels would not negotiate a fu-
ture trade deal with Britain if Mr John-
son carried out a threat to withhold the
full £39 billion divorce bill in the event
of no deal.
But behind the scenes Mr Frost and
his counterparts are taking part in de-
tailed exchanges about possible alter-
native arrangements to the backstop.
Mr Frost was last known to have vis-
ited Brussels for talks at the start of Au-
gust. Tomorrow, he is expected to meet
members of the Brexit negotiationsunit led by Michel Barnier. Mr Frost is
also expected to meet a senior official
in the team of Donald Tusk, the Euro-
pean Council president.
A senior British official said: “There
have been a lot of discussions going on
about [alternative arrangements to the
backstop] at sherpa level, led by David
Frost.” Yesterday, Eurasia Group, a firmof analysts with close links to Brussels,
said Mr Johnson’s trips to Paris and
Berlin last week had convinced offi-
cials that he is “serious about a deal”.
Angela Merkel, the German chancel-
lor, and Emmanuel Macron, the French
president, expressed a willingness to
discuss alternative arrangements to
the backstop.
Last night it was revealed that a six-
page document had been prepared for
Mr Corbyn, offering legal advice on the
possibility of proroguing Parliament to
force through a no-deal Brexit.
In the document, seen by The Guard-
ian, Shami Chakrabarti, the shadow at-torney general, laid out how any such
move by the Prime Minister would be
open to immediate legal challenge.
It said that Mr Johnson would be
committing the “gravest abuse of
power and attack on UK constitutional
principle in living memory” if he shut
down Parliament to help force through
a no-deal Brexit and that such action
could be subject to a judicial review.
The initial legal guidance for No 10
was that shutting Parliament may be
possible, unless action being taken in
the courts by anti-Brexit campaigners
succeeded in the meantime.
Today, Mr Corbyn is due to meet op-position leaders to discuss possible de-
vices to block a no-deal exit. Philip
Hammond, the former chancellor, is
leading a group of former ministers.
Last night the Labour leader said he
was ready to consider all options to
“stop the no-deal Brexit disaster in its
tracks”. In an interview with The Inde-
pendent, Mr Corbyn said he would do
“everything necessary” to stop no deal,
adding: “I’ll discuss all these options
with the leaders of other opposition
parties. I hope we can come to a good
working arrangement and bring on
board others across parliament who
see the danger of a no-deal crashout.”A war of words
between the
French and
Brazilian
presidents
descended into
acrimony as
Emmanuel
Macron
responded
angrily
yesterday to Jair
Bolsonaro’s
“extraordinarily
rude comments”
about his wife
Brigitte, 66.
Mr Bolsanaro
appeared to
endorse a
Facebook
comment
mocking Mr
Macron, 41, for
being married
to a woman
nearly 25 years
his senior. The
post suggestedthat Mr Macron
had attacked Mr
Bolsonaro over
the Amazon
rainforest fires
because the
Brazilian
president, 64,
was married to a
much younger
woman, 37-year-
old Michelle.
“[Mr
Bolsonaro] has
made some
extraordinarily
rude comments
about my wife,”
Mr Macron said.
“What can I say?
It’s sad for him,
firstly, and for
Brazilians... I
think Brazilian
women will
probably be
ashamed to read
that from their
president.”Fire fight ‘Rude’ Bolsonaro
insulted my wife – Macron‘I think that our German
and French friends have
listened very carefully to
what we have had to say’4 **^ Tuesday 27 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph
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