Macron Riles Bolsonaro, Setting Up G-7 Fight Over Amazon Fires

USA World

(Bloomberg) — Emmanuel Macron said Group of Seven leaders gathering in Biarritz, France, Saturday must tackle head on the fires in the Amazon jungle, establishing the summit’s first flash point.

“Our house is burning. Literally,” the French president wrote in a tweet late Thursday. “It is an international crisis.”

But by placing the environmental emergency at the top of the G-7 agenda, he risks walking into a geopolitical fight he cannot win if he tries to prise a response to the crisis from Donald Trump, who has already pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.

Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro, who has echoed Trump’s skepticism on environmental issues, has already reacted angrily. He said that discussing the fires without his country’s involvement showed a “colonial mentality that isn’t appropriate for the 21st century.”

“I regret that President Macron is seeking to use the internal matters of Brazil and other Amazon countries for political gain,” Bolsonaro said in a tweet.

The Brazilian rain forest is suffering a record number of fires this year and the government in Brasilia has become increasingly sensitive to international concern about the issue.

While Macron is trying to rally a global response to the climate emergency, Trump has been working to roll-back restrictions on CO2 emissions in the U.S. This week he attacked automakers for their opposition to a plan to ease fuel efficiency requirements.

The French leader is sure to find an ally in Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Germany’s Angela Merkel but the configuration of the G-7 right now will make it difficult to make headway. Trump famously ripped up last year’s communique and does not want to be cornered.

In the U.K., there is Boris Johnson in power, eager to tighten his bond with Trump and at odds with European allies over Brexit. Italy is mired in a messy political crisis at home and has no prime minister. While Japan is unlikely to stick its neck out — it is more concerned about the potential fall out from the U.S. trade war with China.

All this points to Macron winding up isolated on the issue if he tries to achieve anything meaningful on the fires when talks begin Saturday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sills in Madrid at bsills@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Flavia Krause-Jackson

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