MEXICO CITY — President Claudia Sheinbaum has proposed dedicating 1% of the military annual budgets of the world’s biggest economies to support reforestation of around 15 million hectares (37 million acres) across the globe. “It’s absurd and senseless that more is spent on weapons than on addressing poverty or climate change,” Sheinbaum said during this month’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. “We would reduce migration and hunger if we could only elevate the word of love over hate, the generosity of the humble and dispossessed person above greed.” If successful, the program would help reforest an area equivalent to the surface area of Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador combined, or four times the size of Denmark, Sheinbaum said. Sheinbaum is a former environmental scientist who co-authored the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. She took office in October. Claudia Sheinbaum speaks at the G20 summit in Brazil. Photo courtesy of Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores. “We applaud any initiative that implies the increase in the flow of resources to nature and biodiversity,” said Rosario Álvarez Gutiérrez, general director of Pronatura – Noreste, a Mexican environmental group. She noted that Mexico spends disproportionately little of its GDP on the environment compared to other countries. Sheinbaum’s reforestation proposal comes as Mexican lawmakers prepare to slash environmental funding in the country. The current draft of the 2025 budget shows that funding for the environment and natural resources sector will be reduced by around 40%, from $3.3 million to $2.1…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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