Brazilian officials have rebuked the push to increase defence spending, as it tries to bring countries together for negotiations on tackling climate change later in the year.
Last year’s COP climate conference ended in disappointment after failing to cough up anything like enough money to help countries cope with already rising sea levels, heavier floods and harsher droughts, which are forcing people to migrate.
But this week NATO member states broadly agreed to a US demand to boost defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product.
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Leaders are anxious about military threats from Russia and terrorism, while the number of global conflicts and people killed in them have been rising since the 2000s.
Brazil’s climate minister Marina Silva, in London to drum up support before Brazil hosts COP30 in November, admitted countries are somewhat “preoccupied”.
“We have been discussing for so many years, the $100bn, the $300bn, and then now the $1.3 trillion targets that we need [for climate funding],” she told a news conference on Thursday.
And then “very swiftly, there is an announcement of the increase of 5% in the expenditure in defence” when that money “ought to be going in the other direction”, she said via a translator.
The money should be used not to fight wars but for “fighting hunger [and] the climate emergency“, she added.
The UK in February raided its foreign aid budget to boost defence spending, prompting warnings it will struggle to keep its £11.6bn climate aid promise.
Brazilian President…
