Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen at an Inter-American Development Bank Meeting of Amazon Basin Finance, Economy, and Environment Ministers

As Prepared for Delivery Ilan, thank you to you and your colleagues for organizing this convening and to ministers from the Amazon Basin for the warm welcome. I would like to especially thank Brazil’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva for hosting us today and for her leadership. I am very glad that the climate COP in Belém next year is in her capable hands. And I am glad to also be joined today by Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Social Development Susana Muhamad, who will host the biodiversity COP later this year in Cali. It was in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit here in Brazil that the conventions on climate change and on biodiversity were adopted. We have made significant progress since then, including channeling billions of dollars into protecting the biodiversity of the Amazon.