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MANAUS, Brazil — President Joe Biden stopped Sunday in this city in the heart of the rainforest, marking the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited the Amazon, as he sought to emphasize the importance of taking on climate change two months before a successor who is far less sympathetic to that effort takes office.

Biden took a dramatic aerial survey of this portion of the world’s largest tropical rainforest in his Marine One helicopter, as well as a tour of <a href="https://museudaamazonia.org.br/en/the-idea/" target=_blank>Museu da Amazônia</a>, a “living museum” showcasing the forest’s diverse ecosystem. He traveled to this remote spot during a break between the conclusion of one international summit in Lima, Peru, and the beginning of another in Rio de Janeiro.

“I’m proud to become the first sitting president to visit the Amazon,” he said as he signed a U.S. proclamation designating Nov. 17 as International Conservation Day. Climate change, he added, “may be the only existential threat to all our nations, to all humanity.”

He flew in Marine One over the lush rainforest, with sprawling views of the Amazon River below, joined by Carlos Nobre, a Brazilian Nobel laureate and an expert on the impact of climate change on the Amazon. The group surveyed evidence of shore erosion and fire damage.

“The most powerful solutions to fight climate change are all around us — the world’s forests,” Biden said.

The trip was in part another effort to highlight an element of Biden’s agenda that is under threat from President-elect <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a>. Trump has called climate change a hoax and sent abundant signals that he would reorient federal policy away from addressing it. He is expected to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, a global agreement that commits countries to reducing carbon emissions, as he did during his first term in the White House.

Trump on Saturday also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/16/energy-secretary-trump-chris-wright/" target=_blank>announced that he had selected</a> Chris Wright, the head of fracking company Liberty Energy and a skeptic of mainstream climate science, to be his energy secretary. Wright, who contends that the climate crisis is a myth, runs a foundation that promotes expanded fossil fuel production.

Biden, in contrast, listed climate change as one of four looming crises upon taking office. In 2022, he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/16/biden-inflation-reduction-act-signing/" target=_blank>signed the Inflation Reduction Act</a>, which he repeatedly calls the largest-ever investment to fight climate change, allocating roughly $370 billion to curbing harmful emissions and promoting green technology.

“The fight against climate change has been a defining cause of my presidency,” Biden said in Brazil. “We don’t have to choose between the environment and the economy. We can do both.”

He added: “It’s no secret that I’m leaving office in January. I will leave my successor and my country a strong foundation to build on, if they choose to do so.” While some might deny or delay the climate revolution, he said, “nobody, nobody, can reverse it.”

Leah Millis

The setting for Biden’s visit was Manaus, a city that has more than 2 million residents but is situated along the Amazon River and is cut off from Brazil’s main highway system.

Officials said Biden was especially struck by what he saw on the aerial tour. “When you go up and tour as we did with the president, you see the fingerprints of climate change all over this magnificent landscape, whether it’s the drought or the scaring from the wildfires,” said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to brief reporters on the president’s experience. “But what you also see — and we saw this on the ground — is the incredible playbook we have to try to seize the opportunity that nature provides us to combat climate change.”

During the helicopter flight, Biden asked about the impact of forest fires, the official said, and was told that “96 percent of the fires in the Amazon are caused by people. They set fires. Whereas 96 percent of the fires in the American West are done by lightning strikes, by extreme weather, downing power lines, etcetera. So these are intentional acts, and they’re criminal activity.”

After the aerial tour, Biden visited the Museu da Amazônia and spoke with local Indigenous leaders and environmentalists. The museum sits on a small portion of the Adolpho Ducke Forest Reserve, a research site in an area that many consider to be the starting point of the Amazon River and the gateway to the Amazon.

Biden also announced $50 million in additional contributions to the Amazon Fund, which helps protect the rainforest. That puts the total commitment at $100 million of the $500 million he wanted to provide to the fund over the coming years.

Asked whether Trump can be expected to continue the commitment, a senior administration official responded, “Who knows? Maybe he’ll come down here and see the forest and see the damage being done from drought and other things and change his mind about climate change.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly.

During the tour of the museum, Biden first paused as a small group stood in front of him, performing a welcome ceremony in which they rattled maracas. Along with his daughter Ashley Biden and granddaughter Natalie Biden, the president spoke to the welcoming party for several minutes, later stopping near a pond with large lily pads to speak with several other guides.

While Biden is the first sitting president to visit the Amazon, Theodore Roosevelt mounted an expedition to the region following his disappointing loss in the 1912 election, when he was seeking a third term as president.

Roosevelt, then in his 50s, called it his “last chance to be a boy.” The journey was treacherous, featuring encounters with alligators and piranhas and bouts of malaria and hunger.

Biden’s trip was less so. He was surrounded by security and had the use of military helicopters to give him an aerial tour. He was on the ground for only a few hours, traveling in a hulking limousine, as Brazilians lined the streets and stood in the median strip of a highway, waving and recording on cellphones as the motorcade passed.

Not for the first time, the president appeared almost wistful as he spoke of future battles that he will not take part in as a government official, saying, “The fight to protect our planet is literally a fight for humanity and generations to come.”

White House Correspondents' Association's Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage, 2023

Gerald R. Ford Journalism Award for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, 2021

White House Correspondents' Association's Merriman Smith Award, recognizing presidential news coverage under deadline pressure, 2016

Finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists for national reporting, 2014

Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, 2013, "Broken City" series

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Matt Viser is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined The Post in October 2018, covering the midterms and the 2020 presidential election before moving over to the White House to cover President Biden's administration. He was previously deputy chief of the Washington bureau for the Boston Globe.

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