Brazil’s Updated Climate Plan Lacks Credibility as Forests Shrink

BRASILIA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Continued large-scale deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon region suggests that a new government goal to become “carbon neutral” by 2060 lacks credibility, Brazilian scientists said Thursday.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, countries must submit updated plans to reduce global warming emissions and better adapt to climate impacts by the end of this year.

But Brazil’s revised plan, announced this week, lacks updated targets to cut emissions by 2030, suggesting it will not put the country on a realistic path to carbon neutrality by 2060, the scientists said.

“This shows that Brazil is not interested in contributing to solving the problem of the climate crisis,” said Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The observatory, a network of nearly 60 civil society groups, has developed its own proposal for an updated plan for Brazil compatible with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

It calls for a net emission reduction of 81% by 2030, compared to 2005 levels.

In comparison, the plan announced by the Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, foresees a 43% reduction by 2030, the same level that the country promised in 2015, when the Paris pact was launched.

Achieving the carbon neutrality goal by 2060, Salles added, depended on Brazil receiving $ 10 billion a year in international grants to support sustainable development, starting next year.

Globally, the richest countries have pledged, under the Paris Agreement, to raise $ 100 billion a year in funds to help the poorest countries develop cleanly and cope with climate impacts.

Until 2019, Brazil received tens of millions of dollars a year from the donor-backed Amazon Fund to help protect and sustainably use its forests, but that money was put on hold as deforestation skyrocketed under the Bolsonaro administration.

Ministry officials, who were asked to comment on the scientists’ criticism of their strategy, did not respond.

Brazil’s new plan comes as a growing number of major emitting countries around the world, including Japan and South Korea, have announced the goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

Gilberto Camara, a former director of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and part of the team that developed the country’s climate plan for 2015, said the updated strategy did not match what was happening on the ground.

“What Brazil has presented now is without foundation. No serious study has been done. This is a shame for Brazil, ”Camara said by phone from Switzerland, where he now works as director of the secretariat of the Group on Earth Observations.

“This government has no credibility in the international community,” he added.

Brazil, the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has good long-term plans on the books to cut emissions from agriculture and curb deforestation, but the government of President Jair Bolsonaro is not implementing them, Camara said.

FALLING FORESTS

In the Brazilian Amazon, deforestation, a major contributor to climate change, reached an 11-year high in 2019 and soared 25% more in the first half of 2020, according to INPE.

The expansion of ranching, soybean cultivation, illegal gold mining and logging were key factors, the scientists said.

Environmentalists blame Bolsonaro’s right-wing government for emboldening illegal loggers, miners and land speculators to cut down the forest, in line with its vision of economic development for the Amazon region.

Astrini said the deeper emissions cuts proposed by the Climate Observatory for 2030 were “totally feasible” for the country.

“Our proposal is based on policies and technologies that exist in Brazil,” although they would need more investment, he added.

But stopping increasing forest losses was an obvious way to maintain the emissions cap and protect global climate stability, he said.

“In the case of deforestation, it is our duty to end this problem,” he said.

The Climate Observatory has said that Brazil needs to eliminate deforestation in all its ecosystems by 2030 and restore 14 million hectares of reserves and conservation areas between 2021 and 2030.

Such measures are necessary to align Brazil’s climate plans with the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, according to the observatory.

Global emissions continue to rise, despite efforts to limit them, and scientists say temperatures have already risen by about 1.2 ° C, leading to a worsening of extreme heat, storms, droughts, poor harvests and increased from sea level.

Emissions that cause climate change have increased by an average of 1.4% a year since 2010, but last year growth increased to 2.6%, partly as a result of a large increase in wildfires worldwide, a report this week from the United Nations. Annotated environmental program.

Governments will join a UN-backed event on December 12 to mark five years since the Paris agreement was agreed, and around 70 leaders are expected to show new commitments to tackle climate change.