2023-11-23 21:11:27
Greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil increased sharply during the mandate of far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, erasing progress made to return to the level of around 15 years earlier, according to a report by NGO published Thursday.
During the four years of Bolsonaro’s presidency (2019-2022), the largest country in Latin America emitted 9.4 billion tons of greenhouse gases, exceeding the threshold of nine billion for the first time since the period. 2003-2006.
These data were compiled in an annual report from the Climate Observatory, a Brazilian collective of NGOs.
In 2022, Brazilian emissions fell by 8%, to 2.3 billion tonnes, but this volume is the third highest since 2005, following that of 2019 and 2021, other years of Jair Bolsonaro’s mandate.
The report attributed last year’s decline in part to heavy rains that allowed the country to make full use of its vast hydroelectric network for power generation, without overusing thermal power plants.
While Brazil, like the rest of the world, has been hit recently by a series of environmental disasters, the Climate Observatory says these figures show how urgent it is to reduce emissions to limit warming to 1.5 °C since the start of the industrial era, the objective set by the Paris climate agreement in 2015.
“The catastrophic extreme (events) of 2023 have shown the world what life looks like above 1.5 degrees (of global temperature increase),” warns Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of this collective.
According to the report, Brazil is sixth among the countries that emit the most greenhouse gases following China, the United States, India, Russia and Indonesia.
If the European Union counted as a country, it would be sixth and Brazil seventh.
Nearly half of Brazilian emissions in 2022 (48%) are due to deforestation, particularly in the Amazon, the report details. Agriculture comes second (27%).
Deforestation in the Amazon has increased sharply under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, who throughout his mandate encouraged the expansion of mining and agricultural activities in the region.
His left-wing successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who returned to power in January, promised to eradicate illegal deforestation by 2030.
According to the authors of the report, published in the run-up to the UN COP28 Climate Conference, Brazil will have to be “more ambitious” in its objectives, because it can emit much less greenhouse gases than the 1.2 billion tonnes per year by 2030 promised during the Paris agreement.
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