COP26: Unlike the world, Brazil has seen an increase in carbon dioxide emissions in a year of the epidemic

At COP26, the Brazilian delegation should announce an official goal of reducing emissions by 37% by 2025, by 43% by 2030, and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 – when all emissions are minimized and the rest is offset by carbon capture. . From the air.

During the meeting, leaders from more than 100 countries will negotiate new commitments to ensure the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming at 1.5°C. However, it remains unclear how Brazil’s climate goals will be met in the face of two consecutive years of increases in deforestation, fires and carbon dioxide emissions.

In a year when millions of people were forced to work from home, services were grounded and international flights were grounded, a drop in global emissions was expected. This is what happened in most countries, but not in Brazil.

According to SEEG data, pollution from the energy sector decreased by 4.5% in the country during the pandemic, but increases in deforestation and emissions from agriculture were large enough to offset this decrease in energy pollution.

“The energy sector was the sector that witnessed the largest drop in emissions in 2020. This result is a clear reflection of the decrease in emissions activities due to the Covid-19 epidemic, when it was necessary for people to avoid commuting,” he explained. Felipe Barcellos, a researcher at the Energy and Environment Institute, is one of the survey authors.

“We highlight the reduction in emissions from passenger transport. Aviation fuel consumption has been cut in half. The demand for gasoline and ethanol has also fallen dramatically.”

But the “land use change” category, which includes deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado, saw a 24% increase in emissions compared to 2019, with 998 million tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. This is a reflection, according to the Climate Observatory, of the strong growth in deforestation since the beginning of the Bolsonaro government.

In 2020, deforestation in the Amazon was the largest in 11 years, reaching 10,851 square kilometres, according to official data from the Prodes/Inpe system. Forest loss and land use change account for the largest share of Brazil’s total emissions – 46%, according to SEEG data.

The Amazon, according to a Climate Observatory report, is the biome that historically released the most greenhouse gases, “caused mainly by the progression of livestock over forests.” According to the survey, in 2020, total emissions in the world’s largest tropical forest were seven times greater than in the Cerrado, the second biome to emit carbon dioxide from deforestation and livestock.

“The main factor explaining the increase (in Brazilian emissions) is deforestation, particularly in the Amazon and Cerrado. Greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere through land use changes increased by 23.6%, which more than offset the significant decline seen in the sector energy, which in the wake of the pandemic and economic recession has brought its emissions back to the 2011 level,” says an excerpt from the emissions report.

The Climate Observatory Survey has been around since 2012 and is the main national reference for greenhouse gas emissions. It follows the guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of the United Nations, and is based on official data from the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication.

Emissions from agriculture rose 2.5% – the largest increase since 2010. According to the Climate Observatory, this is in part because the economic crisis has reduced meat consumption in Brazil by 8%.

As a result, there has been a decrease in animal slaughter and an increase in livestock heads by 2.6 million, which in turn increases methane emissions from so-called enteric fermentation – better known as “bull burps.” The study authors acknowledge that there has been significant progress in Brazil in implementing low-carbon farming techniques, but they argue that more remains to be done.

“This growth (in the use of sustainable technologies) is still below the levels needed for us to see the emissions trajectory of the sector change and to demonstrate the true potential of Brazil in being a low-carbon agriculture and livestock sector,” he said. Renata Potenza, project coordinator at Imaflora, and one of the research authors.

Agriculture is responsible for 27% of all Brazilian emissions. Pollution from deforestation and pollution from agriculture and livestock farming account for 73% of emissions in Brazil.

“For Brazil, the best cost-effective way to reduce emissions is to reduce deforestation. It is the cheapest policy, the most intensive in reducing emissions and does not lead to economic losses. From 2004 to 2012, Brazil reduced deforestation by more than 80% Without this affecting its economic growth, Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, told BBC News Brasil.

During COP26, poor and developing countries should demand more compensation from rich countries and highlight that they have failed to meet their commitment to contribute $100 billion annually to climate change mitigation actions.

In contrast, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union are trying to get from large emerging countries, such as Brazil, Russia, China and India, more ambitious commitments to control deforestation and reduce emissions.

Brazil is expected to be one of the most stressed countries, due to the growth of deforestation and burning in the Amazon in the first three years of Bolsonaro’s government.

In this struggle between rich and developing nations, each nation’s responsibility for global warming will be measured, among other ways, by its current and historical volume of emissions. Brazilian government officials frequently use the argument that Brazil is not a major polluter, to say that demands for ambitious climate control goals should be directed at rich nations.

Various surveys that do not take deforestation into account for emissions place Brazil in seventh or sixth place in the ranking of emissions, as being responsible for about 3% of the total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“Brazil’s Nationally Determined Contributions (the document in which countries present climate targets) are more ambitious than those of many G-20 countries. Brazil accounts for less than 3% of global emissions, and our commitment includes a target not only for 2030, but also a short-term target for 2015, which allows better monitoring of mitigation measures”, says the text to be presented by the Brazilian delegation at COP26, which can be accessed by BBC News Brasil.

But a study that takes deforestation into account for the first time when calculating the historical release of carbon dioxide, puts Brazil in fourth place in the ranking of emissions since 1850. China, an emerging giant that only intends to start reducing its emissions after 2030, is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases Thermal history, after the United States.

The survey was conducted by think tank The International Carbon Brief takes into account data on emissions from burning fossil fuels, changes in land use, cement production and deforestation from 1850 to 2021. Previous research was taken into account when calculating emissions from fuel burning, without including pollution from destruction from Forests.

“Brazil has an important role in the climate debate not only because of the Amazon rainforest, but because it is one of the world’s largest emitters. Currently, it ranks sixth in emissions and is the fourth largest in history, although it is still one of the largest emitters in the world,” said Carlos Rittel, a public policy specialist at The Rain Forest Foundation, an environmental NGO from Norway, told BBC News Brasil that a developing country faces challenges in reducing poverty.

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