RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 7, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Brazil’s carbon emissions surged
last year because of rising deforestation in the Amazon, jeopardizing the
country’s commitments under the Paris climate accord, an environmental group
warned Friday.
The South American country spewed a total of 2.17 billion tonnes of CO2
into the atmosphere in 2019, an increase of 9.6 percent from 2018, said the
Brazilian Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental organizations.
That coincided with the first year in office for President Jair Bolsonaro,
a far-right climate-change skeptic who has presided over a sharp increase in
deforestation and wild fires in the Amazon.
The world’s biggest rainforest is a vital resource in the fight against
climate change, as its trees suck carbon from the air. But when they are
felled and burned, they release it back.
“The growth in (Brazil’s) emissions last year was driven by deforestation
in the Amazon, which surged,” the Climate Observatory said in a report.
It said 72 percent of the country’s emissions were caused by agriculture
and land use, including deforestation, which rose 85 percent last year.
Under the 2015 Paris accord, Brazil agreed to cut its emissions by 37
percent from 2005 levels by 2025.
But last year’s emissions came in 17 percent over target, the Climate
Observatory said.
It said the country was also on track to miss a 2010 commitment to cut
emissions by at least 36.8 percent by the end of 2020.
The actual figure will come in nine percent higher, it said.
“Our 2020 goal was easy to reach. We were only going to miss it if there
was a tragedy. And that’s exactly what’s happening,” said Climate Observatory
executive secretary Marcio Astrini.
The report came as Vice President Hamilton Mourao, the head of Bolsonaro’s
task force on the Amazon, led foreign ambassadors on a three-day visit to the
region in a bid to improve the government’s international image on the
environment.
“We want them to see it with their own eyes… and draw their own
conclusions,” said Mourao.
But environmental groups condemned the trip as a whitewash.
“They are flying on a route that’s strategically planned to hide the
evidence of the destruction of the forest, even as deforestation and wild
fires are at a 10-year high,” Greenpeace said in a statement.