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CLIMATE CHANGE: Deforestation Inflates Inventory of Gases in Brazil

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 9 2004 (IPS) - Brazil is responsible for three percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases, and tropical deforestation is to blame for three-fourths of the country’s emissions.

That is the conclusion reached by Brazil’s greenhouse gas emission inventory, released to the public this week by the Brazilian government ahead of its presentation Friday at the United Nations climate change conference (COP-10) running Dec. 6-17 in Buenos Aires.

Emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, grew five percent – from 979 million to 1.03 billion tons – between 1990 and 1994.

In Brazil, the combustion of fossil fuels is the second-biggest source of greenhouse gases, which cause global warming.by trapping heat in the earth’s atmosphere. But it accounts for just 23 percent of the total in this country, a much lower proportion than in other countries, especially the industrialised nations.

Brazil has the advantage that the sources of much of its energy are renewable and clean, like hydropower and biomass, said Minister of Energy and Mines Dilma Rousseff, at the release of the inventory report.

Deforestation in the Amazon jungle region, which has accelerated since the 1980s, is thus Brazil’s Achilles’ heel.

The clearing and burning of rainforests releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Other countries that emit large amounts of carbon from tropical deforestation are Indonesia, Burma (Myanmar), Mexico and Thailand.

Tropical deforestation also contributes to global warming by destroying one of the only ways the earth is able to absorb excess carbon and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which forests do through photosynthesis. For that reason, tropical rainforests are known as “carbon sinks”.

Curbing deforestation is one of the commitments of the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which has implemented plans to combat illegal logging and develop the Amazon jungle region in a sustainable manner, said Environment Minister Marina Silva, a prominent environmental and social activist from Acre, an Amazon jungle state.

According to Silva, the preliminary data indicates that the destruction of Amazon forests will level off this year, after increasing two percent in 2003 and 28 percent in 2002. Last year, 23,750 square kilometres of forests were cut down.

Environmental organisations, however, question that assessment, and say there has actually been a sharp rise in deforestation, with 30,000 square kilometres (an area the size of Belgium) of forests destroyed this year.

The Environment Ministry’s final figures will be announced in March.

Brazil will present its inventory at the Buenos Aires conference in compliance with the obligation shared by all party states to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to present reports known as “national communications” on the steps they are taking or plan to undertake to implement the Convention.

Although developing nations are not subject to greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, they did assume commitments in articles 4.1 and 10 of the climate change convention, Rubens Born, executive director of the Brazilian non-governmental organisation Vitae Civilis, told IPS.

Incorporating greenhouse gas prevention measures in government policies for sectors like energy, transportation and agriculture, preserving forests, and “at least slowing down the pace at which emissions are increasing” are tasks that must be taken up, especially in Brazil, because environmentalists expect the Lula administration to adopt a leadership role in this area, said the activist.

Born formed part of a commission set up by the Brazilian Forum of NGOs and Social Movements for the Environment and Development, which sent a letter to President Lula a week ago demanding the public release of the inventory, the adoption of a national policy, and eight other government measures aimed at combating climate change.

According to the Forum of NGOs, as the world’s sixth-largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, Brazil shares a large part of the responsibility to tackle the problem.

Besides carbon dioxide, this country of nearly 180 million people releases 13 million tons of methane and half a million tons of nitrous oxide. Stockbreeding and agriculture are responsible for 77 percent of the methane, which is also released into the atmosphere by garbage dumps.

Some 700 experts from 150 government and non-governmental institutions, universities and business associations took part in drafting the inventory or national communication, said Minister of Science and Technology Eduardo Campos.

As well as trying to prepare itself to deal with and mitigate the effects of climate change, Brazil is attempting to develop new technologies that would reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, said Campos, whose ministry coordinates the climate change debate and policies in Brazil.

Campos and the minister of energy and mines, Rousseff, underlined that Brazil has already replaced a large part of fossil fuels, the world’s biggest culprit in global warming, with ethanol or fuel alcohol.

And starting next year, a blend containing two percent biodiesel, in diesel fuel or gasoil, will go on the market with the same aim.

Brazil’s programme to replace gasoline with fuel alcohol, which got underway in 1975, really began to take off last year thanks to increased sales of dual-fuel cars that run on gasoline, ethanol or a mix of the two.

Last year, 48,178 bi-fuel vehicles were sold in Brazil, and more than five times that total have been sold so far this year, said Rousseff.