Deforestation for pastoral land in Acre state, Brazil
Illegal deforestation drove the biggest increase in
Brazilian greenhouse gas emissions for 13 years in 2016, despite a severe
recession leading to lower emissions from nearly every sector save agriculture.
“We share today the worst climate headline on the planet:
increased emissions due to unbridled forest destruction,” said Carlos Rittl,
head of Brazil’s Climate Observatory, which produced
the analysis.
Researchers placed the blame squarely on deforestation for
agriculture, which they said was “mostly illegal”. Deforestation accounted for
more than half of Brazil’s total emissions.
Overall, if Brazilian agribusiness were a country, it would
have been the eighth largest polluter on the planet in 2016 – producing more
carbon than the entire economy of Japan
“The lack of control of deforestation has led us to emit 218
million more tonnes of CO 2 in 2016 than in 2015, more than twice
what Belgium issues per year,” said Ane Alencar, a researcher at Ipam. “This is dramatic, because the
deforestation is mostly illegal and so not reflected in the country’s GDP.”
The figures are the latest estimates from the Greenhouse Gas
Emissions Forecasting System, operated by the Climate Observatory, a coalition
of Brazilian NGOs. They show a nine percent increase in emissions from 2015 to
2016, making Brazil the seventh largest polluter on the planet.
The increase in emissions is even more striking as it comes
in the midst of an economic downturn. As a result, emissions decreased from
nearly every other sector apart from agriculture, which accounted for 76
percent of Brazil’s total emissions.
Protesters demand action on carbon emissions
Since coming to power in mid-2016, the government of
Brazilian President Michel Temer has slashed
funding for the environment ministry, including the environmental enforcement
agency IBAMA. It has downgraded protections on
hundreds of thousands of hectares of protected Amazon rainforest, opening them
to cattle ranchers.
Temer himself has been charged with
accepting bribes from the world’s biggest meatpacker, JBS. He has avoided
trial thanks to the backing of the lower house of Congress. Pivotal support
has come from a block of 200 legislators known as the ‘bancada ruralista’,
which represents the interests of Brazilian agribusiness.
The rise in emissions in Brazil come as the UN’s
latest monitoring report warns that global carbon dioxide levels hit a
record high in 2016.
