In the 1990s, the bulk of Brazil's energy consumption was supplied by hydropower, so the emissions from the sector were modest. About 38 per cent of the country's energy supply is generated from renewable sources, most importantly from large hydropower stations, which are responsible for 13 per cent, followed by sugarcane and wood (12 per cent each) (see Figure 2). It also is in charge of coordinating the Executive Group for Climate Change (GEx, Portuguese acronym) responsible for the elaboration and implementation of the National Climate Change Program.
The Amazon is also home to the world’s largest freshwater turtle, the yellow-headed sideneck (Podocnemis), which weighs an average of 150 pounds (70 kg) and is extinct everywhere else except on the island of Madagascar. p. 76-79.
Deforestation in the Amazon comes hand in hand with considerable biodiversity loss, and the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. So the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) developed a way to estimate their effects as carbon dioxide equivalents. Colour-coded Landsat satellite images of Brazil's Carajás mining area, documenting extensive deforestation between 1986 (left) and 1992 (right). The plant life varies considerably from coarse bunchgrasses to thorny, gnarled woods known as caatinga, the name derived from an Indian term meaning “white forest”; most caatinga are stunted, widely spaced, and intermingled with cacti.
They provide a brief summary of information pertinent to both climate change and agriculture in 19 countries in LAC, with focus on policy developments (action plans and programs), institutional make-up, specific adaptation and mitigation strategies, as well as social aspects and insurance mechanisms to address risk in the sector. Artificial pastures and grain fields have largely replaced the native grasslands of Rio Grande do Sul. A typical acre (0.4 hectare) of Amazonian forest may contain 250 or more tree species (in contrast, an acre of woods in the northeastern United States might have only a dozen species).
Emissions from agriculture, land use and forestry, however, were together responsible for 81 per cent (see Table 1). The first will install 3,300 megawatts of electricity-generating capacity based on biomass, small hydro power plants and wind power. Burning is widely used in the Amazon region to prepare new agricultural land. André Santos Pereira is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of High Studies in Social Sciences – (EHESS - Paris) and a contributing researcher at CIRED (France) and at CentroClima/COPPE/UFRJ (Brazil). The country profile above was found in the Meister Consultants Group study: Floating Houses and Mosquito Nets: Emerging Climate Change Adaptation Strategies Around the World. Amazonian soils are also leached but not as deeply. Regular frosts accompany winter air patterns from the south, and near-freezing temperatures can reach as far north as São Paulo.
The summit's final documents call on countries to "work with urgency to substantially increase" the global share of renewable energy. But possible effects on crops that are particularly important to the country's economy, such as corn, soybean, wheat, coffee and oranges, are a great concern. Climate change will affect Brazil in multiple ways. The consequences of global warming can already be observed today. Brazil has a humid tropical and subtropical climate except for a drier area in the Northeast, sometimes called the drought quadrilateral or drought polygon, that extends from northern Bahia to the coast between Natal and São Luís; that zone receives about 15–30 inches (375–750 mm) of precipitation a year. This responsibility, it argues, is more closely related to contribution to global temperature increase. The primary source of greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil is deforestation as agricultural frontiers expand, mainly in the Amazon region. Finally, rising temperatures are expected to help organisms that act as vectors for diseases, such as mosquitoes, which transmit dengue fever and malaria, and assassin bugs (Tripanosomiasis americana), which transmit Chagas disease. It also gives a description of the programs and policies currently active in the country containing a climate change component. Brazil is an important developing-country player in international climate change negotiations, and, with China and India, one of the three largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world.
Storms and floods may strike the Northeast at that time, depending on weather patterns, but the region may also experience prolonged drought. It can also be made from animal fat, sewage and used vegetable oil. About 65 percent of the Amazon region is located in Brazil. Unsustainable land use and forestry contribute most.
In the winter (May to October) the Brazilian Highlands are generally dry, and snow falls in only a few of the southernmost states. Deforestation contributes to climate change first when forests are burnt, releasing greenhouse gases.
In Brazil, human action and climate change are drowning a community.
The government's stance on future emission targets. In the terra firme of the rainforest, dead organic matter quickly decays and is recycled. Dozens of parks, biological reserves, and other protected areas have been established in Brazil’s vast wildernesses, many of which remain pristine; however, state and federal governments have not adequately maintained many parklands, and some have been modified to allow for new highways or other construction projects.
Over 100 years, one tonne of methane has the same impact on the climate change process as 23 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and one ton of nitrous oxide has the same impact as 296 tonnes of carbon dioxide. In 1997, Isaías Macedo of the University of Campinas (Unicamp) showed that using sugarcane ethanol and bagasse (the dry pulpy residue left after extracting juice from sugar cane) had avoided the emission of 9.45 megatonnes of carbon in one year (1990–1991). Nitrous oxide is the second important gas emitted by agricultural activities, and accounts for nearly 150 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Among the more popular national parks are Itatiaia, Iguaçu, and Serra dos Órgãos, all of which were created in the 1930s. Furthermore, a global average temperature increase of 2°C could result in a local temperature rise of up to 4°C. This brings the total emissions from the agricultural sector to just less than 383 megatonnes — one and a half times what is emitted by the entire energy sector. Heavy rainfall has intensely leached many soils, leaving them with few nutrients but with an overabundance of insoluble iron and aluminum silicates.
Like many other Latin American countries, Brazil has not fully confronted what is entailed in adapting to climate change. The initiative received strong support at a meeting of the ministers of environment from Latin American and Caribbean Countries held in May 2002, and influenced negotiations on renewable energies during the World Sustainable Development Summit. Some studies show that, as temperatures rise, the Amazon rain forest could become dryer, making spontaneous fires more frequent. This would have dramatic consequences both for the worldwide climate, as well as the local population whose livelihood depends on the rain forest.
Currently, no biodiesel is used in Brazil. Since carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, remains in the atmosphere for more than one century on average, past emissions need to be taken into account. The chief Brazilian environmental agency (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis, or IBAMA) was created in 1989 in an attempt to reform Brazil’s conservation system. The Brazilian government’s environmental agencies regularly fine manufacturers and mining companies for failing to provide adequate environmental safeguards, but the fines are often small and oversight lax. The Brazilian savannas in the semiarid Northeast have no massive herds of wild animals like their African counterparts. Brazil Was a Global Leader on Climate Change.
The Amazon region is crucial for both the global and the local climate. Monkeys, parrots, and other formerly common wildlife are now found only in zoos, private menageries, or small patches of forest that still support the original flora.
São Paulo and some other cities have dangerous levels of smog, mainly because of motor vehicle emissions; in response, the government has promoted the use of fuels containing ethanol and pollution-control policies to improve air quality. The Amazon basin has the greatest variety of plant species on Earth and an abundance of animal life, in contrast to the scrublands that border it to the south and east.
Stimulating large hydropower investments Lula da Silva's national government administration changed the power sector regulations, to increase the attractiveness of, and opportunities for, private investments in hydropower generation. Source: World Bank Country Notes on Climate Change Aspects in Agriculture. The PROINFA: Incentives for renewable energy sources In April 2002, the Brazilian Congress approved a law aiming to establish a compulsory market for renewable energy.
The country’s first national parks were created in the late 1930s. Brazil emission's profile is atypical: LULUCF emissions, notably from deforestation in the Amazon, are the main source of domestic greenhouse gas emissions. * land use, land use change, and forestry Units are megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent.