Brazil Pledges To End Illegal Deforestation By 2028 89
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Yahoo News: Brazil said it was raising its climate commitments on Monday at the start of the COP26 summit, including ending illegal deforestation by 2028, marking a change of tone after more than two years of soaring destruction under President Jair Bolsonaro. Speaking by live video link, Brazil's Environment minister, Joaquim Pereira Leite, said on Monday the country would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, compared with a previous commitment to reduce emissions by 43% over that period.
In a plan to meet that target presented by the Environment Ministry, Brazil moved forward by two years its existing commitment to end deforestation by 2030. That trajectory includes cutting deforestation 15% annually between 2022 and 2024, 40% in 2025 and 2026 and 50% in 2027. Deforestation hit a 12-year high in Brazil's Amazon rainforest in 2020, with preliminary government data showing a possible single-digit decline for 2021. [...] Pereira Leite also said Brazil would formalize a commitment to become "climate neutral" by 2050 during COP26, a promise first made by Bolsonaro in April. Brazil announced some ambitious environmental promises, but as CNN points out, the country has a dismal track record. "During Bolsonaro's first year in office, in 2019, deforestation in the Amazon rose 34%. The next year, it rose another 7%, according to INPE, the government agency that monitors deforestation in the country."
Some climate activists are "urging delegates at Cop26 not to trust the 'greenwashing' promises of Jair Bolsonaro's government," reports The Guardian. They say the world "should pay more attention to the destructive policies of the recent past than vague promises about the future, which they say are aimed at securing cash."
"Nowadays Brazil has an anti-environmental policy," says Suely Vaz, a former head of the environment regulator Ibama who now works for the Climate Obsevatory. "They are paralyzing everything. Deforestation and forest fires are out of control. This must change to ensure that climate money -- which is important for our country -- can be used in very detailed, specified way."
In a plan to meet that target presented by the Environment Ministry, Brazil moved forward by two years its existing commitment to end deforestation by 2030. That trajectory includes cutting deforestation 15% annually between 2022 and 2024, 40% in 2025 and 2026 and 50% in 2027. Deforestation hit a 12-year high in Brazil's Amazon rainforest in 2020, with preliminary government data showing a possible single-digit decline for 2021. [...] Pereira Leite also said Brazil would formalize a commitment to become "climate neutral" by 2050 during COP26, a promise first made by Bolsonaro in April. Brazil announced some ambitious environmental promises, but as CNN points out, the country has a dismal track record. "During Bolsonaro's first year in office, in 2019, deforestation in the Amazon rose 34%. The next year, it rose another 7%, according to INPE, the government agency that monitors deforestation in the country."
Some climate activists are "urging delegates at Cop26 not to trust the 'greenwashing' promises of Jair Bolsonaro's government," reports The Guardian. They say the world "should pay more attention to the destructive policies of the recent past than vague promises about the future, which they say are aimed at securing cash."
"Nowadays Brazil has an anti-environmental policy," says Suely Vaz, a former head of the environment regulator Ibama who now works for the Climate Obsevatory. "They are paralyzing everything. Deforestation and forest fires are out of control. This must change to ensure that climate money -- which is important for our country -- can be used in very detailed, specified way."
Ie after the forests are gone (Score:5, Insightful)
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The forests are not gone. they won't be gone by 2028.
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Re: Ie after the forests are gone (Score:2)
I wouldn't be surprised in the least if it turns out just like you said, sadly.
Because Profits Uber Alles and future generations can go fuck themselves. :-\
Re: Ie after the forests are gone (Score:1)
Re: Ie after the forests are gone (Score:1)
Re:Ie after the forests are gone (Score:5, Insightful)
The forests are not gone. they won't be gone by 2028.
As Cluehammer said, it's too little too late. Every time I've heard or read the most pessimistic predictions by climate scientists, within two or three years either the reality turns out to be even worse than the predictions, or newer models paint an even grimmer picture.
Right now that 'most pessimistic' take says that at the current rate of tree loss, much of Amazonia will flip from forest to savanna in 10 to 15 years. The thing is, even if the clear-cutting and burning stop tomorrow, trees will still be dying because of the climatic changes already under way, both in the Amazon and in other parts of the world.
No, the forests won't be gone by 2028, just as the lungs of a patient with a cancerous tumour won't be taken over totally by tomorrow. But unless the cancer is stopped dead in its tracks, the lungs are forfeit, and it's only a matter of time. Not only are we not stopping the 'cancer' in our forests, we're continuing to feed it while we argue about how strict a diet we might grudgingly put it on.
As a species we are stupid and greedy, and we're driving countless varieties of life to extinction on our way to killing ourselves. Too little, too late.
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Unfortunately, that is a fair and accurate summary of the situation. And to think that we could have worked decisively against this problems a the latest since 1985. But no. This problem is probably the reason for the Fermi-Paradox. It just takes being greedy, arrogant and stupid a bit longer. Or some major negative still unknown effect and it could already be over.
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This problem is probably the reason for the Fermi-Paradox.
I find that a chilling thought, but it took me a moment to pinpoint why. It's tied up with a longing for meaning. If there are no other beings in the universe with whom we can share the experience of being aware of mortality - or worse yet, there are others but they all kill themselves off on the brink of interstellar travel just as we are doing - then what's the point of it all?
My reasoning side says that the idea of such a 'point' is merely a religious impulse - but my reasoning side doesn't make me feel
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> then what's the point of it all?
Why should there be a point?
We all wish to have a meaning, but so far i saw no proof or even hint in that direction.
Nature simply doesn't care, and it doesn't care because it isn't capable of thinking, it is just a set of rules (physical, chemical and nuclear) that are applied "as is", without any regard to their consequences.
But since we are capable of thinking we anthropomorphize everything, from animals to plants to nature and universe itself because we, apparently, f
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Nature simply doesn't care,
And that nicely demonstrates that nature is not everything. Because a lot of us do care.
Re: Ie after the forests are gone (Score:1)
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My personal intuition is that if there is alien life, it probably is not that alien and is fed from the same fucked-up pool of "souls" as this dirtball we are sitting on and hence has pretty much the same problems. (No, I am not religious. That includes not being a physicalist or a nihilist.)
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I would think the Fermi paradox would have the opposite cause. Which is easier to detect -- a civilization living "as one with nature" under a "green cloak", or a civilization that paved over its planet and built out into space?
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I would think the Fermi paradox would have the opposite cause. Which is easier to detect -- a civilization living "as one with nature" under a "green cloak", or a civilization that paved over its planet and built out into space?
The green civilization, because it has a much, much better chance of staying around long enough to be found.
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You are an idiot. The ice is going fast and almost gone. [nasa.gov] Let me guess, you are also a bible literalist.
Exactly how are they dying? (Score:2)
The thing is, even if the clear-cutting and burning stop tomorrow, trees will still be dying because of the climatic changes already under way, both in the Amazon and in other parts of the world.
How is climate change killing rainforest trees? Most trees actually thrive in warmer climates, unless exposed to severe drought. You could be 100% right, but I'd like to read more. Do you have a reputable source?
Climate change is real. Climate change is very much a problem. We need to do something about it. We should have done something long ago. However, I prefer people stay focused on the serious issues and not go after these wild stretch issues.
We're fucked. However, unless the Amazon compl
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> How is climate change killing rainforest trees? Most trees actually thrive in warmer climates, unless exposed to severe drought.
Well, i'm not an expert and mostly don't know the answer to this question, but i suppose that there are several ways in which climate change can substantially change the environment around you which is both detrimental to humans and the local fauna and flora.
For instance it can increase the occurrence of severe weather conditions such as tornados, extreme raining, extreme drou
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How is climate change killing rainforest trees? ... You could be 100% right, but I'd like to read more. Do you have a reputable source?
I'd say that was misrepresenting, or maybe overstating, the problem, though it is still problematic.
As a basic explanation [downtoearth.org.in]:
"Trees move large quantities of water from the soil, through the plants and out through the leaves into the atmosphere, in a process called evapotranspiration.
Water goes from liquid to vapour, and that process cools the atmosphere above the forest, and nearby. Also, through this process, forests recycle water into the atmosphere, so that agricultural areas downwind of large tracts of co
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How is climate change killing rainforest trees? Most trees actually thrive in warmer climates, unless exposed to severe drought. You could be 100% right, but I'd like to read more. Do you have a reputable source?
This isn't the source I found when I was researching prior to posting my comment, but I think it will do: https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]. Searching some of the terms and phrases would likely produce hits that are closer to an original scientific source. I didn't spend a lot of time on searching for additional confirmation because the premise just made sense to me.
We're fucked. However, unless the Amazon completely dries up or some brand new disease decimates it (which I'd hesitate to call a product of climate change), the trees will be fine, so long as people stop chopping them down.
It needn't be a new disease, although higher temperatures may result in those as well. Stress from lack of water and/or higher temperatures may
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Every time I've heard or read the most pessimistic predictions by climate scientists, within two or three years either the reality turns out to be even worse than the predictions, or newer models paint an even grimmer picture.
This is just your pre-concieved bias and you should fix that.
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Mental health seems to be the only questionable one.
lololol
Re:the human condition (Score:2)
if you look at the world and only see humans and the economy, you are in a bubble that you can't see out of.
We know what happens to bubbles, right?
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if you look at the world and only see humans and the economy, you are in a bubble that you can't see out of. We know what happens to bubbles, right?
If you look outside that bubble it is obvious that the human race is an infinitesimally small blip in time in an unimaginably vast universe. The bubble is a more practical lens for living our short lives. After a suitably large period of time it will all be gone regardless.
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More Optimistic (Score:2)
As a species we are stupid and greedy, and we're driving countless varieties of life to extinction on our way to killing ourselves. Too little, too late.
I disagree: we may be greedy but we are far from stupid. We are the only species in the entire history of life on Earth that has become aware of the damage to the environment that we are causing and there is great hope in that. All other species in similar (albeit more limited in scope) situations have had population explosions followed by inevitable damage and collapse - even our own species' history contains examples of this.
Climate change is not by itself an existential threat to us as a species: we
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If they haven't cut and burned everything by 2028, they'll probably get an extension to get the job done.
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I never understood these promises to do something 10 years+ down the road. This one is easy to do right now and yesterday. It's just lame lip service really.
Commitment of Brazil to its own laws? (Score:5, Insightful)
including ending illegal deforestation by 2028,
If you lived in a country that's going to take them seven years to start enforcing their own laws, would you have any faith in anything the government promises to do? Would you even care about obeying the other laws?
Re:Commitment of Brazil to its own laws? (Score:5, Funny)
including ending illegal deforestation by 2028,
If you lived in a country that's going to take them seven years to start enforcing their own laws, would you have any faith in anything the government promises to do? Would you even care about obeying the other laws?
They will keep this commitment....Possibly by changing the laws.
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Could it be that someone who is already doing deforestation under the current laws illegally doesn't care too much about changes in those laws?
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don't even need to, there is legal deforestation already, they just need, and are actually already doing, to give legal authorization to the ones tearing the forests down.
This year the bolsonaro's environment minister was removed from office after a huge scandal where the US didn't authorize a load of wood to enter the country because of fake papers, gave the info to brazilian police, which started investigating and found a huge scheme of illegal wood harvesting and apprehended, IIRC, thousands of cubic met
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on that measure what government in the world should you have faith in? I can't think of a single government in the world that has ended all illegal activity. likewise the only way Brazil could feasibly end that activity is by making it legal, I doubt this is achievable in 7 years. 7 years is an incredibly short time to completely shut down shut a highly profitable illegal trade in such a large country.
You are treating this as if it's some new discovery where the government of Brazil has suddenly come to its senses and started working to protect the forests. That's not the way it is. Previous governments had massively reduced the rate of cutting to the extent he Amazon could have survived. Bolsonaro came in, with large connections with the mass scale destroyers of the forest, and restarted the destruction, even encouraged it. He knows who's responsible for the industrial scale destruction and could st
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His choice to say "seven years" is basically setting a deadline by which time his friends should have largely got rid of the Amazon.
I hope you remember this comment in seven years when the Amazon is still around.
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His choice to say "seven years" is basically setting a deadline by which time his friends should have largely got rid of the Amazon.
I hope you remember this comment in seven years when the Amazon is still around.
I hope your hope is right. I've seen the rainforests of Asia and what it can mean to "still be around" when actually they have actually been developed out of practical existence and are no longer able to create their own rains. I know that both options are completely possible. There are still plenty of people resisting Bolsonaro's agenda in Brazil and he's still succeeding in burning a huge amount. If there is still a substantial enough forest left in seven years time to maintain the rains it needs to c
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You should at least do a basic web search, "When will the Amazon disappear?"
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You should at least do a basic web search, "When will the Amazon disappear?"
so it seems that by the time that Bolsonaro promises to stop deforestation, the Amazon will already be a living corpse.
https://time.com/amazon-rainfo... [time.com]
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"take them seven years to start enforcing their own laws"
-1, lie
We can all see what the claim is. This is not the claim. You're just lying, in an easily detectible way.
Re: Commitment of Brazil to its own laws? (Score:2)
Well they do need to still have a place to hide the dying escaped nazis.
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And he needs 7 years to do that because ...
So obvious question... (Score:5, Funny)
...is he going to end illegal deforestation by making it legal? :-)
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A lot of the deforestation is already legal so this is just empty words by a wannabe dictator who cares for nothing except power and throwing bones to the halfwits who vote for him and if telling COP26 delegates what they want to hear gets them off his back for a while then thats what he'll do.
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Knowing that slippery asshole that calls the shots there that makes even Nixon look honest in comparison, that could well be the case.
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you joke but that is exactly the plan
is that when the trees run out (Score:2)
are they going to stop when all the trees are gone?
Bolsonaro trying to "row backwards" (Score:4, Insightful)
This statement is nothing more than Bolsonaro, who by now, has realised his time is limited, trying to gain some kudos on the world stage.
The "2028" statement is meaningless, or rather, if you read it cynically - because, this is Bolsonaro talking, you could read it like this:
"I'll continue to let illegal deforestation happen for another 7 years, because it is economically beneficial for my country."
That's what this meaningless pledge amounts to. Bolsonaro will be long gone by then, let's just hope the people of Brazil don't end up with another monster.
As for the Amazon itself, deforestation by itself in the medium term won't end in a demise, but if a tipping point is reached, it'll be gone by the end of the century.
The deforestation can really only stop, if the worlds insatiable appetite for meat is curbed and if monoculture crop production on a vast scale is prohibited - which would take some serious science in terms of how to make up the shortfall in production.
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No palm oil means no Ramen noodles. Think about that for a second.
Re:Bolsonaro trying to "row backwards" (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't eat Ramen noodles or use anything that has palm oil in, if I can help it.
So, yeah, I already thought about it, perhaps you should too.
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I'm not sure you realize how many things use palm oil.
How do you deduce that from a single comment?
In the UK, around 50% of packaged products do.
However, the UK has been fairly good at sourcing sustainable palm oil.
Personally, I manage to avoid it where I can, but if not, make sure it's marked as sustainable - hence my comment "use anything that has palm oil in, if I can help it."
Sure, it's a nightmare trying to find products without it - so, about the best we can do, if we can't, is to trust that the "sustainable" label on a product actually means something.
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You can cook ramen palm oil. I know it's possible, I've done it.
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You can even do it without palm oil.
I shouldn't post before my first coffee, I tend to omit words from a sentence and it does not sense.
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coffee
unfortunately, I have more bad news [jpost.com]
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Ramen noodles neither contain Palm oil nor is any oil used in producing them.
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Instant ramen are deep fried in oil. Mostly palm oil because it is cheap, but it is not a strict requirement.
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Try this:
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
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Then it is not Ramen.
Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] :P
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Aka "I'll make a good sounding promise that has to be fulfilled by the asshole that will get elected instead of me".
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The "2028" statement is meaningless, or rather, if you read it cynically - because, this is Bolsonaro talking, you could read it like this:
"I'll continue to let illegal deforestation happen for another 7 years, because it is economically beneficial for my country."
it's even worse than that. it's arguably _worse_ for the country as a whole. we are killing the planet for very small groups of people, who already have too much.
there's little doubt this is the situation because Bolsonaro is a corrupt, lying, pi
Well, I am over-f*cking-welmed. (Score:2)
Yet another one of those "pledges". I think we've already had our fill of those. Roughly 5 times over.
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Ever noticed how politicians make pledges that only come to fruition after they can be halfway sure they won't be in office anymore to fulfill them?
In other words, democracies make pledges for around 2030, dictatorships for around 2060.
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That is surprisingly accurate.
LOL (Score:2)
Boris Johnson pledges to fully implement the NI-protocol.
34% - 7% is pretty dramatic, no? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: 34% - 7% is pretty dramatic, no? (Score:1)
It all depends on how you measure. There is now more tree coverage in the world than there was 30 years ago. If you had believed Greenpeace from the 70s, it shouldâ(TM)ve been all gone by now, but itâ(TM)s not. So someone is fudging the numbers.
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"ilegal" being the crucial word (Score:2)
"ilegal" being the crucial word, as they just need to give the authorization papers willy-nilly, which they are already doing and plan to increase.
Any declaration of the current government on conservation is a blatant lie, the president hates, and I mean HATES, indigenous populations and is contrary to the lands dedicated to them as he deems them to big, and if was up to him would give most of those lands to gold miners (which he was one from time to time) and cattle producers.
He think the amazon is an unex
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He think the amazon is an unexplored land
He's wrong. The Amazon basin shows evidence of extensive agriculture [wikipedia.org] due to indigenous peoples activities. Bolsonaro would be better off pointing this out and stating that his policies are merely continuation of past practices of native populations.
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indigenous people agriculture activities that cause deforestation are a rounding error, the vast majority are illegal mining, cattle and land speculation also known as "grilagem" where they destroy a patch of land, put some poor sucker there to plant mandioca or other low yield plant just to say the land is theirs if the law arrives, then by some fake ownership papers and sell the land after a few years.
The major destruction happening in indigenous lands are usually tribes that associate if illegal miners t
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Are you fucking kidding me? (Score:2)
One of the earilest things that President Biden did after he came into office was cancel a rather large pipeline project (which pissed off a lot of people who had invested in that infrastructure btw, but I don't want to get into that). He did this because he believed (rightly IMO) that such infrastructure is not the sustainable path forward. He didn't wait until the end of his term to do it, he did it almost fucking immediately. I'm not bringing this up to get into any sort of debate about that issue,
That's excellent. (Score:2)
Coincidentally, I pledge to go from significantly overweight at age 51 to competing bodybuilder by 2028.
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You wouldn't regret it.
"including ending illegal deforestation by 2028" (Score:1)
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This is getting old. Seriously old (Score:2)
Nations need to STOP adding to the harm and start doing the right things.