Brazil plays an important and unique role in climate change. It is one of the ten largest economies in the world and – most importantly for climate change – home to one of the greatest ecosystems and forests of the planet the Amazon. Brazil is the eighth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and the third largest emitter in the developing world after China and India, according to 2000 World Resources Institute figures. Unlike most developed and many developing countries, Brazil’s energy sector contributes little to the country’s greenhouse gases emissions. Unsustainable land use and forestry contribute most.
Brazil’s track record in renewable energies is an example to many. Brazil is the world’s largest producer and also consumer of ethanol, which it has added to gasoline since the 1970s. This has reduced both greenhouse gases emissions and pollution in urban centres, where more that 80 per cent of the 180 million Brazilians live.
In international negotiations, Brazil points out that climate change is driven more by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than by yearly emissions, primarily because the most important greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) remains in the atmosphere for more than a century on average. Yearly emissions data therefore generally overestimate developing countries’ contributions to climate change, and underestimate that of developed countries. Brazil therefore says that it will not limit its greenhouse gas emissions until the middle of the century.
Emilio Lebre La Rovere is head of the Center for Integrated Studies on Climate Change and the Environment, and a professor at the Institute for Research and Post-graduate Studies of Engineering of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – CentroClima/COPPE/UFRJ.
Andre 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).
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