Climate change: the Amazon factor

The discussion on climatic variations, motivated by anthropic action across the globe, has been gaining momentum in recent decades. Surveys have sent more alarmist warnings in peremptory tone to authorities around the world, addressing the need for a greater commitment to responsible environmental actions. As of today (31), when the COP 26 agenda officially begins - the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in 2021 - the environmental challenges and sustainable development in the Amazon also return to the center stage due to their strong bonds and impacts in the debate about the future of climate across the globe. The 26th edition of the UN conference ends on November 12, in Glasgow, Scotland. It will involve leaders from 196 countries and discuss, once again, the assessment of concrete advances in terms of world efforts to fight global warming.

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Higher temperatures and drier weather in the Amazon

In early August, the sixth report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicated that man's actions are already responsible for the increase of about 1.1 ºC in the planet's average temperature - an irreversible impact, as pointed out for the first time in 2021. Working connectedly with the United Nations (UN), the panel indicated in the document "Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis", that the "global surface temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period for at least the last 2,000 years". Furthermore, in the last decade alone (2011-2020), temperatures have exceeded the warmest periods of about 6,500 years ago.

The IPCC survey also warns that, in the next 20 years, global warming should reach - and even exceed - 1.5º C. On a national scale, the temperature in Brazil will possibly rise between 4ºC and 5ºC in the coming decades. It is likely that the Amazon region will face greater droughts and a higher incidence of maximum temperatures above 35°C, at least 60 days a year until the end of the century. In a more extreme perspective, it may exceed 150 days in a year.

But how does Brazil contribute to this pessimistic forecast? Entities and scholars point out that deforestation in the Amazon is a pressure factor influencing global climate.

This is what monthly surveys carried out by organs such as the Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia (Imazon) [Amazon Institute for Man and Environment]  indicate. They add that reality tends to get progressively worse. In September of this year, an area of forest larger than 4,000 soccer fields was destroyed in the Amazon. This is the wildest devastation recorded in ten years: 1,224 km² were decimated, corresponding to the size of Rio de Janeiro.

(Tarso Sarraf / O Liberal)

September was the sixth month in the same year during which the Amazon had the largest area destroyed in the decade: March, April, May, July and August also registered the worst deforestation levels since 2012. Based on these figures, the accumulated record of deforestation in the region calculated from January to September reached 8,939 km² - something similar to the areas of the cities of Rome, Paris, Moscow, Hong Kong, New York, London and Rio de Janeiro together. This corresponds to 39% more than in the same period in 2020. It is the worst rate in 10 years.

Amazon: water and carbon retention counterbalance atmosphere

Antônio Lôla, a retired professor from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) and volunteer researcher at the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, in Belém, explains deforestation in the Amazon directly affects two important biogeochemical cycles – water and carbon. Regarding the water cycle, the researcher points out that, on a daily basis, the forest is responsible for releasing an enormous amount of water into the atmosphere every day – four liters per square meter.

Researcher Antônio Lôla (Márcio Nagano / O Liberal)

The entire Amazon comprehends an area of 5.6 million square kilometers, spread over eight countries – the Brazilian portion covers 5 million square kilometers of this area. It is estimated that a total of 22.4 trillion liters of water are liberated into the atmosphere every day by the forest. It is the equivalent, in volume, to 22.4 cubic kilometers – an amount of water large enough to fill ten Guanabara Bays per day, considering its two billion cubic meters of water.

This water is transported, through atmospheric movements, to different regions of the planet, returning to the surface in the form of rain. "Any change in the forest vegetation cover may consequently imply changes in the water cycle, commonly known as the hydrological cycle, providing the intensification of phenomena such as drought or floods, in different locations, not necessarily within the Amazon area. Specifically speaking of the Amazon, as a consequence of the deforestation process, this amount of water which should be available to the atmosphere will tend to decrease, consequently reducing rainfall", explains the researcher.

Regarding the carbon cycle, forests work as "sink holes", removing this element from the atmosphere and transforming it into biomass by means of photosynthesis. "Since CO2 is one of the main gases responsible for the greenhouse effect, the destruction of forests may lead to an increase in their concentration in the atmosphere. This phenomenon enhances the greenhouse effect, which would, in turn, increase the planet's temperature. When forests are burnt, this negative effect becomes more exacerbated, as in addition to not removing CO2 from the atmosphere, burning immediately releases all the CO2 removed from the atmosphere and stored in the biomass for several decades", emphasizes Antônio Lôla.

(Fábio Nascimento / Greenpeace)

When asked about the hypothesis of predictable impacts in the circumstance of total decimation of the forest, the researcher is categorical: "It would be the apocalypse". Lôla says that the first consequences would be extreme weather events – some of which are already taking place across the planet.

“The frequency [of extreme weather events] would increase a lot. We would have many more tornadoes and many more hurricanes, for example, but with a much more devastating force. More extreme droughts, floods. The consequences would include a general shrinkage of agricultural production, with an increase in hunger and the proliferation of diseases and pests due to this temperature variation”, emphasizes the scholar. “The thing is there is an interaction. Any and everything  done at a certain place on the planet will generate consequences somewhere else. It would be catastrophic”, he alerts.

Keeping the forest standing is not a full solution

Biologist Leonardo Miranda, currently a researcher at the Goeldi Museum, highlights the importance of the Amazon region goes far beyond its green area. Therefore, environmental preservation is a much bigger challenge than it seems. "The Amazon ecosystem is a complex one, which cannot be sustained only by planting trees. We need all the complexity that this involves, that is, biodiversity. It is much more than trees: it involves the birds that eat the fruit and take the seeds to other places where they will germinate. It includes the bees and other insects, which pollinate the plants that will generate fruit that the insects will eat.... in other words, it constitutes a chain of various components that have to be interconnected", emphasizes.

Biologist Leonardo Miranda (Márcio Nagano / O Liberal)

For these reasons, the researcher argues that it is no use "keeping the forest standing", without providing conditions for the system to be able to maintain its own existence. "It's no use solving a specific problem now if in 10, 20, 30 years, these forests will not be able to sustain themselves", ponders Miranda. "Because all the biodiversity is associated within the forest limits and it makes sense for the whole context. Planting trees is important, but we have to apprehend biodiversity is much more than that."

The specialist demystifies another common misunderstanding related to the Amazon rainforest: the idea that the region is “the world’s lungs”. Miranda explains that while the amazon region is responsible for consuming carbon gas, the forest itself also consumes part of the oxygen it produces. 

"The importance of Amazon rainforest is much more substantial to the Amazon society and to the Brazilian people in general than it is to the climate regulation" - Geologist Norbert Fenzl.

“The Amazon rainforest produces more oxygen than it needs and actually releases oxygen into the atmosphere, but it cannot be considered the world’s lungs. If we take into account such potential, we will, in fact, find out that sea algae, the phytoplankton available in the ocean liberates much more oxygen than they consume. Thus, the world’s lungs are actually in the oceans, not in the Amazon rainforest”, the researcher explains. “Nowadays, we say that if the Amazon cannot be considered the world’s lungs anymore, scientifically saying, it could be considered as the circulatory system, since the region does not only absorb carbon, but also pumps water into the atmosphere”, he details.   

Socioeconomic scenarios affect the planet 

Researcher and full professor at the Núcleo de Meio Ambiente (NUMA) [Environment center], at Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA) [Federal University of Pará], geologist Norbert Fenzl states that humankind is not yet capable of regulating the planet’s temperature, which is naturally variable, regardless of human actions. “The climate in our planet has drastically changed during the entire history of evolution. It has never been stable. It has always been the result of influences that are completely out of our possible intervention. But we can assure that the way we have been destroying the planet can, in fact, have side effects on the climate”, he highlights.

Geologist Norbert Fenzl (Márcio Nagano / O Liberal)

Fenzl emphasizes that the debate should not focus only on the global warming, but mainly on the socioeconomic aspects related to the aggressive exploitation of the nature by mankind. “The importance of Amazon rainforest is much more substantial to the Amazon society and to the Brazilian people in general than it is to the climate regulation, says the researcher from UFPA. He also explains that deforestation affects more the local Amazon community, causing poverty and environmental conflicts, than it impacts the world’s climate itself. 

For Norbert Fenzl, the main issue about the maintenance of the standing forest and the importance of its biodiversity should be the current economic model, as it represents the main factor in the Amazon destructive occupation process. “We could and we must discuss whether deforestation has climate consequences, but I also think we should not forget that the Amazon forest destruction is fundamentally a matter of annihilating our economic basis, which causes suffering not only to the Amazon society. That economic model is the principal cause of destruction”. 

"It is not possible to discuss world’s climate issues without taking into account the importance of the Amazon rainforest, nor without considering the traditional peoples who live there" - Uruaan Anderson, vice-cacique [indigenous leadership] of Paiter Suruí people, in Rondônia Brazilian state.

He also affirms, “If we do want to stop the planet’s ruin, which is so harmful, we should change the global economic model. It is useless to assume that simply by reducing the CO2 emissions, we will be able to regulate the planet’s climate and save humankind”. 

Traditional cultures in the Amazon rainforest: footprints on the climate

Main guardians of the forest, indigenous and quilombola communities are strictly related to the Amazon rainforest. Beyond housing, the region is also a direct resource of subsistence, shelter to cultures and different popular knowledge. That is the main focus of many populations fighting against deforestation. The destruction of green areas is a risk factor not only to the environment and climate balance, but also to the survival of those peoples. 

(Valdemir Cunha / Greenpeace)

Biologist and North American scientist Philip Fearnside, who has worked in Brazil for many years as a researcher at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas na Amazônia (INPA) [National Research Institute in the Amazon], justifies: the indigenous peoples are allied towards confronting climate change, because they avoid emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation. “Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon experience less deforestation than non-indigenous lands, including various categories of protected sites for the biodiversity”, says Fearnside.

In the recently published essay “COP-26: O Papel dos Povos Indígenas da Amazônia no Combate ao Aquecimento Global” [COP-26: The Role of the Indigenous Peoples in the Amazon to Prevent Global Warming”], the researcher highlights that the environment conference in Glasgow, Scotland c¬¬¬¬¬ity, will be a great opportunity to discuss the issue in a global perspective. “During COP-26, indigenous peoples will have great moral authority to reinforce that nations in the world should act vigorously enough in keeping the rise of global temperature within the 1.5 ºC reach, which constitutes one of the Paris Agreement goals and that is necessary not only to prevent the risk of intersecting inflection points to the global climate, but also to avoid great droughts and forest fires in the Amazon”, he evaluates. 

Uruaan Anderson, vice-cacique [indigenous leadership] of Paiter Suruí people, in Rondônia Brazilian state, is assertive: “It is not possible to discuss world’s climate issues without taking into account the importance of the Amazon rainforest, nor without considering the traditional peoples who live there”. Beyond those aspects, the indigenous leader estimates that scientific and traditional knowledge also should get together to a broader discussion about the issue. “Scientific knowledge built from systematic studies are as important as traditional knowledge, gathered from century to century by the peoples who live directly in the Amazon region”. 

(Valdemir Cunha / Greenpeace)

Welton Suruí, indigenous leadership in Itahy village, located in the southeast of Pará-Brazil, reiterates that indigenous peoples’ lives are completely related to the environment worries. “For us, indigenous peoples, the environment issue is the mainstay of our values, since we are people that live in the forest”, says Welton, who is the leader of the village located between two municipalities, São Domingos do Araguaia and São Geraldo do Araguaia.

That thought is also shared by quilombola communities. Vanuza Cardoso, a leader in the Abacatal community, Ananindeua city, within the metropolitan region in Belém, says that “everything is connected” to the environment. “Just like it is for our ancestor relatives (indigenous), the preservation of the forest is the flagship to our culture, even depending on subsistence agriculture”, she reflects. 

How amazon rainforest regulates the climate?

the forest offers great quantities of water and holds carbon from the atmosphere. be aware of the importance of these two biogeochemical cycles. 

Water cycle
- daily, each square meter of forest releases four liters of water into the atmosphere.
- the brazilian forest area alone accounts for a daily volume of water that would fill up ten guanabara bays. 
- that water reaches different regions around the planet, returning to the surface in the form of rain.
- changes in the vegetation cover affect the water availability.
- without water, droughts or flooding can be intensified inside and outside the amazon rainforest. 

Carbon cycle 
- forests are carbon sink holes: taking this element away from the atmosphere.
- carbon becomes biomass, by means of photosynthesis.
- co2 is one of the main responsible gases for the greenhouse effect.
- deforestation increases carbon levels in the atmosphere. 

Impact on greenhouse effect 
- the more co2 in the atmosphere, the hotter the planet becomes.
- forest fires enhance that problem, releasing more co2. 

What if the amazon rainforest did not exist anymore?
- the scenery would affect the whole planet, researchers say.
- temperature variations would ensue. 
- extreme climate events would be maximized.
- much more intense tornadoes and hurricanes would be registered.
- more extreme droughts and flooding. 
- general shrinkage of agricultural production.
- increase of famine;
- proliferation of diseases and plagues.