Brazil’s carbon emissions fall 8% in 2022 – 11/23/2023 – Environment

Brazil emitted 2.3 billion gross tons of greenhouse gases (GtCO2e) in 2022 — a drop of 8% compared to 2021, when 2.5 billion tons of carbon were released into the atmosphere.

Even so, the rate recorded in the last year of Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) government is still the third highest since 2005, only below 2019 and 2021, also during the former president’s term.

The data comes from the new Seeg collection (Greenhouse Gas Emission Estimation System), prepared by the Climate Observatory and launched this Thursday (23), in Brasília.

The reduction in last year’s numbers was driven by the drop in the rate of deforestation in the Amazon and by abundant rains that filled hydroelectric reserves and caused a record decrease in the activation of coal and gas thermoelectric plants.

Considering net emissions — that is, discounting carbon removals made by regenerated forests, conservation units and indigenous lands from total emissions — the drop is 11%: from 1.9 GtCO2e to 1.7 GtCO2e in the same period.

This measure is the one used by the federal government in the target assumed in the Paris Agreement, known as NDC. The Brazilian commitment is 1.3 GtCO2e of net emissions in 2025 and 1.2 GtCO2e in 2030

Deforestation and agriculture lead emissions

Despite a 15% drop between 2021 and 2022, the main culprit for Brazil’s gross emissions continues to be the land use change sector (which basically considers deforestation): it represented 48% of the total in 2022, or 1 .12 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

The majority (75%) of this total, 837 million tons, came from deforestation in the Amazon — which, compared to other biomes, has larger devastated areas and releases more carbon due to the type of forest formation.

Despite the high rate of deforestation in the Amazon, which stood at 11,500 km² last year, the report highlights that the loss of native vegetation in the Cerrado occurs at a rate three times greater. Emissions in the biome represented 14% of the sector’s total, mainly due to the increase in deforestation in the Matopiba region, formed by the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia.

“Deforestation in the Amazon, unfortunately, is still the volume knob for Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions,” says Bárbara Zimbres, researcher at Ipam (Amazon Environmental Research Institute) and one of the authors of the report.

“The new government has acted to reduce this volume, which has had an effect on the Amazon, but it will be necessary to continue this command and control effort and policies to encourage a sustainable economy to bring it to zero, as the president promised, as well how to include other biomes in this trend”, he states.

The second sector with the largest share of Brazilian emissions is agriculture, which accounted for 27% of last year’s total, with 617.2 million tons of greenhouse gases (MtCO2e) – an increase of 3% compared to 2021. The number is the highest in the Seeg historical series, which began in 1990.

This increase, the largest for the segment since 2003, was driven by the increase in the cattle herd, which reached 234.4 million heads last year, according to IBGE (up 4.3% compared to the previous year).

Of the sector’s total emissions, livestock farming represented 80% (496 MtCO2e) and agriculture, 20% (121.2 MtCO2e). Since 1970, according to the survey, agricultural emissions have jumped 191%.

“Adding emissions from deforestation and other changes in land use with those from the agricultural sector, it is concluded that agricultural activity accounts for 75% of all Brazilian climate pollution”, highlights the report.

According to a 2022 study, published in the journal Science, 90% to 99% of tropical deforestation is driven by agriculture, even if not all of the deforested area is put into production.

Drop in fossil energy and increase in renewables

The energy sector fell by 5%, reaching 412 MtCO2e. The reduction was caused by the record drop in thermoelectric generation (-49%) due to excessive rainfall. In turn, hydroelectric generation grew by 18%, and that from other renewable sources, such as wind and solar, increased by 15%.

“These climate conditions alone caused Brazil to reduce the equivalent of 36 million tons, or one Uruguay, in electricity generation. This partially offset the increase in emissions from transport, which is the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the Brazilian matrix “, says Felipe Barcellos e Silva, researcher at the Institute of Energy and Environment, the organization responsible for the sector’s accounts.

The waste sectors (91 MtCO2e, a 1% drop) and industrial processes (78 MtCO2e, a 6% drop) represented, respectively, 4% and 3% of the country’s total emissions in 2022.

The road to fulfilling climate promises

Carbon emissions are the measure used globally to monitor the progress of global warming and compliance with NDCs (nationally determined contributions), countries’ commitments to the Paris Agreement.

This year, the federal government corrected the NDC climate “pedal” instituted during the Bolsonaro government, which changed the calculation basis and allowed an increase in Brazilian emissions. Now, Brazil has once again assumed the parameters of its first NDC, from 2015.

For the Seeg team, the objectives — of 1.3 GtCO2e of net emissions in 2025 and 1.2 GtCO2e in 2030 — are achievable. Assuming that emissions from other sectors remain stable, the 2025 target would be achieved, they estimate, with a 33% reduction in the rate of deforestation in the Amazon over the next two years.

In the last cycle evaluated by the Prodes program, from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), from August 2022 to July 2023, there was a 22.3% reduction in deforestation in the Amazon compared to the previous period.

“[A projeção para 2025] It is challenging, but feasible, given that much of this reduction can be achieved by cutting deforestation to levels already reached in Brazil in the past, particularly between 2009 and 2012”, says David Tsai, coordinator of Seeg.

The 2030 target “could be greatly exceeded, if the government fulfills Lula’s promise to eliminate deforestation”, writes the group responsible for Seeg.

On his first international trip after the 2022 election, to COP27, the UN climate summit, in Egypt, Lula stated that he would spare no effort to achieve zero deforestation in all of the country’s biomes by the end of the decade. The current term runs until the end of 2026.

If deforestation truly ends by 2030, researchers project that net emissions that year will be 685 million tons — a number 43% lower than the current target.

“If the government is serious about being a strong supporter of the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average, it will have to increase the ambition of the current NDC as early as 2030, like everyone big emitters need to do it,” says Tsai.

Brazil is the sixth largest climate polluter, with 3% of the global total, behind China (26%), USA (11%), India (7%), Russia (3.8%) and Indonesia (3%) . If the European Union (6%) is treated as a country, Brazil becomes the seventh largest emitter.

Throughout this year, deforestation has fallen in the Amazon forest, but breaks records in the cerrado, according to data from Inpe. Furthermore, the PT government has been encouraging increased exploration of fossil fuels, such as oil and gas.

Regarding this, Tsai explains that, as this increase in production would be for export and most of the emissions from these fossils occur during burning, not during production, this amount would go into the accounts of the countries that are purchasing and using these fuels.

“What will happen is that Brazil will be exporting emissions,” he says. “Of course, this does not mean that Brazil is free to produce oil, because this ends up being a logical inconsistency from the point of view of contributing to a decarbonized global economy.”