Interview: Brazil needs to reduce dependence on diesel – 03/20/2023 – Environment

The fight against climate change in Brazil must involve reducing deforestation and conserving forests — but also expanding the use of renewable energies and rethinking the transport sector, since Brazilian production depends on diesel trucks, a fossil fuel.

This is what Mercedes Bustamante, president of Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) and one of the reviewers of the synthesis report of the AR6 (Sixth Assessment Report) of the UN climate scientific panel (IPCC) points out. ), released this Monday (20).

Also a professor at UnB (University of Brasilia), she also explains that, as it has a highly urbanized population, the country needs to think about climate adaptation solutions that mitigate the impacts of disasters such as what happened in São Sebastião, on the north coast of São Paulo. Paul in February.

“Perhaps today we don’t even need IPCC graphs anymore, just newspaper headlines to see what is happening”, he says, adding that the report brings precisely the description of extreme events like this one.

In response to these tragedies, Bustamante recalls the importance of reducing the use of fossil fuels as much as possible.

“We have more financial incentives for the fossil fuel industry than for actions to adapt to climate change. So not only are we failing to put the necessary resources into solutions, but we are continuing to invest in the problem.”

The biologist born in Chile also has Brazilian nationality and is one of the two representatives of Brazil among the authors of the document — the other is mathematician Thelma Krug. The researcher spoke to Sheet a few hours after the conclusion of the report, after sessions that lasted into the early hours of the last few days, in Interlaken, Switzerland, until reaching the final text.

What would you highlight from this report? This report will be an important contribution, because the global assessment of the Paris Agreement is coming [que começou em 2021 e vai ser concluído neste ano] and let’s see what progress has already been made and what remains to be done to achieve the objectives of the agreement.

The report indicates that while there is some progress on climate action, we are still not on the path we should be. It is quite clear that more ambition and coordination is needed to reduce emissions, while closing the adaptation gap at the same time. [às mudanças no clima].

The advantage of the summary report is precisely to show this very strong relationship between mitigation and adaptation: since there are limits to adaptation, you need to reduce emissions very strongly, also for adaptation strategies to work.

And what are the main changes compared to the last report, the AR5, from 2013? First, science has come a long way in attributing extreme events, which is the connection pointing out that extreme weather events are already happening and that they are associated with climate change.

There is also progress in the discussion of losses and damages, considering that these extreme events already imply losses and damages for more vulnerable groups. And it also points out that an important fraction of the globe is today in a situation of greater vulnerability.

It also advances a lot in understanding the models [climáticos]. The AR5 models stated that we would beat [o aumento na temperatura global de] 1.5°C a little further ahead. AR6 anticipated this by about ten years: it is more likely that we will reach 1.5°C already close to 2030, by 2035.

What message does this summary add to the other reports that are part of this AR6 cycle? The synthesis brings the issue of climate justice very strongly, that is, that you have to consider that the losses and damages are already part of the present, they will increase in the future and that they imply an increase in the vulnerability precisely of the groups that contributed less [em emissões].

[O texto] considers that the path of transformation [energética] has to be anchored in inclusion and climate justice, in the understanding that there are values ​​that are different between cultures and that there are other sources of knowledge that need to be integrated —especially traditional, indigenous knowledge, and the values ​​and worldviews that these groups hold. he has. This message already appeared, but the synthesis places it as one of the key points of climate justice.

The report says that we need “quick, deep and, in most cases, immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors in this decade”. How would that look in Brazil? What is important to do to quickly reduce emissions here? Brazil has a very clear path, which is to reduce deforestation and conserve forests. Another point advanced by the AR6 report is that each small increase in temperature reduces the efficiency of large natural drains. [sumidouros de carbono, que diminuem o CO₂ da atmosfera]which are the oceans and natural systems [como florestas].

Brazil still has the possibility of reducing methane emissions and livestock can contribute by reducing the methane that comes from agriculture.

These are our main sources [de emissões de gases-estufa]. But we can do more in the energy sectors, where transition is already happening around the world, with increased solar and wind power, and transport.

Brazil needs to advance a lot in transport, making our road modes less carbon intensive. Although we already have the advantage of mixing biofuels with fossil fuels, we are still very dependent on freight transport. Why is the price of diesel so sensitive and is there a possibility that this will bring the country to a standstill? Because the transport sector is still driven by trucks and diesel.

In addition, Brazil has an extremely urbanized population and the report brings the potential that cities have to contribute to the reduction of emissions in the service sector, consumption… But also, remembering what we recently experienced in São Sebastião (SP), how to make our cities more resilient to climate change?

This is where we have had the highest number of lives lost in irregular settlements and urban areas consolidated in an unplanned way, without due support from the public authorities. So, there is a discussion there that will be very important for the country.

As you mentioned with the case of São Sebastião, Brazil has seen heavy rains reaching the Southeast, with considerable impacts on the population. The report speaks of almost half of the world’s population being very exposed to climate change and an increase in the number of deaths from disasters among the most vulnerable populations. Is it possible to relate recent events such as concentrated rainfall to climate change and the vulnerability cited in the report? A warmer world greatly accentuates the hydrological cycle. So what are we noticing? That there is a greater amount of rain distributed in a short period of time.

Sometimes you see in the newspaper that it rained in a few hours what should have rained in a week, in months. There is a concentration of these events without the ability to flow [da água] and with the population distributed in risk areas. This conjunction was expanded with a process of urban occupation that did not take these events into account.

We will be more and more exposed to this type of situation. Maybe today we don’t even need IPCC charts anymore, just newspaper headlines to see what’s going on. And basically you look in the report at the description of what today becomes news. It is a very close reference to people.

Also, do you see any other warnings in the report that are especially useful for the Brazilian reality? An important aspect for Brazil, as a megadiverse country, is to understand and monitor what will happen to its biodiversity, which is also associated with services and processes [naturais] on which we depend.

Brazil is home to and is responsible for a significant fraction of global biodiversity. Then, [precisa] understand what is happening, expand monitoring and protection.

Adaptation actions always come to the fore when disaster strikes, but there are limits to how much you can adapt. What does the report say about this? And is there a big adaptation gap? He makes it very clear that we have soft limits, which are political, financial barriers, etc., that need to be removed, and hard limits, as, for example, in the coastal zone.

The rise in sea level is one of the irreversible changes, that is, that, even if we manage to control emissions, they will manifest themselves over centuries to millennia. This entire population that is exposed to rising sea levels is a hard limit for adaptation. How do you control it? There’s no way to control it.

It is important to think that some populations from places in extreme conditions will not be able to migrate. Or there will be another problem, which is to force the migration of large population groups in search of better conditions.

The International Energy Agency says that to reach the target of limiting warming to 1.5°C, there must be no more new investment in fossil fuels. With that in mind, how do you see the Lula government’s commitment to oil exploration, especially in the Amazon? The motto of the IPCC is that it has to be politically relevant, but it cannot be politically prescriptive. In all countries there is this discussion about what will happen in terms of energy security for different nations.

Now, putting Brazil in a general way and putting on the hat I have now, [presidente da] Capes: the report is very clear on the need for investment in technology, in research and development, which will allow us to trace other paths in terms of energy use.

All countries will have to make this balance between how much the use of the resources they have is being made in a coherent way to build another future for the energy sector. Today, we are seeing that many companies linked to the oil sector, in fact, are transforming themselves into energy companies and are also starting to explore other forms of energy —renewables, above all—within their portfolio.

The report stresses that it is possible to limit warming to 1.5°C if quick and deep action is taken. Do you have hope? The challenge is great, because we need to reduce emissions by half by 2030 and we are already in 2023. The ideal would be, even if 1.5°C is exceeded, for it to be something temporary: for it to increase and then reduce. And the sooner you scale back, the less impact it has. It is always important to remember: 1.5°C is better than 1.6°C, which is better than 1.7°C, and so on.

Because it’s harder to reverse. It is more expensive and we have less control over the impacts that will happen due to an increase, even for a short period of time, above 1.5°C. When we look at the events [extremos] mentioned here, we are talking today about an increase of 1.1°C [que já existe]. And 1.1°C already puts us in this climate emergency situation.

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Mercedes Bustamante, 59

Professor of ecology at UnB (University of Brasília) since 1993, she is the current president of Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel). It is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the US National Academy of Sciences. She researches land use changes in Brazil and their impacts on ecosystems.

_{The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}