Of ages and eras – 01/20/2024 – Candido Bracher

I was a primary student in the 1960s, at Escola Experimental Vera Cruz, when I was introduced to a methodological tool whose colorful image stuck in my mind and which, over the years, has been fundamental for me to organize and mentally correlate the facts and analyzes that I understand: the “frizz of time”.

Initially, it contained only the five major phases of history, in addition to the facts that determined the transition from one phase to another.

Pre-History, Ancient Ages, Middle Ages, Modern Ages and Contemporary Ages followed each other horizontally on the “frieze”, separated by vertical lines, which indicated the year and the corresponding fact. The last of these was the French Revolution, in 1789. Since then, we have lived in the Contemporary Age.

I struggled to imagine what fact could determine the end of the Contemporary Age (a contradiction in terms, I know) and whether I would live to see this change.

It’s difficult to know, as this will be agreed in the future by historians who will evaluate our time. What I could not imagine was that I would witness not a change of historical epoch, but possibly the birth of a new geological era.

A short article in the English newspaper Financial Times informs that the International Geological Congress to be held in August this year, in South Korea, will deliberate on the proposal that we have already transitioned from the Holocene era — which began 11,700 years ago, shortly after the ice age — for the Anthropocene era.

The succession between geological eras must be based on scientific foundations, among which stratigraphic evidence stands out, the layers of sediment deposited in the Earth’s crust.

In July 2023, a commission from the International Union of Geological Sciences designated a small lake in Canada as an official Anthropocene monitoring site.

Geologists believe that the sediments deposited in the icy depths of the lake, showing the accumulation of compounds originating from the burning of fossil fuels and radioactive isotopes from nuclear technology, in addition to other elements, demonstrate the intensity of the human impact on our planet and justify the designation of a new geological era.

If this fact is confirmed, then I will have witnessed a much rarer transition than the one I was looking forward to seeing. “Be careful what you wish for!”

If the succession of historical epochs inspired in me the unequivocal idea of ​​progress, the advent of the Anthropocene makes me fear the apocalypse.

There are, fortunately, mitigating factors. Changes promoted by man do not have — if contained in time — the same inertia and irreversibility as the great geological movements of previous eras. In this sense, it is currently being discussed whether 2023 will have been the year of inflection in the use of fossil fuels for energy generation.

Two recent reports, by the United Kingdom’s Ember Research Center and the International Energy Agency (IEA), provide evidence of the point at which the growth of alternative sources of solar and wind energy exceeds the growth of total energy demand. , starting the process of gradual replacement of fossil fuels on a global scale.

Ember’s report analyzed energy generation in 78 countries, representing 92% of global energy demand, and found growth of 16% and 10% in the supply of solar and wind energy, respectively.

An analysis of China’s emissions specifically — the world’s largest emitter, surpassing the USA, Russia and India combined — indicates that the country may have reached its peak in 2023, which would also determine a turning point for global emissions.

Two cautionary observations are necessary.

Firstly, it is worth warning: the forecasts in the aforementioned reports face questions, especially from sectors linked to the oil industry, which publicly state that the demand for fossil fuels will continue to grow until 2050, to meet global demand.

These forecasts of increased demand, which have repeatedly been shown to be exaggerated, seem aimed at becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. The logic would be to induce governments to support new oil exploration initiatives (sound familiar?) to maintain an increasing supply of the product and thus keep prices low enough to delay replacement by clean energy.

Secondly, it is essential to be aware that the inflection, if reached, only indicates that we are in the right direction. But the rate of replacement of fossil fuels needs to be greatly accelerated to limit warming to 1.5ºC, or even 2ºC.

Brazil has a great responsibility for accelerating the global reduction of emissions, and the country, from 2023 onwards, has once again committed itself seriously to the task.

Testimony to this are the 50% reduction in deforestation in the Amazon, the initiatives to create the regulated carbon market, PL 11,688, which deals with the fundamental issue of land regulation, and, regionally, the determination of the state of Pará to track all cattle herd until 2026 and the first state law in Mato Grosso do Sul specifically dealing with the Pantanal.

We live, however, with the risk of a serious setback in the development and application of environmental policy, as occurred under the previous government.

To definitively avoid it, we need to treat the issue of emissions in general and deforestation in particular as “state issues”, in the same way as we did 30 years ago with inflation.

The task requires the construction of a legal framework — corresponding, in the case of inflation, to the target regime, Copom, independence of the Central Bank and the Fiscal Responsibility Law — that guarantees the reduction of emissions and their maintenance at low, or negative, levels.

In two years, COP30 will take place in Belém do Pará. It will be admirable if by then we have implemented this system of standards, checks and balances, which ensures the intergovernmental continuity of environmental policies.

In this way we will have contributed to ensuring that the Anthropocene does not become a geological era irreversibly associated with destruction.