Brazil’s Climate Plan – “We Won’t Chop Down As Many Trees”

By Paul Homewood  

   

http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html

 

Next in the list of the biggest emitters, outside of North America and Europe, comes Brazil.

Their contribution is to cut emissions by 43% below 2005 levels in 2030:

 

http://www4.unfccc.int/submissions/indc/Submission%20Pages/submissions.aspx

 

It all sounds very impressive, and to some degree it is, but as ever the devil is in the detail.

 

If we move forward to the Additional Information section, we find that emissions have already fallen by 41% between 2005 and 2012, so there appears to be very little more saving to be made.

 

 

So, just how have they made such big cuts already?

The answer is that the targeted emissions include LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Changes and Forestry).

As the Brazilian Government’s own 2014 report on GHG’s showed, emissions from forestry changes, (ie chopping down trees), contributed the bulk of emissions in 2005, having steadily grown since the early 1990’s.

Since then, such emissions have fallen sharply as they have stopped destroying forests in such large numbers.

 

Click to access 235580.pdf

 

In contrast, however, GHG emissions from other sources have steadily continued to rise.

This is not simply a case of being churlish, as we can all agree that maintaining forests is important. However, the trees which were cut down in 2005 did not only stop taking CO2 out of the atmosphere. They absorbed none in 2006 or any of the following years. In other words, it is a cumulative effect.

To stop CO2 levels in the atmosphere increasing, we don’t only need to reduce actual emissions, we also need to reinstate the forests already lost, in other words create a carbon sink.

 

The next table, from the same report as the above one, shows the actual numbers:

 

 

Although overall emissions have decreased by 41.1% between 2005 and 2012, emissions from sources other than forests have increased by 19%, counteracted by a fall of 85% from forests, achieved as the Plan states mainly by reducing the deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazonia.

 

 

The Plan goes on to promise:

 

 

But as they also state:

 

 

Although they talk of increasing output from renewables, in particular bio, it would appear that most of this will simply go towards increasing the supply of energy, rather than substituting for fossil fuels.

Indeed, as the Carbon Tracker website points out:

 

But the plans to decarbonize Brazilian power sector remains in stark contrast with the recent policy developments. In November 2014 Brazilian government opened power auctions to coal- and gas-fired power plants. The goal of this strategy was to increase the flexibility of the power sector in case hydro power plants will not be able to provide enough electricity to satisfy the rapidly increasing demand. But the success of the gas-fired power plants in the auctions and the government’s plans to increase power production from gas-fired power plants by 66% until 2023 compared to 2014 (Government of Brazil, 2014) may limit the options for deep decarbonisation in the more distant future of Brazilian economy.

 

 

There is one further point to make. All of these INDC’s are targeting all GHG’s, not just CO2, although the total numbers are expressed as CO2 equivalent. Other gases include  CH4, N2O, perfluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons and SF6, all of which are considerable more powerful as greenhouse gases, and there has consequently been a commensurate effort to cut these with urgency on a global basis.

We tend to concentrate solely on CO2 itself, and the Brazilian 2014 report on emissions helpfully gives figures for each gas:

 

 

Again we see the overall reduction of 41.1% since 2005, with the more powerful gases being weighted accordingly. But just taking CO2 alone, and excluding forestry changes, we get an increase from 378 to 508 million tonnes, from 2005 to 2012. In other words, a very substantial rise of 34%, as opposed to the 19% increase noted above for all GHG’s.

It is this figure which tells us most about energy usage.

 

 

To sum up, Brazil’s main contribution to the fight against global warming is stop cutting down as many trees, something they stopped doing ten years ago!

 

 

 

 

Final thought – Brazil produced 2.9% of the world’s oil output last year. Nowhere does the Plan state that they will cease production to help save the world from global warming. Although Mark Carney may not be too impressed, I would suggest that the rest of us should be most grateful!