Os olhos do mundo todo estão voltados para a COP26: não há mais tempo para blá, blá, blá (Kiara Worh/UNFCCC)
Kawê da Silva Veronezi, Cláudia Herte de Moraes, Isabela Vanzin da Rocha and Lívia de Mello Trindade for NINJA Collaborative Coverage at COP26
Until November 12th, world leaders gather at the UN Summit, in Glasgow, to think about joint and emergency actions with a single objective: to keep global warming at 1.5°C above the levels of the pre-industrial era.
Among other matters, they will discuss:
- Actions aimed at protecting the most vulnerable groups, such as indigenous territories and traditional communities as well as guaranteeing funding so that they can face the relentless effects of the climate crisis;
- Protection of natural resources;
- Transition to the use of renewable energy;
- Replacement of fossil fuels in transport and increased electrification of vehicles;
- Definition of funding to drive change.
Expectations are high and it is necessary to race against time in the search for practical and effective solutions. If not, the future is bleak. According to the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the impacts of global warming, there are two possible scenarios. Achieving the best of them requires commitment from the leaders who are in Glasgow.
In the image above, we can see two scenarios set up: one in which there are ambitious climate actions (SSP1-1.9) and the other in which the economy continues to consume high carbon intensity (SSP5-8.5). The first scenario assumes that the temperature increase of the planet was limited to +1.5ºC. While in the second scenario, the increase follows projections based on the Earth’s current reality, which continues towards an increase of 2.7ºC.
To limit the global temperature to 1.5ºC between 2025 and 2044, avoiding further disastrous consequences, policies and practical guidelines mus be agreed upon at COP-26. The second scenario, in turn, is likely if the commitments follow with timidity – in which few effective actions are implemented.
Extreme weather events
Let’s look at some consequences present in our day-to-day
Extremes: too hot and too cold
The climate is no longer the same. It is common to see news that show rains at times that were not likely before, that each year the thermal sensation gets hotter, or that there are intense cold peaks in places where the temperature did not drop before.
Scientists, before the 21st century, already reported that the industrialization process would dramatically increase our relationship with the environment and make our planet warmer. After updating the studies, today we are able not only to understand how this advance occurred, but also to project how the climate tends to warm up more over the years.
The graph illustrates the increase in temperature over the years. Last year, in Brazil, several cities registered temperatures above 40ºC. This heat, in practice, not only causes health problems as it triggers drastic changes in the planet, which includes, the change of landscapes.
- Submerged coastal citiesThe increase in temperature causes intense environmental changes. One of the changes that concern coastal cities is the rise in sea level. Before, a distant fear, today it is a reality.
There are cities that are already being flooded, while in others, local leaders are already planning an emergency plan to prevent the possible disasters caused by this increase.
In Santa Catarina alone, 22 municipalities could be swallowed by water in the next 30 years. Among other cities, Salvador (BA), Recife (Pernambuco), Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro), Ilhabela (São Paulo) are on alert.
Strategies for coexistence with the advance of the sea need to be designed. As the graph above shows, the sea rise is imminent. However, it is possible to avoid the accelerated increase if the global temperature limit is stabilized.
Prolonged droughts
Scientists point out Brazil as one of the countries most vulnerable to desertification resulting from climate change. In a natural feedback loop, the increase in CO2 emissions impacts the Earth’s warming and the continuous deforestation in the Amazon contributes to the alteration of biodiversity. Where there are forests, 20 years from now it may have no life.
The executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, Márcio Astrini, explains that “the feedback is that, with the increase in temperature, the Amazon begins to dry out. And as it starts to dry out, it is more vulnerable to fire and deforestation, and it increases its contribution to global warming, which gets even more severe and helps to dry up the forest and increase the dry seasons”.
According to data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), in Brazil there was a 7.13% increase in deforestation rates in the Amazon between 2019 and 2020, contributing to the 9.5% increase in the emission of greenhouse gases in 2020.
Food shortage
It is a fact that the climate crisis makes more people hungry. In addition to hunger, the climate crisis further exacerbates food insecurity. Surveys carried out by USP show that in Brazil the increase in temperatures may reach 4 or 5ºC in the coming decades, and this argument is strengthened by the activities carried out by agribusiness, which has a system of large monocultures spread across the country. As a result, although it enriches the economy, it weakens small farmers, who are largely responsible for supplying food to the tables of millions of Brazilian families
Hunger soars in numbers in 2021, reaching 19 million families with nothing to eat. The cause comes from the unemployment and inflation that the COVID-19 pandemic caused, and those most affected by the lack of food are people living in extreme poverty and people living in rural areas. Impoverished people, living in a country with one of the greatest biodiversity on the planet, which until then has always wasted quality and quantity of food, resort to buying bones, animal carcasses, sausages and ultra-processed products to survive.
Another serious consequence caused by food shortages is malnutrition. A balanced diet for adults, children and the elderly needs to contain an adequate amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat. A survey carried out by Unicef found that 49% of the Brazilian population aged 18 or over changed their eating habits and one in 5 people in this age group did not have the resources to buy food.
Transport
The way collective and individual transport advances across the country is very much in line with the sustainable and technological commitment. Agreements made to reduce CO2 emissions directly impact which means of transport the government will finance. The bet is that at this summit, transport powered by clean energy will be one of the most urgent demands.
It is important to emphasize that there is no point in investing in transport powered by clean energy, it is necessary to encourage the popularization of these vehicles. It’s no use investing in these technologies and continuing to deprive rich people of access.
the electricity bill
The so-called water crisis, taking the example of Brazil, is more frequent than before. In addition to the causes related to environmental management – poorly done – which should guarantee both the supply of water to the population and the maintenance of ecosystems and agriculture, there is the change in the rainfall regime, resulting especially from deforestation in the Amazon. This hinders the formation of clouds towards other Brazilian regions, thus affecting the Southeast, Midwest and South. Adding to the effects of global warming, the pattern of use and occupation of territories becomes even more challenging. The water crisis is still a feedback for the environmental problem, since with the scarcity of rain, the government triggers the use of even more expensive energy – and harmful to the environment, in this case thermoelectric plants, based on fossils, increasing Brazilian emissions.
At this 26th conference, financing for renewable energy sources is one of the main topics to be discussed. Solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, biomass and hydraulic energy systems are the big bets for replacing the energy matrix of industrialized nations, even though they still show some resistance due to the high investment value. These clean energy systems promise in addition to reducing CO2 emissions, as well as the price of the electricity bill that reaches the population.
Tipping Point
The tipping point has brought an extra concern and we can consider it as one of the elements for climate change to be more recently (2019) being called “climate emergency”. Regarding the Amazon forest, the forecasts are not reassuring. “If we get to that point, the length of the dry season and the temperature of the forest will increase. From there, the trees will start to die in an accelerated way, and this will create a vicious cycle. What used to be a tropical forest will look like the Brazilian cerrado, but like a kind of poor savannah, without the rich biodiversity of the cerrado,” said Carlos Nobre, a climatologist at USP’s Institute for Advanced Studies to BBC News Brasil.
Furthermore, according to the explanation of the Brazilian scientist Carlos Nobre (IPCC member), in testimony at the Supreme Court (in September 2020), based on the stoppage of the Climate Fund by the Bolsonaro government, he understands that they are related to non- return, the increase in extreme events and tree mortality, with drier seasons, impacting the reduction of water recycling and carbon filtration. In other words, this would be a basic list of current problems that must be faced to prevent the worst-case scenario in relation to the forest from taking hold in Brazil.
Native people die
The original people are the ones who suffer most from climate change. We must be aware that neglecting the climate crisis exacerbates human rights violations and social injustices and that 2020 was a tragic year for indigenous peoples: conflicts for territorial rights grew by 174%.
The struggle for the demarcation of Indigenous land is a struggle to protect the environment. With the principle of caring for Mother Earth, the native population is denied land rights. We need to place in climate change the urgency of demarcating indigenous lands to preserve their culture and philosophy.
Considering the importance of the agenda being debated at the conference and the consequences that the actions defined therein can bring to humanity, it is necessary that the authorities who act as agents of the international system take an assertive and clear position. There is no more time for shallow speeches and superficial solutions.
The great powers have a fundamental role as they are the ones who finance projects in developing countries. Our role, in understanding the urgency of the matter, is to demand that the representatives of those nations that have great influence take the necessary steps. Until great leaders are proactive in targeting and solving current problems, changes will not happen.
@MidiaNinja and @CasaNinjaAmazonia provide special coverage of COP26. Follow the tag #ninjanacop on the networks!