Articles include: California drought; underreporting GHGs; weather station in the Andes; 26,000 snakes; tools: graphics and climate change; deforesting Brazil; EPA and California air standards; pandemic and snow melt in SE Asia.
Tag: Brazil
The Daily Climate, April 22, 2021
Articles include: Earth Day; Young activists; EU climate agreement; Biden’s climate goals; Biden and Putin; building electric vehicles; Brazil and the Amazon; climate change and the world’s economy; African peace and climate change; car-free inner cities; Putin, Russia, and GHGs; Canada’s GHG pledge; Ikea and renewable energy.
The Daily Climate, April 14, 2021
Articles include: clean energy focus; blue carbon credits; John Kerry off to China; Glacier in Alaska is moving; Mexico & coal; Cost of rechargeable batteries; Brazil & Indigenous land rights; Endangered American rivers; companies call on Biden to reduce GHGs.
Reports: Brazilian and international banks financing global deforestation
Mongabay discusses a report showing that Brazilian and international banks financing global deforestation.
- According to a new report, some of the world’s biggest Brazilian and international banks invested US$153.2 billion in commodities companies whose activities risked harm to forests in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and Central and West Africa since 2016 when the Paris Climate Agreement was signed.
- These investments were made primarily in forest-risk commodities companies that include beef, soy, pulp and paper, palm oil, rubber and timber producers. The big banks are failing to scrutinize and refuse loans to firms profiting from illegal deforestation, said several reports.
- Banco do Brasil offered the most credit (US$30 billion since 2016), for forest-risk commodity operations. BNDES, Brazil’s development bank, provided US$3.8 billion to forest-risk companies. More than half of that amount went to the beef sector, followed closely by the pulp and paper industry.
- “Financial institutions are uniquely positioned to promote actions in the public and private sector and they have an obligation with their shareholders to mitigate their growing credit risks due to the degradation of natural capital and their association with industries that intensively produce carbon,” said one report.
The data comes from a study recently published by Forest & Finance (F&F), a coalition of international socioenvironmental campaign and research organizations, including Rainforest Action Network, TUK INDONESIA and Amazon Watch.
Philanthropies flow funds to climate technologies
The Washington Post discusses how Philanthropies flow funds to climate technologies. Several new funds are taking on “tough tech” — unsexy but important efforts to mitigate global warming.
Four years ago, Shreya Dave left MIT with a doctorate in mechanical engineering and an idea that just might revolutionize the way the world makes chemicals and paper.
She and two colleagues had invented a new filtration system that could slash energy costs for a wide swath of businesses, from paper mills to pharmaceuticals. By doing so, it would also fight climate change, potentially saving more than a billion tons of greenhouse gases each year — nearly the total emissions of Brazil — if used by up to 15 percent of eligible companies worldwide.
HotSpots H2O: Fires in the World’s Largest Wetlands Decimate Wildlife and Livelihoods
Circle of Blue discusses HotSpots H2O: Fires in the World’s Largest Wetlands Decimate Wildlife and Livelihoods.
The Pantanal wetlands are on fire. Since early this year, nearly a fifth of the Brazilian ecosystem, over 14,000 square miles, has burned in wildfires just south of the Amazon rainforest.
Their habitat destroyed, thousands of animals have been killed, burned, or injured. Locals to the wetlands have lost their homes, including fires in five Indigenous territories. Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro and his administration claim they have sent national assistance to control the fires, yet according to the Associated Press those on the ground say there hasn’t been much help from the government to stop the spread.
Spanning the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul and sections of Bolivia and Paraguay, the Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland. During the rainy season, the floodplains fill with water and then slowly empty from April to September, providing habitat and nutrients for life in the area. The region is home to 4,700 plant and animal species and the greatest numbers of caiman, jaguar, and other rare wildlife. It is also home to over 270 Indigenous communities, who rely on the wetlands for their livelihoods and economic means.
Studies: Brazil’s native bees are vital for agriculture, but are being killed by it
Mongabay discusses how Brazil’s native bees are vital for agriculture, but are being killed by it.
- Native Brazilian bees provide several environmental services, the most important being pollination of plants, including agricultural crops.
- Stingless beekeeping also helps to keep the forest standing, as honey farmers tend to preserve the environment and restore areas used in their activity.
- But food production based on monoculture and heavy on pesticide use is threatening native bee populations.
- The western honey bee (Apis mellifera), an imported species, dominates Brazil’s beekeeping and its research into the harmful effects of pesticides; but studies show that pesticides affect stingless bees more intensely.
A study conducted by researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP) and published in 2019 assessed the effect of dimethoate, which is used as an international reference in toxicity tests.
Also in 2019, at the University of São Paulo’s Luiz de Queiroz Higher School of Agriculture (Esalq-USP), another study showed that thiamethoxam, widely used in agriculture, and three other insecticides from the neonicotinoid group may cause behavioral changes in adult jataí bees, such as reducing flight speed and distance traveled.
These 3 supertrees can protect us from climate collapse
This Vox article discusses 3 supertrees that can protect us from climate collaps. But can we protect them? Brazil nut tree, Bertholletia excelsa; Indonesia’s stilt mangrove, Rhizophora; and the Congo’s African teak tree (Pericopsis elata).
Dozens of countries have extraordinary tropical forests, but three stand out: Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These countries not only have the largest areas of tropical forest within their borders; they also have the highest rates of deforestation.
We traveled to protected areas deep inside these countries to learn the superpowers of three tree species that play an unusually important part in staving off environmental disaster, not just locally, but globally. These trees play many ecological roles, but most impressive is how they produce rainfall, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and support hundreds of other species.
The Amazon, Siberia, Indonesia: A World of Fire
This NY Times article discusses the Amazon, Siberia, Indonesia: A World of Fire. The growing intensity of wildfires and their spread to new corners of the globe raises fears that climate change is exacerbating the dangers.
In South America, the Amazon basin is ablaze. Halfway around the world in central Africa, vast stretches of savanna are going up in flame. Arctic regions in Siberia are burning at a historic pace.
The Amazon Rain Forest Is on Fire – what it means
These articles discuss the current fires raging in the Amazon:
- Business Insider: The Amazon rainforest fires are shaping the G7 summit, where world leaders like Trump and Macron are convening A record number of wildfires ravaging the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, is influencing the political discourse as world leaders congregate in France for the Group of Seven summit and protestors call for action.
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National Geographic: What the Amazon fires mean for wild animals. “In the Amazon, nothing is adapted to fire.” 10 percent of Earth’s animal species live there.
- NY Times: What Satellite Imagery Tells UsAbout the Amazon Rain Forest Fires. Scientists studying satellite image data from the fires in the Amazon rain forest said that most of the fires are burning on agricultural land where the forest had already been cleared.
- NY Times: With Amazon Rain Forest Ablaze, Brazil Faces Global Backlash. As dozens of fires scorched large swaths of the Amazon, the Brazilian government on Thursday struggled to contain growing global outrage over its environmental policies, which have paved the way for runaway deforestation of the world’s largest rain forest.