Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions
Brazil is recognized as one of the leading emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) globally, contributing approximately 2.25% of the world's total emissions. Its emissions are driven by a unique combination of industrial activity, extensive agriculture, and deforestation, particularly in the Amazon rainforest. The country has a significant industrial base, including major sectors such as automobile manufacturing, steel production, and mineral extraction, which all demand considerable energy resources. Additionally, Brazil is the largest cattle producer in South America, contributing to methane emissions from its vast livestock herd.
Deforestation remains a critical issue, with significant areas of rainforest being lost for agriculture and pastureland, although efforts have been made to reduce this rate in recent years. Brazil's extensive hydroelectric resources and pioneering sugarcane ethanol programs have allowed it to mitigate some fossil fuel reliance. However, its status as a developing nation exempts it from certain international emissions reporting requirements, complicating global accountability efforts. As Brazil seeks to balance economic growth with environmental preservation, it faces the challenge of managing its natural resources while addressing its role in climate change.
Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions
Historical and Political Context
Settled by Portugal in 1500, Brazil developed as a colony (1500-1822), then as an independent empire (1822-1889), and finally as a republic (1889-present). Of continental proportions, Brazil extends east across South America from the Andes Mountains and south from the equator to well below the Tropic of Capricorn. Slave labor, supporting mineral and agricultural plantation exports, forged the socioeconomic axis of the country for nearly four centuries (slavery was abolished in 1888). Several million Africans were forcibly transported to Brazil, one-third of all people shipped in the transatlantic slave trade. Brazil has the second-largest population of African descent in the world after Nigeria. The population is largely multiracial, and there is a vibrant Afro-Brazilian culture.
The abolition of slavery brought a wave of immigrants to Brazil from southern Europe. A nucleus of salaried labor emerged, producing a core of consumer demand that stimulated the country’s industrial, capital, and urban development during the twentieth century. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Brazil rose as the major economy of the region. However, its historical roots of inequality had produced a society with extreme divisions of wealth and poverty.
Subject to political instability and sporadic authoritarian regimes, Brazil achieved a democratic equilibrium around the turn of the twenty-first century. It is a nation rich in a vast array of mineral resources, including vast petroleum reserves, is endowed with abundant labor and land, and is widely favored by foreign investment capital. Brazil, together with Russia, India, and China (the so-called BRIC countries), stands out as among the most rapidly developing nations in the world. With long-suppressed mass consumer demand, economic development requires extensive energy resources.
Impact of Brazilian Policies on Climate Change
Although Brazil ranks among the leading emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the world, in no way does it contribute on the scale of the United States or China. However, Brazilian emissions are significant because of their unique mix. Brazil is the largest industrial economy in South America and is home to major automobile, steel, cement, electronics, communications, and aviation manufacturers. It has vast mineral-extraction operations, and its abundant reserves of iron ore are shipped to all parts of the world. Moreover, it is a major cattle producer: The national herd is over 200 million head and grows at about 2 percent per year. Furthermore, Brazil is the home of the largest tropical rain forest in the world, the Amazon, with vast stretches being burned or cut down for logging or for agricultural or pasture land.
Long an underdeveloped country, Brazil has resolutely and energetically engaged in development. Its government has worked to bring the benefits of economic growth to all classes of society, with annual GDP growth averaging 4 percent in the early twenty-first century—although a severe recession in 2015 and 2016 broke this streak. Nonetheless, Brazil's development intensified GHG emissions through expanded manufacturing, construction, and transportation; enlarged farming and pasture areas; and deforestation.
In some ways, Brazil has been able to limit its GHG emissions. Its extensive hydroelectric resources allow it to economize on fossil fuels. With Paraguay, Brazil has built and operates the largest hydroelectric facility in the world, the Itaipú Dam. Brazil has also been a pioneer in the development of sugarcane ethanol. Virtually all vehicles manufactured in Brazil must use gasohol, a mix of fossil and vegetable fuel. However, as a result of Brazil’s sophisticated development of offshore oil drilling, since 2011 Brazil has been a net exporter of oil. Satellite monitoring of the rain forest only moderately and unevenly has checked voracious deforestation.
Brazil as a GHG Emitter
Although Brazil is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, as a developing country it is not among the Annex I nations. Thus, it is not required to provide regular, standardized accountings of its GHG emissions to the United Nations. According to the World Resources Institute, in 2014 Brazil's GHG emissions amounted to more than 1,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), making it the seventh-largest emitter in the world. At 2.25 percent of the global total, though, Brazil was well behind the two largest emitters, the United States (almost 15 percent of the total) and China (almost 26 percent of the total).
The U.N. Statistics Division reports that one-third of Brazil’s GHG emissions are carbon dioxide (CO2) resulting from fossil fuel burning and deforestation. During the initial years of the twenty-first century, more than 20,000 square kilometers of rain forest (about the size of New York state) were being destroyed annually, contributing 200 million metric tons of CO2. In the 2010s that number was brought below 10,000 square kilometers annually, although it was ticking upward again by the latter part of the decade. The nation’s extraordinarily large livestock herd also produces significant methane emissions, and the fertilizers employed in ever-expanding agricultural areas emit nitrous oxide.
Summary and Foresight
Brazil is a unique country of tropical and subtropical abundance and diversity. Its forests and mineral resources offer the promise of development, both for itself and for numerous other regions. The global growth of commodities markets resulted in a singular phase of Brazilian prosperity in the 2000s. This growth came after years of political and economic instability, which threatened to return amid economic recession and corruption scandals in the 2010s.
The energy requirements for Brazil's development have resulted in GHG emissions that contribute to environmental degradation. Brazil is acutely aware of the dilemma it faces and the responsibility it has for maintaining the integrity of its tropical environment, especially the Amazon. With its ethanol programs and satellite vigilance of the rain forest, it has made some guarded progress in controlling its GHG emissions. The Kyoto Protocol was prefigured by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, convened in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, which issued the Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development.
Key Facts
Population: 207,353,391 (2017 estimate)Area: 8,456,510 square kilometersGross domestic product (GDP): $3.24 trillion (purchasing power parity, 2017 estimate)Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e): 1,018 in 2014Kyoto Protocol status: Ratified, 2002
Bibliography
Andersen, Lykke E. The Dynamics of Deforestation and Economic Growth in the Brazilian Amazon. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002.
Barbosa, Luiz C. The Brazilian Amazon Rainforest: Global Ecopolitics, Development, and Democracy. Lanham, Md.: UP of America, 2000.
Speranza, Juliana. "Will Brazil Meet Its Climate Targets?" World Resources Institute, 7 July 2017, www.wri.org/blog/2017/07/will-brazil-meet-its-climate-targets. Accessed 9 Oct. 2018.
Timperley, Jocelyn. "The Carbon Brief Profile: Brazil." Carbon Brief, 7 Mar. 2018, www.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-brazil. Accessed 9 Oct. 2018.
Wood, Charles R., and Roberto Porro, eds. Deforestation and Land Use in the Amazon. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2002.