December, 06 2011, 01:22pm EDT
New Deforestation Data From Brazil Shows Continued Progress
WASHINGTON
Today the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), the Brazilian space agency, released the annual estimate of Amazon deforestation from August 2010 through July 2011. The estimates show that the area of deforestation has dropped from 7,000 km2 in 2009-2010 to 6,238 km2 in 2010-2011. This is an 11 percent reduction in the forest area cleared last year. This finding shows continued progress in reducing deforestation, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
Brazil's new figure is not surprising. A UCS analysis of the monthly figures released by INPE indicated that this year's total would be in the same range as last year's.
The total Amazon deforestation this year is the lowest record since deforestation satellite monitoring began in 1988. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has dropped for the past four consecutive years. Overall, the clearing of forest land has been reduced by 68 percent from Brazil's average deforestation levels; Brazil's deforestation baseline was calculated from levels recorded from 1996-2005.
The progress recorded today is especially notable as Brazil is in a period of rapid economic growth, with high soy and beef prices pushing towards more deforestation rather than less.
Earlier this year, news stories reported massive increases in Amazon deforestation, with some calculations of rises by over a hundred percent. These stories were based on raw monthly figures recorded during the wet season when deforestation is low but also quite variable. The raw monthly figures don't take into account such factors as cloud cover, or that a small change results in a misleadingly high percentage.
Other data released by INPE today, from its TerraCLASS analysis program, shows that 62 percent of all the deforested land, about 720,000 km2, is now used as cattle pasture. This confirms the overwhelming role of beef production as the dominant driver of land use change in the Amazon.
Brazil's National Climate Change Law requires the country to reduce Amazon deforestation by 80 percent by 2020. Today's data shows that the country is well over three quarters of the way toward meeting that goal. Deforestation could be reduced to zero, and well before 2020.
Several factors can be credited for this ongoing progress, including: strong enforcement of anti-deforestation laws and the Lula and Dilma governments' forest protection efforts; Norway's support for Brazil's REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus pro-forest activities) efforts through its agreement to provide results-based financing; the moratoria on deforestation adopted by the soy industry in 2006 and the cattle industry in 2009; and Brazilian civil society's continuing pressure for zero deforestation.
Conversely, the proposed amendments to the Forest Code, Brazil's national forest protection laws, passed by the Brazilian House of Representatives earlier this year and expected to be voted on by the Senate as early as this week, is the major threat to progress.
President Dilma's fulfillment of her commitment to veto amendments that would give amnesty to those who deforest will be a key test of whether Brazil continues to lead the world towards ending deforestation in our lifetime.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
LATEST NEWS
Major Corporations Making the World Water Crisis Worse
"When big corporations pollute or consume huge amounts of water, communities pay the price in empty wells, more costly water bills, and contaminated and undrinkable water sources," one advocate said.
Mar 21, 2024
Only around a quarter of the most influential food and agricultural companies in the world have promised to reduce their water usage and decrease water pollution, Oxfam reported Thursday.
Oxfam's analysis comes a day before the United Nations' World Water Day on March 22. It points out that, according to U.N. figures, 2 billion people cannot reliably access safe drinking water, yet a full 70% of fresh water withdrawals go to agriculture.
"When big corporations pollute or consume huge amounts of water, communities pay the price in empty wells, more costly water bills, and contaminated and undrinkable water sources," Oxfam France executive director Cécile Duflot said in a statement. "Less water means more hunger, more disease, and more people forced to leave their homes."
"We clearly can't rely on corporations' goodwill to change their practices—governments must force them to clean up their act, and protect shared public goods over thirst for profit."
Oxfam's analysis was based on data on the 350 most influential food and agricultural companies from the World Benchmarking Alliance. These include agricultural companies like Bayer, Cargill, and Tyson; food and beverage makers like Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo; major retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Carrefour; and restaurants like McDonald's and Starbucks.
Oxfam found that only 28% of these companies had plans to reduce water use, and only 23% had plans to curb water pollution. At the same time, less than half of the companies—108 out of 350—even reported how much water they took from water-stressed locations.
Water scarcity is a major impediment to global well-being, with the climate crisis already exacerbating the problem. Currently, around half of all people on Earth experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia, and parts of Somalia, Oxfam found that as many as 90% of water boreholes had evaporated in 2023. Further, 1 in 5 people in the region did not have access to sufficient safe drinking water. World Weather Attribution concluded that the drought in the Horn of Africa was made more severe because of the climate crisis, and that similar droughts were 100 times more likely because of global heating.
Despite climate-driven extreme weather events that put increased strain on water resources, major companies have not changed their business models. For example, the bottling and re-selling of water is a common corporate practice that, according to the U.N., impedes the sustainable development goal (SDG6) of ensuring safe drinking water for all.
In May 2023, Oxfam pointed out, a drought in France's department of Puy-de-Dôme prompted authorities to restrict the water use of its thousands of residents for two months. However, Danone-subsidiary the Société des Eaux de Volvic was still permitted to extract unrestricted amounts of groundwater during the drought for its bottling plant. That year, Danone amassed €881 million ($956 million) in profits and rewarded shareholders to the tune of €1,238 million ($1,344 million).
"We clearly can't rely on corporations' goodwill to change their practices—governments must force them to clean up their act, and protect shared public goods over thirst for profit," Duflot said.
To ensure water justice, Oxfam said that governments should treat water as a human right; enforce consequences for companies when they violate environmental or human rights laws; and invest in water, sanitation, and hygiene services.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Emissions From Just 5 Oil Giants Could Kill 11.5 Million People Prematurely by 2100
"Heat isn't a new phenomenon," said Global Witness. "But as the planet gets hotter because of human-caused emissions, scientists are detecting more heat-related deaths."
Mar 21, 2024
A new report released Wednesday details how the emissions of just five big fossil fuel companies could lead to 11.5 million premature deaths by 2100 as continued oil and gas extraction and consumption heats the planet and sparks extreme heatwaves across the globe.
The analysis by Global Witness focused on the emissions of Shell, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, BP, and Chevron—all of which have "defied calls from scientists to rapidly reduce emissions and continue to increase oil and gas production."
ExxonMobil and Chevron have announced investments of more than $100 billion in new oil and gas reserves in recent months, even as the companies eye 2050 as the year they'll reach net zero emissions. The United Nations' Global Stocktake last September showed the five companies targeted in the report "are forecast to spend a staggering $3.1 trillion by 2050, on both existing and new oil and gas extraction"—despite the fact that the U.N. and the International Energy Agency have both warned that no new extraction is compatible with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Global Witness cross-referenced the oil companies' plans with research out of Columbia University, which estimated that every 1 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted in 2020 will cause 226 excess heat-related deaths over the next 80 years.
The analysis "suggests that these five companies will dig up oil and gas, which when burned, will add 51 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere between now and 2050," said Global Witness. "Using Columbia's mortality cost of carbon methodology, we calculate that emissions from the supermajors' oil and gas would kill an additional 11.5 million people due to heat by 2100."
Global Witness focused on heat-related deaths specifically; a study by Greenpeace Southeast Asia and the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air in 2020 found that air pollution from fossil fuel combustion was responsible for 4.5 million premature deaths worldwide each year.
Global Witness notes that the deaths of at least 61,000 people were linked to "searing heat across Europe" in 2022, and recent heatwaves have proven deadly in the United States, China, and South America in the past two years.
"Heat isn't a new phenomenon," said Global Witness. "But as the planet gets hotter because of human-caused emissions, scientists are detecting more heat-related deaths."
Extreme heat puts people—particularly children, elderly people, pregnant people, and outdoor workers—at risk for heat stroke, heart attacks, and exhaustion.
"Behind these figures are people," noted the group, pointing to the deaths of 72-year-old Gwendolyn Osborne in Chicago during a record-breaking heatwave in 2022 and of a 13-year-old girl who suffered deadly heat stroke in Japan last summer. "These are just a few stories from the massive and growing wave of heat-caused deaths around the world. Unless the supermajors change course quickly, the death toll will be comparable to some of history's most brutal wars."
The companies have an opportunity to save millions of lives, Global Witness noted, as the Columbia research found that with dramatically reduced emissions, the death toll from the oil giants' emissions would be cut by more than half.
Global Witness included in its analysis the companies' scope 3 emissions, which are produced when people and entities use the firms' products.
When approached by the organization, TotalEnergies objected to the inclusion of scope 3 emissions, saying fossil fuel companies are only responsible for scope 1 (the direct emissions from their facilities) and 2 (emissions from the company's use of electricity, heat, and other utilities).
The companies' net zero pledges for 2050 pertain only to scopes 1 and 2.
Global Witness compared TotalEnergies's claim to those of drug dealers who say "they aren't to blame for drug addictions" or arms dealers who "claim that they don't kill people—that they're simply supplying people with products they want."
"Oil and gas companies are solely responsible for digging up these fossil fuels, and they're doing it eyes wide open in the face of a mountain of evidence documenting the suffering and death that fossil fuels cause, while failing to make even the most basic investments in green energy," said the group.
The analysis came as The Guardianreported on consumer advocacy group Public Citizen's campaign to hold fossil fuel companies legally liable for people's deaths from extreme temperatures, climate-related hunger and disease, flooding, and wildfires.
Public Citizen has been holding events at Yale, Harvard, and New York University to discuss the idea with legal experts, and has reportedly gained some traction.
"Once I read it, I thought that it was more compelling than I had guessed it would be," former Department of Justice prosecutor Cindy Cho told The Guardian of Public Citizen's proposal. "I think that prosecutors should actively consider pursuing the theory, especially if they walk into the investigation with an understanding of the intense challenges."
Global Citizen compared the millions of deaths the oil firms are projected to cause to a chemical spill.
"When a company spills lethal chemicals into a river, and harms people, we hold it legally responsible," said the group. "The American chemical company DuPont has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars for polluting drinking water with chemicals. Will this responsibility extend to carbon emissions, which we can increasingly link to the deaths of millions of people? Certainly, it's an argument the supermajors and their legal teams will be extremely concerned about."
Keep ReadingShow Less
House Progressives Applaud as Biden Student Debt Relief Tops $143 Billion
"Let's keep fighting until we cancel student debt for EVERY single borrower," said Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Mar 21, 2024
Progressive U.S. lawmakers and campaigners on Thursday cheered the Department of Education's announcement of nearly $6 billion in additional student loan relief—this time for public service workers—as President Joe Biden continues to find ways to work around a Supreme Court ruling limiting how he can eliminate educational debt.
The Department of Education (DOE) said the administration has approved $5.8 billion in student debt for around 78,000 borrowers, the result of adjustments to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. The move brings the total amount of student loan forgiveness approved by Biden administration to $143.6 billion for nearly 4 million borrowers.
"Of the estimated 43 million student loan borrowers in America, approximately 20% have either been approved for debt cancellation or have no current repayment obligation."
"For too long, our nation's teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters, and other public servants faced logistical troubles and trap doors when they tried to access the debt relief they were entitled to under the law," U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
"With this announcement, the Biden-Harris administration is showing how we're taking further steps not only to fix those trap doors, but also to expand opportunity to many more Americans," Cardona added. "Today, more than 100 times more borrowers are eligible for PSLF than there were at the beginning of the administration."
Before 2021, only around 7,000 borrowers benefited from PSFL relief. During Biden's tenure, more than 871,000 people have had their student loan debt canceled after the administration updated and fixed key parts of the program, including by introducing a new help tool to simplify navigation of the debt relief process.
"The president gets it. Today, thousands more borrowers are finally able to imagine life after student debt," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair (CPC) Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in a statement.
Jayapal noted that after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the president's student debt cancellation program last June, Biden and Cardona "got to work" and have been "relentless in the pursuit of other avenues to help the millions of Americans burdened by student debt."
"With the administration's fixes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, teachers, nurses, firefighters, and others in public service will see their relief sooner and can finally start putting their hard-earned income towards buying homes, investing in their communities, and taking care of their families," she added.
Student loan attorney Adam Minsky noted this week that "of the estimated 43 million student loan borrowers in America, approximately 20% have either been approved for debt cancellation or have no current repayment obligation."
According to the Education Data Initiative, U.S. student loan debt in the United States currently totals more than $1.7 trillion.
Some advocates reacted to the Biden administration's announcement by calling for more debt relief and even tuition-free higher education.
"Americans have a right to an education, and it should be debt-free," the Student Debt Crisis Center said on social media. "The time to #CancelStudentDebt is now, not later."
Former Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turnerasserted: "The more student debt canceled, the better. "We must keep pushing for more; it's a nearly $2 trillion crisis."
"We must stop saddling our students with this debt to begin with," Turner added. "We need tuition-free college."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular