Stopping deforestation now is crucial to allowing global warming to be contained and reversed in the future, say scientists around the world in a letter of action to prevent irreversible damage to the planet.
The document was published on Thursday (11), while the negotiations for the COP26, the UN Climate Conference, which ended this Saturday (13) with an agreement considered below the challenge imposed by global warming, were still unfolding.
Perhaps already anticipating the outcome of the meeting in Glasgow (Scotland), the group, which brings together academics, economists and experts in governance and public policy, presented what it called a “Marshall plan to save civilization” — a comparison with the plan presented by the United States to rebuild Europe destroyed by World War II.
The letter details priorities and steps that should be taken until 2026, 2030 and 2050. According to the group, the scientists decided to replace the warnings made earlier by a concrete proposal for action “before there is no more road to go”.
Scientists published their first warning about “climate emergency” in 1992, at the time of the conference held in Rio, and a second version of the warning, released in 2017, has already surpassed 15,000 signatures by scientists.
“Despite this, there were few successful actions and the weather indicators worsened, even with the Covid pandemic, which reduced mobility.”
According to scientists, climate change is the best known, but not the only evidence that humans have put the planet at risk.
They list some already irreversible damage, such as rising sea levels and the loss of Arctic ice, which will take at least a millennium —or 40 generations— to restore.
Other uncontrollable disasters are still unknown, because complex natural systems under stress, such as the climate, do not change in a gradual or predictable way, scientists say.
Furthermore, even with all the promises made by countries at COP26, the world is moving towards a warming of more than 2.4º C compared to the pre-industrial period, according to a recently released report by CAT, the most important climate monitoring coalition of the world.
“Civilization faces a historic crossroads, but with potentially much better results if we act now”, write the signatories of the new letter, who say that cooperation between countries of different cultures and systems is essential: “Our biggest challenges are not technical, but social , economic, political and behavioral”.
Current carbon dioxide levels, 48% higher than in the pre-industrial period, require that polluting gas emissions be cut by at least half by the end of this decade, according to the scientists.
Action is needed in six areas, they say: energy, pollutants, nature, food systems, population stabilization and economic goals.
For the warming to be reversed after this first moment of containment, “we have to immediately stop the destruction and negotiation of systems that capture carbon, such as forests, grasslands and wetlands”, they say.
the role of Brazil
Deforestation is the main responsible for greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil: more than half (55%) comes from logging and fires, a number that has been growing in the last two years.
Data released by the Deter system, from Inpe, registered a record of devastation in the Amazon for one month of October since the historical series began to be made, in 2016.
The scientists’ plan in this area envisages reducing by 2026 and interrupting by 2030 the destruction of natural ecosystems, including those around cities, through policies of urban densification, rezoning and reuse of areas — by planting trees in parking lots or extensive lawns, by example.
It also recommends removing pollutants such as pesticides, restoring degraded areas (not only plants, but large animals, insects, fungi, bacteria and other components of the original ecosystem) and putting zero wood burning to produce energy, which, according to the group, it is more harmful than burning coal, in addition to reducing the city’s absorption capacity.
Another point of action that directly affects Brazil is that which refers to food production — agriculture and livestock are responsible for 23% of the country’s emissions, not counting other parts of the food chain, such as transport and processing.
According to scientists, the impacts of food production “are already far beyond levels that meet planetary health goals.” The sector is responsible for more than a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, for around 70% of the use of fresh water, for most of the deforestation and for the flow of nutrients to water courses, polluting them.
The letter states that “reducing demand for meat and dairy products and shifting to plant-based dietary patterns provide the greatest benefits across the full range of environmental impacts of the food system” by reducing the need for land, water, pesticides, fertilizers. and cut the emission of polluting gases.
Other necessary policies are to reduce food waste, increase water use efficiency, and adopt agricultural practices that are less harmful to the environment.
“It is still conceivable that humanity could avoid major famines in this century. But the convergence of resource bottlenecks and environmental crises requires urgent action across the global food system on many fronts simultaneously,” the document states.
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