Luisa Maria Diele-Viegas
University of Maryland, USA
Title: Amazonia and Climate change: current threatens and future perspectives
Biography
Biography: Luisa Maria Diele-Viegas
Abstract
The Amazon forest plays a major role in global carbon budget, and thus in mitigating the effects of climate change by stocking nearly half of the tropical forest carbon. Several ecoregions of the biome may lose their current climate conditions in the next few years, even considering a decrease in current global greenhouse gases emission rates. Besides climate change, recent events are threatening the Amazon integrity, such as deforestation, agrobusiness, mining activities, and uncontrolled fire. The Brazilian parliament has emitted intentions on increasing the resource exploitation in the biome, mostly inside indigenous lands, by encouraging and viabilizing mining and agrobusiness activities. This leaded to an unprecedented fire season in 2019, in addition to deforestation rates reaching the highest values in the last 12 years, and increased invasions to indigenous territories leading to the death of several indigenous leaders. This may have drastic consequences for the Amazon biodiversity and traditional populations, besides hamper the achievement of world’s carbon emissions targets to decrease current global warming rates. Here we discuss the exposure and sensitivity of the Amazon to climate change considering a business-as-usual scenario of greehouse gases emissions, the potential impacts of Brazilian political perspectives on the conservation of the biome and its consequences to human livelihood, environmental conservation and the world climatic system. Brazil hosts over 50% of the Amazon, so government’s actions should go toward sustainable policies rather than inadequate environmental regulation aiming short term profits. Otherwise the Amazon (and perhaps the world’s climatic system) will be in danger.