By JOSÉ GIACOMO BACCARIN*
The drought and fires spreading across the country and the torrential rains in the South are revealing that scientific predictions about the harmful effects of global warming are being confirmed.
Between 2004 and 2014, in an incipient and incomplete way, Brazil foresaw the possibility of achieving sustainable development in its agriculture, land use and management of natural vegetation. The technology developed over decades in public and private research centers, and the rise in international prices of commodities agricultural activities resulted in high growth in productivity, production and export of products of agricultural origin.
At the same time, due to the appreciation of the currency, at least until 2011, the increase in international prices was not fully passed on to the Brazilian consumer. At the same time, the labor market was booming and, together with federal income transfer programs, consumption capacity and the feeling of food security increased, causing Brazil to leave the FAO Hunger Map in 2014.
On the environmental side, public programs and actions have proven to be efficient in immediately detecting and reducing deforestation in the Amazon. In 2004, 27.772 kmXNUMX were deforested.2 in this biome, a value that fell 82%, reaching 5.012 km2, in 2014 (INPE, 2022). Public agents, especially those from IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), even rendered machines, equipment and products associated with environmental crimes unusable, in addition to applying thousands of fines to criminals.
In 2024, a different reality is observed, although the Federal Government has been recovered by the political forces that governed from 2003 to 2015. The agricultural business is doing well, even with the prices of commodities not maintaining the stellar values from 2020 to 2022, in the Covid 19 pandemic. The resumption of economic growth and the broad reach of the New Bolsa Família resulted in an improvement in food security in Brazil, although, in 2023, the level of 2013 was not repeated, the best in all surveys by IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).
In the environmental area, however, even if there has been a reduction in deforestation in the Amazon, in 2023, there is little hope for the future, given the smoky air that covers much of the country. The shocking images of large Amazon rivers drying up, heat waves and fires spreading across the states bring perplexity and discouragement, with many expressing the opinion that control over extreme weather events is losing. This is especially true because there are greater social and political difficulties in implementing preventive and corrective measures in this area.
The latest trend in the news is fire, but a few months ago it was excessive rain that caused serious human and material losses in Rio Grande do Sul. The fact is that the drought and fires spreading throughout the country and the torrential rains in the South are revealing that scientific predictions about the harmful effects of global warming are being confirmed and, worse, with a speed that few could have imagined. Brazil is being pointed out as one of the countries most affected by the increase in temperature on Earth.
In the hope that the rains would return, the immediate reaction of most government officials and even members of academia was to attribute responsibility for the thousands of fires spread across Brazilian territory to the orchestrated action of an organized gang.
This is a dangerous reductionism, since crime often gives the impression of marginality, in every sense of the term, of the actions of a minority, which could be overcome by effective police action by the State. In agriculture, some attribute environmental problems to the ogribusiness gang, which accounts for no more than 2% of the entire agribusiness.
Crimes abound and must be combated with rigor, destroying the tools and machines of criminals and causing more damage to their pockets and real estate assets. However, it should be noted that, even with good management, the government's budgetary capacity is insufficient to act as a firefighter, putting out fires and rescuing victims of floods, strong winds, etc., as a financier of the reconstruction of areas affected by extreme events and as an environmental police.
The private instinct of wanting to quickly and exhaustively extract the maximum benefit from the exploitation of everything in front of it tends to prevail. Strategic vision, even if based only on long-term economic analyses, is rare. For example, the Brazilian government, at the last minute, is requesting that the European Union not block, from 2025, the import of products from Brazilian agribusiness in areas deforested after 2020.
One can hope that the deadline will be extended, but it must be acknowledged that, between 2016 and 2022, public action was to disregard such possibilities. Who knows, assuming that China, by far our largest current importer of food, does not take action like the European Union, which could be a pipe dream. Abusing the old jargon, “kicking the can down the road” or its Brazilian translation, “finding a way around it,” could end up with “all hell breaking loose.”
Another example, specific to the sugarcane industry. Confirming previous analyses, in 2024, a study was released predicting that, due to climate change, with reduced frequency and quantity of rainfall, sugarcane production in the Center-South of Brazil (90% of national production) should reduce between 5% (optimistic scenario) and 20% (pessimistic scenario) in the next 10 years (CNPEM, 2024). Also in 2024, approximately 400 thousand hectares of sugarcane suffered uncontrolled fires in São Paulo. In the eyes of laymen, what scientific studies have been pointing out for a long time is becoming more consistent. It remains to be seen to what extent such evidence is being incorporated into the planning of sugarcane companies.
What is happening in Brazil is not just a result of internal factors. Warming is global, as are its causes, and requires mitigation measures by all countries, especially developed ones. However, it is important to deepen discussions about how Brazil contributes to the increase in temperature, how society has positioned itself in relation to this, and what private actions and public policies are needed to address it.
First, we must attempt to quantify the problem, which is done here by analyzing the temporal variation of the total and the participation of economic sectors in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Graph 1 clearly shows a downward trend in GHG emissions between the 2003/04 biennium and the 2009/12 four-year period, the best result of the entire period. Between 2013 and 2018, the trend was towards stabilization, at a level slightly higher than 2009/12. In turn, the last two years, 2019 and 2020, point to an increase in emissions, to be confirmed by more recent data.
graphic 1 – Total GHG emissions by economic sectors, in millions of tons of CO2 equivalent, Brazil, 2003 to 2020.
Graph 2 shows that the share of Waste and Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU) was small, with an average of 4,5% and 5,4%, respectively, over the entire period. The energy sector had an intermediate position, with an average of 23,0%. This share is much lower than that seen worldwide, above 50% in GHG emissions. The explanation is that, for natural and historical reasons, Brazil has built a less polluting energy matrix, with a large share of hydroelectricity and renewable fuels. Worldwide, there is greater dependence on energy derived from the burning of petroleum derivatives and coal, which are non-renewable and more polluting.
graphic 2 – Percentage share of economic sectors in CO emissions2 equivalent, Brazil, 2003 to 2020.
The largest contribution to GHG emissions in Brazil comes from AFOLU (in Portuguese, agriculture, forests and other land uses), with an average of 67,1% between 2003 and 2020. The strict average share of Agriculture was 31,4% and tended to grow from 2003 to 2012, from 14,8% to 41,0%. Thereafter, there was a decrease, to 31,1%, in 2020. Even in absolute terms, GHG generation by Agriculture had little significant growth, of 2,8%, from 2012 to 2020.
As for LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forests), there was a significant reduction in its share of GHG generation, from 72,6% on average in the 2003/04 biennium to 17,9% in the 2010/14 five-year period, in line with the reduction already seen in deforestation in the Amazon. After that, this share grew to 36,1% in 2020, once again becoming the main generator of GHG. In absolute terms, LULUCF emitted 284 million tons of CO2, in the 2010/14 average, a value that rose to 644 million tons of CO2, in 2020, an increase of 127%.
There is no doubt that changes in land use, specifically deforestation, were largely responsible for Brazil's change in trajectory from a reduction to an increase in GHG emissions. It is important to note that deforestation is mainly associated with the expansion of agricultural activities, such as the planting of soybeans and corn, and pastures.
The second concern is to try to understand the more general reason for this reversal. It can be found in the field of politics, government action and a significant part of civil society, led by agribusiness leaders. The governments of Michel Temer and, more strongly, of Jair Bolsonaro have invested heavily and effectively against legislation and public action for environmental protection. Thousands of regulations and fines have been annulled, the sale of timber seized in public actions against deforestation has been authorized, and the number of employees working in the environmental area has been reduced.
At no point did Jair Bolsonaro, as president, hesitate to contradict scientific evidence and question the facts and consequences of global warming. He had the explicit support of well over 2% of ruralists, who even celebrated Fire Day in 2019. Even more serious was the connivance or omission of the most prominent leaders in agribusiness. Their silence was deafening, perhaps intoxicated by the exorbitant profits obtained during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is a time of complete unsustainability, with high agricultural prices, expensive food and food insecurity affecting the majority of the Brazilian population, and environmental destruction on the rise. In fact, Ricardo Salles, who defends the double negative effect, both literally and figuratively, of cattle ranching on the environment, was honored with exactly 440.918 or 2,7% of the votes cast by the people of São Paulo for the Chamber of Deputies. This is widespread support among the rural elite of São Paulo.
The third point concerns the possibilities of escaping this hellish climate. It is necessary to immediately commit and work so that in the social environment there are more people and institutions mobilizing in favor of the defense of the environment and that the demands on agribusiness as a whole increase. It is possible that among its leaders there are those who respect science and are concerned about the negative economic consequences of global warming. However, they are in the shadows and do not speak out against the flood of legislative and state executive decisions of deregulation and disregard for the environment.
In the field of agricultural technology, there is already much research that shows possibilities for crops and livestock management that emit less GHG. The Federal Government, through EMBRAPA (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) and in the exercise of agricultural policies, such as technical assistance and rural credit, can work with the inducer of these technologies.
Another action concerns the private internalization of the costs and responsibility for preventing and combating the consequences of global warming, such as fires. A clear and current example can be developed for the state of São Paulo. Apart from the easternmost regions, sugarcane dominates the territory of São Paulo. In the Administrative Region of Ribeirão Preto, as in other regions, this crop occupies 70% of the area designated for all crops, planted forests and pastures.
Sugarcane mills or agro-industries directly manage 60% of the sugarcane fields, 20% of which are planted on their own land and 80% of which are leased from small, medium and even large landowners. The other 40% of the sugarcane fields are in the hands of large suppliers, usually with more than 1.000 hectares planted.
This territorial concentration/dominance was accompanied by private advantages, especially the reduction in the average cost of producing sugarcane and its derivatives. Unexpectedly and contradictorily, after the massive replacement of manual harvesting of burned sugarcane (in a controlled manner) by mechanical harvesting of raw sugarcane, the mills proved unprepared to control random fires in their sugarcane fields.
The largest of them, recognized for its managerial and technological capacity, reported the burning of 20 thousand hectares of its sugarcane fields. This resulted in an extremely negative externality, affecting the few areas of forest reserves, the fauna, the cities and the people, who suffered respiratory problems. Before (or at least together with) wanting to finance the private damage caused by the fire, the State should require that each mill present a fire containment plan for the area under its control, involving the forest reserves and the area of suppliers.
Certainly, one can think of similar attitudes for other agro-industrial complexes spread throughout Brazil. And to go further, use existing legal instruments and create new ones to demand repairs to natural vegetation, expropriate (discounting fines for environmental crimes) or even expropriate areas where the burnings are intentional.
Although extremely necessary, the government's role as a firefighter is not enough. Federal public action should reinforce actions to control and combat deforestation, which has already been successful in the Amazon and should be extended to other biomes, especially the Cerrados and the Pantanal. Slipping into sentimentality, it is worth stating that trying to prevent is better than fighting fires.
*José Giacomo Baccarin he is a professor at Unesp; of agrarian economics and agricultural policies on the campuses of Jaboticabal, at the undergraduate level, and Rio Claro, at the postgraduate level in geography.
References
BRAZIL (MCTI – Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation). Annual estimates of greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil. Brasília: MCTI, 6th edition, 2022.
CNPEM (National Center for Research in Energy and Materials). Sugarcane production could fall 20% in the next 10 years due to climate change. Available at https://cnpem.br/producao-cana-acucar-pode-cair-20/.
INPE (National Institute for Space Research). PRODES Amazon – Satellite monitoring of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest. Available at http://www.obt.inpe.br/OBT/assuntos/programas/amazonia/prodes
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