Brazil’s post-election challenge: What President Lula needs to change to keep the Amazon forest standing (commentary)

Detailed summary

With Brazil´s 25 October election, Amazonia narrowly escaped a catastrophic threat. Now that Flávio Bolsonaro has been defeated and President Lula reelected, those concerned with…

With Brazil´s 25 October election, Amazonia narrowly escaped a catastrophic threat. Now that Flávio Bolsonaro has been defeated and President Lula reelected, those concerned with the future of Amazonia must face what needs to be done to avoid the various still-pending threats to the region. These include the very real possibility of the forest collapsing from the combined effect of ongoing global climate change from greenhouse gas emissions (see here and here), regional climate change from deforestation (see here and here) and forest degradation as from logging, fire and edge effects (see here and here).

Like the Amazon forest, global climate is also fast approaching a tipping point (see here and here). Global warming is close to escaping from human control, leading to a “runaway greenhouse” with temperatures shooting upward even if humans reduce their “direct” emissions from fossil fuels and deforestation to zero, while forest fires, soil and ocean warming and other “indirect” anthropogenic sources fuel ever more warming to create a “hothouse Earth.” If the climate tipping point is crossed before the Amazon forest collapses, the changed climate would quickly destroy the remaining forest, and, conversely, if the forest were to collapse first, the resulting greenhouse gas emissions would…

Brazil would be devastated, along with most of the world. Mass mortality of the human population would eclipse virtually all other concerns. For a limited time, we can withstand temperatures a few degrees above our body temperature of 37°C thanks to our capacity to sweat, but the projected heat waves would greatly exceed these limits (see here and here). We have no other choice but to quickly cut our net annual emissions to zero, and that requires stopping both the burning of fossil fuels and the emission of forest carbon through deforestation and forest degradation. Brazil is critical to this battle on all three fronts: fossil fuels, deforestation and forest degradation.

On the…

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