‘Amazon suffers consequences of climate change’, says co-author of UN IPCC report

According to Ometto, the document also consolidates the information that the Amazon has lost the capacity to absorb carbon (Ricardo Oliveira/Cenarium)

Bruno Pacheco – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The researcher at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) Jean Ometto said on Monday, 28, that the Amazon region, especially the southern part, already feels the consequences of climate change and global warming. The forest has also lost its capacity to absorb carbon.

Ometto is co-author of one of the chapters of the working group of the new IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. In an exclusive interview to CENARIUM MAGAZINE, he stresses that measures to save the planet are urgent and must be taken as soon as possible. According to the INPE researcher, extreme events impact, above all, the Amazon regional climate and the production of agricultural goods.

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“This report brings a very strong consolidation that climate change is already impacting the natural and social systems of the planet as a whole. And in Brazil, in particular, this is reflected in some aspects: in agricultural and livestock production, in energy, especially related to hydroelectricity, it is reflected in impacts in coastal regions and in water availability”, he highlighted.

Researcher Jean Ometto spoke exclusively to CENARIUM MAGAZINE (Reproduction)

According to Ometto, the document also consolidates the information that the Amazon has lost the capacity to absorb carbon. The researcher explains that, because the Amazon Forest is tropical and humid and has a great diversity of vegetation, the region ends up being relatively sensitive to very long periods of drought, especially when associated with environmental degradation and deforestation.

See also: IPCC Report: climate crisis and deforestation threaten the future oF Amazon

“In the Amazon regions where these processes are more intense, we have observed a slightly higher temperature increase and that this affects the physiology of the forest, which is a living being, it needs water and adequate conditions to survive. And when these conditions are no longer present, that being starts to have a problem. Within this context, the forest today emits a little more carbon than it absorbs. And in one of the chapters, we put forward that if the global temperature rises above 2ºC, some processes of forest degradation, of the capacity to retain carbon, are irreversible. But this is a projection, not an observation”, explained Ometto.

Food insecurity

Extreme climate events, shows the IPCC, have exposed millions of people to food and water insecurity. According to Jean Ometto, the Amazon, which ends up depending on natural resources for food, such as fish, demands heavily on imported products and, when there is an impact on the production of agricultural goods, such as corn productivity, animal production ends up being affected and this, in a way, increases the level of vulnerability.

“And when we think of the Amazon in terms of agricultural and livestock production, which is part of the region as an economic activity, it ends up having an economic impact as well, and we have to modulate a lot the agricultural production aimed at direct food for people and the production aimed at exporting and manufacturing animal protein, which is less related to food security than the package of products we use”, he pointed out.

Urgent action

Extreme droughts and floods, as observed in the Amazon in 2021, the increase in deforestation in recent years, the increased emission of carbon dioxide – with a rate even higher than the absorption capacity – are severe effects of climate change caused by humans and that if nothing is done to contain these phenomena the tendency is that they will be increasingly frequent.

And even if efforts are made to stop these events, the impacts would be severe and often irreversible, according to the report. If the planet’s temperature were to exceed 1.5ºC, even if decisions were taken to reduce it and then return to the level it was, in the climate scenario called overshoot, a series of impacts would already be established on ecosystems, energy, water supply, and food security.

The impacts of deforestation can be irreversible (Ibama/Release)

These findings of the IPCC report, for environmentalists and activists, leave a clear message: that government promises are not enough and that governments need to strengthen and accelerate emissions cuts and prioritize focused adaptation to save people and animals from extreme heat waves and food vulnerability.

“The urgent actions that need to be taken, particularly on the mitigation account, is to make sure that the temperature doesn’t get to that 1.5°C level, which is going to be very difficult. We are already at 1.1ºC, almost at 1.2ºC, and it won’t take long to reach 1.5ºC. But we have to take very strong measures for even reaching 1.5ºC to have a temperature regression curve, even if it is in the second part of this century”, pondered Jean Ometto.

Ecosystem

The “catastrophic” impacts of global warming on humanity and ecosystems, according to the report, led half of the species studied to migrate from their regions to the poles or higher altitudes, in order to escape the heat. In addition, according to researcher Jean Ometto, some species have even suffered extinction due to the intensity of drought in their territories.

“We have not yet managed to clearly characterize the extinction, but the impact on populations in some regions of the Cerrado and Caatinga have already been identified. In the projection, we have identified that by maintaining this trajectory of temperature increase the impact on these species will become more dramatic”, emphasized the specialist.

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