{"id":43969,"date":"2014-06-30T12:19:29","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T11:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=43969"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:33:44","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:33:44","slug":"brazil-has-done-more-to-stop-climate-change-than-any-other-country-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/06\/brazil-has-done-more-to-stop-climate-change-than-any-other-country-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil Has Done More To Stop Climate Change Than Any Other Country, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The Brazilian Amazon is arguably the world\u2019s biggest natural defense against global warming, acting as a \u201csink,\u201d or absorber, of carbon dioxide. CREDIT: AP Photo\/Andre Penner<\/p><\/div>\n

Thanks to its effort to reduce tropical deforestation, Brazil has kept 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere since 2004. That\u2019s more than any other country has done to reduce climate change, according to a new study<\/a> published Thursday [5 Jun 2014].<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil is known as a leading favorite to win the World Cup, but they also lead the world in mitigating climate change,\u201d the study\u2019s lead author, Earth Innovation Institute director Daniel Nepstad, said in a statement<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though climate change is usually traced to the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation in Brazil has also played a huge role in causing it. Brazil\u2019s Amazon rainforest \u2014 which once had the highest deforestation rate<\/a> in the world as of 2005 \u2014 absorbs a huge amount of carbon dioxide, effectively preventing the gas from being emitted into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

When so much of that forest was burned and plowed over, though, a huge amount of carbon was emitted into the atmosphere instead of absorbed, making Brazil one of the world\u2019s biggest greenhouse gas emitters<\/a>. \u201cLand use\u201d emissions dwarfed those from energy or agriculture.<\/p>\n

But now, Brazil seems to be taking steps to reduce their impact. The study, published in the journal Science, showed that Brazil was able to save more than 33,000 square miles of Amazon rainforest since 2004 while still being able increase beef and soy production. Saving those forests amounted to a 70 percent decline in deforestation, putting an enormous brake on greenhouse gas emissions. According to National Geographic<\/a>, the cuts are more than three times bigger than the effect of taking all the cars in the U.S. off the road for a year.<\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>

In Brazil, emissions due to deforestation (green) have taken such a sharp downturn since 2004 that overall emissions have decreased in spite of continued increases from other causes. CREDIT: Union of Concerned Scientists<\/p><\/div>\n

A number of policies and campaigns are credited with motivating Brazil to reduce its deforestation, including campaigns by Greenpeace<\/a> and others to put pressure on companies that buy products that come from Amazon deforestation. Brazil\u2019s forest code was also updated in 2012, requiring landowners to preserve 80 percent of the Amazon\u2019s virgin forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Brazil, there was rising awareness of the value of nature and how essential it is to our society,\u201d Fabio Rubio Scarano, vice president of Conservation International\u2019s Americas Division, told National Geographic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s contribution to reducing deforestation has also helped fight land-use change-related emissions throughout the world, according to a separate study<\/a> by the Union of Concerned Scientists, also released Thursday. While the 2007 report from the United Nations\u2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that roughly 17 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation, the UCS says that number has now decreased to 10 percent \u2014 thanks to efforts by Brazil and several other tropical countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s surprising about today\u2019s report is the number of countries that are effectively protecting their tropical forests and the wide variety of policies and programs that are working,\u201d the UCS report\u2019s author Doug Boucher said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s no one right way to stop deforestation, but rather a smorgasbord of options.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thinkprogress.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to its effort to reduce tropical deforestation, Brazil has kept 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere since 2004. That\u2019s more than any other country has done to reduce climate change, according to a new study published Thursday [5 Jun 2014].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}