Persistent fire foci in all biomes undermine the Paris Agreement in Brazil

Abstract

Brazil is one of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Fire foci across the country contributes to these emissions and compromises emission reduction targets pledged by Brazil under the Paris Agreement. In this paper, we quantify fire foci, burned areas, and carbon emissions in all Brazilian biomes (i.e., Amazon, Cerrado, Caatinga, Atlantic Forest, Pantanal and Pampa). We analyzed these variables using cluster analysis and non-parametric statistics to predict carbon and CO2 emissions for the next decade. Our results showed no increase in the number of fire foci and carbon emissions for the evaluated time series, whereby the highest emissions occur and will persist in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. The Atlantic Forest, Pantanal, Caatinga and Pampa biomes had low emissions compared to the Amazon and Cerrado. Based on 2030 projections, the sum of emissions from fire foci in the six Brazilian biomes will exceed 5.7 Gt CO2, compromising the national GHG reduction targets. To reduce GHG emissions, Brazil will need to control deforestation induced by the expansion of the agricultural frontier in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. This can only be achieved through significant political effort involving the government, entrepreneurs and society as a collective.

Spatio-temporal variations of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide in South Mato Grosso based on remote sensing by satellite

“…The anthropic action of using fire to clean areas for planting agricultural commodities in the rainy season (Silva Junior et al 2020 ) occurs during the dry period, mainly in the months of August and September. This period precedes the rainy season, which begins in October (Teodoro et al 2016 ; Abreu et al 2020 ).…”

The fewer, the better fare: Can the loss of vegetation in the Cerrado drive the increase in dengue fever cases infection?

“…The acceleration of the loss of native vegetation in the Cerrado is associated with human activities, especially the expansion of the agricultural area, highlighting the concern of future generations with the loss of biodiversity, sustainable development, and public health. As the Cerrado occupies the second largest territorial portion of Brazil, it was found in another study that this biome had the second-highest rate of vegetation loss [ 56 ], thus revealing a need for greater concern in this biome.…”

Burning Susceptibility Modeling to Reduce Wildfire Impacts: A GIS and Multivariate Statistics Approach

“…However, this issue can be overcome given the availability of orbital data and constant monitoring of fire hotspots (Bernier et al, 2016;Adab, 2017;Aini et al, 2019). This is especially important for regions where fire data is difficult to access or resources are insufficient for collection, which can be observed mainly in developing countries with large territorial extensions (Lim et al, 2019), like Brazil (Caúla et al, 2015;Da Silva Junior et al, 2020).…”

“…In addition to environmental damage, fires are a social and economic threat (Jafari Goldarag et al, 2016;Kayet et al, 2020), as they endanger the population property and contribute to CO 2 and air pollutant emissions, which impacts the air quality and reduces the productivity of the ecosystems (Torres et al, 2018;Sannigrahi et al, 2020;Yin et al, 2020). Several studies indicate that global climate change can be a driving factor for the increased occurrence and severity of fires (Bedia et al, 2014;Eugenio et al, 2016;Da Silva Junior et al, 2020;Stephens et al, 2020). However, most fires are caused by human factors, such as incendiary fire, debris burning, smoking, campfire, railroad, children, and equipment use (Grala et al, 2017).…”