Global Issues
BRAZIL: More Growth, Less Carbon
Achieving sustainable growth is one of the major challenges facing Brazil, an emerging power and the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. To do this it will have to curb emissions, 30 percent of which are caused by industry, power generation and the transport sector.
An Environment Ministry report on industrial growth and the expansion of energy generation indicates that the share of total emissions of carbon dioxide — one of the main greenhouse gases - contributed by industry and the energy sector is increasing.
The study says that the joint contribution by the industry and energy sectors to total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has increased from 18 percent in 1994 to an estimated 30 percent by the end of 2009, while deforestation's contribution to these emissions has been gradually falling.
Deforestation — mainly caused by the clearing of land for cattle ranching in the Amazon jungle - was responsible for about 70 percent of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions in 1994, while today the proportion stands at around 60 percent, according to the ministry.
The report, published in late August, compares emissions data from 1994 with 2007 figures, and is compiled from official sources including the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
The authorities point to the expansion in the number of thermoelectric plants as one of the main culprits. While 42 tons of CO2 were emitted for every gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity consumed in 1994, the ratio rose to 54 tons of CO2 per GWh in 2007, as a result.
Emissions from electricity generation alone amounted to 10.8 million tons of CO2 in 1994, and 24.1 million tons in 2007 - a 122 percent increase over the 13-year period, the report says.
'Over the next few years, Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions will catch up with those of European countries,' said environmentalist Fabio Feldman, secretary of the Sao Paulo Forum on Climate Change, who added that he was not surprised by the report's figures.
'We already knew that in Brazil we are concentrating on curbing deforestation, but we're forgetting about the problems we will have with emissions from the industrial and energy sectors, as the report indicates,' he told IPS.
Emissions have also increased in the transport sector. The solution, according to Environment Minister Carlos Minc, 'is for the government and society to adopt concrete measures to emphasise collective transport, invest in inland waterways, and impose annual inspections on vehicle emissions.'
As for the power industry, Minc said measures will have to be taken to boost clean energy generation and to limit the expansion of thermoelectric power stations that burn fossil fuels.
The road transport sector alone sent 50 million tons more CO2 into the atmosphere in 2007 than it did in 1994, of which 30 million tons were contributed by vehicles using diesel fuel, 15 million tons by those using gasoline and five million tons by those run on natural gas.
According to Minc, this implies redesigning Brazil's transport system, which has always 'put road transport first: it was always a large sector and has grown even more in recent years.'
'These preliminary figures (from the study) show that Brazil will have to commit itself to a huge global effort to bring down the projected level of emissions,' Feldman said.
The environmentalist was especially interested in the report's figures on the contribution to CO2 emissions made by vehicles running on diesel fuel, 'which is of extremely poor quality in our country.'
'We cannot maintain the current trend in emissions,' he warned.
To change the composition of the energy mix, Feldman said the use of wind power, and renewable energies in general, should be increased.
In the industrial sector, the greatest challenge for Brazil is to produce more while consuming less energy, Feldman said, or as Minc says, 'more growth, less carbon.'
Feldman expressed concern about the enthusiasm on the part of the government and Brazilian society as a whole over the recent discovery of large offshore oil deposits off the southeast Atlantic coast, under a thick layer of salt deep beneath the seabed.
According to official estimates, national oil reserves will increase by up to 50 billion barrels when these fields begin to be exploited in 2010.
'This is very worrying because it means more and cheaper oil will be available, which as an attractive but 'dirty' fuel will make energy production more polluting,' said the environmentalist.
The Environment Ministry has sponsored a draft law to make thermoelectric power plants accountable for the environmental damage they cause, by requiring them to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions through reforestation efforts.
This measure is encountering opposition from within the government itself, but Feldman says it is essential.
'If thermoelectric plants are required to compensate for their emissions through carbon savings, the cost of energy will rise, and renewable energies will become more competitive,' said Feldman.
Brazil's energy mix has so far been regarded as one of the cleanest in the world. Sixty-nine percent of the country's electricity is generated by hydropower plants, 10.46 percent by thermoelectric stations fuelled by natural gas, 5.03 percent by biomass, 4.83 percent by biodiesel, 1.77 percent by nuclear power, 1.28 percent by coal, and the rest by other means.
The Environment Ministry regards the study as a wake-up call for action, and is proposing more public policies to reduce the impact of fossil fuels.
By these it means measures to stimulate flex-fuel vehicles - which run on any combination of ethanol (produced in Brazil from sugarcane) and gasoline - biodiesel production and investment in waterway transport.
At present, over 90 percent of new cars sold in Brazil are flex-fuel.
'We have to take action in these sectors in order to reverse the rising curve of emissions,' said Suzana Kahn, the Environment Ministry's national secretary for climate change.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service