Climate Change, Brazil, Food Sovereignty, etc.

08/11/2007 - 2

            Since the meeting in Itamaraty, I've wanted to comment on the speech made by Ambassador Sérgio Barbosa Serra on Climate Change. He mentioned the meeting that is going to take place in Bali to analyze further developments of the Kyoto protocol. He said that it is highly unlikely that most of the countries would have reduced their emissions by 2012, which is the deadline for the Kyoto Protocol. He mentioned the great exception of the United Kingdom and Germany, who will in fact be able to decrease emissions (the UK has changed part of its energy to natural gas, and, CO2 emissions by Natural Gas are much lower than those of Coal):

            The Brazilian position as to the Kyoto Protocol had been that global warming is is being caused by many decades of emissions by developed countries, not by the current emissions developing countries are producing. Therefore, developing nations should also have the chance to develop, which developed countries had in the past.

            But Brazil is putting forth a slightly changed position this time. Brazil wants only a domestic goal as to CO2 emissions and not a treaty-imposed, external one. Therefore, in my view, Brazil sends the message to the international community that it is willing to collaborate with the reduction of CO2 emissions, but maintains a sovereign and strong position as to who should be blamed for it. Brazilian CO2 emissions occur in great part only due to fires in the forests. And, as the ambassador himself said, there is no use for these fires. These fires account for nothing in the country's annual GDP growth. It is, in great part, illegal.

            Talking to a friend about it between panels, I asked him "why isn't it being fought? Why isn't the army being used in it?", and he said that there were not enough resources and men to patrol an area as big as the Amazon. And he is probably right. According to Wikipedia, in terms of active troops, the Brazilian Military is the 18th in the world, above France, Japan, Germany and Italy. But in terms of Military expenditures, for a country as big as Brazil, military expenditures are apparently way below necessary.  According to the Army Commander, General Enzo Martins Peri, Brazil has 25 thousand soldiers in the Amazon. Most of it, however, guarding the countries frontiers. Since most of the fires are locates in the so-called agricultural frontier, therefore, the army would not be acting on that front. Anyway, that's just a speculation.

In this sense, Sivan (the Amazon Surveillance System) and the Sipam (the Amazon protection System) is an advance. The data for 2006 showed a great decrease in Amazon fires and deforestation. Apparently there was an increase in the deforestation in Pará in 2007, but let us see about it with when the 2007 numbers are out next year. For 2006, Brazil reduced 30% the number of deforested squared kilometers. If I had to speak about the future of deforestation in Brazil, I'd say that there are great signs of improvement.

Now with the Ethanol pressure. Brazil has 7 million hectares producing sugar cane. The country also has 200 million hectares of arable land being use as pasture land for cattle. A great part of it isn't being "used" at all. That is, Brazil has a lot of room to expand sugar-cane production without deforestation. Now, according to ambassador Sérgio Barbosa Serra, that is probably enough to fulfill the needs of the internal market. Now as for Brazil to became the Saudi Arabia of Ethanol, now that's is less likely. Anyway, it is not interesting for any country not to have varied exports. Brazil has great experience on basing great part of the economy on the exports of coffee.

Now many of you might say that corn bushel prices are skyrocketing. Leaving the craziness it is to produce ethanol from corn aside, corn prices are going up throughout the world because, despite the fact that corn production is increasing, the percentage of use for ethanol is also increasing, which therefore decreases the US exports which pushes the price up. In Brazil, that has happened. In Brazil, corn is not as important as wheat, rice and manioc as a basic source of carbohydrates, but it is use as forage for cattle, chicken and pigs.

            Anyway, going back to the Panel on Climate Change, another panelist also put forth the need for different reasons for causing CO2 emissions to be differentiated. The CO2 emitted irresponsibly by a 4-wheel drive car that's driving unnecessarily in the city cannot be compared to any sort of emission caused by any socially-oriented action. Good call. But how to estimate that? How to define what would be a "luxury-emission"? I think this is good in concept but undoable. Anyone who owns a Hummer gets carbon tax. Anyone who uses an electric oven to bake bread for poor children doesn't? I judge that a general enough rule would be extremely difficult to precise, but discussing the issue is a way to get people to think how uselessly they are using their emissions. We need to emit, we breathe, we burn stuff for energy, but what we emit with and how much is the question. Anyway... open for discussion.