Amazon Forest Fire

Biden pledges $50 mn to Amazon Fund, vows irreversible US energy progress

Joe Biden witnessed the devastation of drought up close as the first sitting American president to visit the Amazon rainforest on Sunday, declaring that nobody can reverse "the clean energy revolution that's underway in America" even as the incoming Trump administration is poised to scale back efforts to combat climate change. The massive Amazon region, which is about the size of Australia, stores huge amounts of the world's carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas driving climate change. But development is rapidly depleting the world's largest tropical rainforest, and rivers are drying up. Biden said the fight against climate change has been a defining cause of his presidency -- he's pushed for cleaner air, water and energy, including legislation that marked the most substantial federal investment in history to fight global warming. But he's about to hand the nation over to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who is highly unlikely to prioritise the Amazon or anything related to clima

Biden to be first sitting US president to visit Amazon rainforest

Joe Biden will become the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in the Amazon rainforest during a brief stop Sunday in the Brazilian city of Manaus, coming as the US is expected to scale back its commitment to combating climate change under the incoming administration of Donald Trump. The massive Amazon it's about the size of Australia stores huge amounts of the world's carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas driving climate change, even as it's rapidly deforested. Biden is expected to take an aerial tour over part of the world's largest tropical rainforest, meet local and indigenous leaders and visit an Amazonian museum as he looks to highlight his commitment to the preservation of the region. The Biden administration announced plans last year for a $500 million contribution to the Amazon Fund, the most significant international cooperation effort to preserve the rainforest, primarily financed by Norway. So far, the US government said it has provided $50 million, according to a July

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon drops by nearly 31% compared to last year

Forest loss in Brazil's Amazon dropped by 30.6% compared to the previous year, officials said Wednesday, the lowest level of destruction in nine years. In a 12-month span, the Amazon rainforest lost 6,288 square kilometers (2,428 square miles), roughly the size of the U.S. state of Delaware. The results, announced in Brazils presidential palace, sharply contrast with President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva's predecessor, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies. Deforestation hit a 15-year high during his term. Deforestation in Brazil's vast savannah, known as the Cerrado, decreased by 25.7%, the first decline in five years. The area destroyed reached 8,174 square kilometers (3,156 square miles). Located in central Brazil, it is the world's most biodiverse savannah but has fewer legal protections than the Amazon. Despite the success in curbing Amazon deforestation, Lula's government has been ...

Climate change could reduce Amazon's methane absorption by 70%: Study

Extreme temperatures and humidity driven by climate change could reduce the Amazon rainforest's capacity to absorb the greenhouse gas methane by 70 per cent, a study has found. Researchers said that under a warmer climate, the extreme rainfall and droughts projected for South America's Amazon could impact its net greenhouse gas emissions. Often referred to as the 'lungs of the planet', the tropical rainforest lies majorly in Brazil, with parts in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, among others, and is known to be a crucial 'greenhouse gas sink' that absorbs these gases from the air. However, 20 per cent of the Amazon region, which remains flooded for nearly half a year, releases methane, countering its ability to absorb other greenhouse gases, the researchers at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil said. Their study is published in the journal Environmental Microbiome. Previous studies have shown that the flooded areas of Amazon contribute up to almost 30 per cent of methane emissions from ..

Brazil's Lula to talk climate at UN, but Amazon fires undermines message

When Brazil's President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva opens the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, he is expected to call on the world to do more to combat climate change. It remains to be seen whether he will address fires ravaging the rainforest back home and criticism of his administration's own environmental stewardship. Brazil's Amazon saw 38,000 blazes last month the most for any August since 2010, according to data from the country's space institute. September is on track to repeat that ignoble feat. Smoke has been choking residents of many cities, including metropolis Sao Paulo that's thousands of miles away. Lula has cast these fires as the result of criminals and proposed harsher punishments for environmental offenders. But enforcement has been hampered by a six-month strike at environmental regulator Ibama that ended in August three months after his administration was aware of significantly heightened risk of fires amid historic drought. At the same time, members of his Cabinet

Amid drought in Brazil, wildfires rage, Amazon level falls to record low

Brazil is enduring its worst drought since nationwide measurements began over seven decades ago, with 59% of the country under stress an area roughly half the size of the U.S. Major Amazon basin rivers are registering historic lows, and uncontrolled manmade wildfires have ravaged protected areas and spread smoke over a vast expanse, plummeting air quality. This is the first time that a drought has covered all the way from the North to the country's Southeast, Ana Paula Cunha, a researcher at the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters, said in a statement Thursday. It is the most intense and widespread drought in history. Smoke on Monday afternoon caused Sao Paulo, a metropolitan area of 21 million people, to breathe the second most polluted air in the world after Lahore, Pakistan, according to data gathered by IQAir, a Swiss air technology company. About 1,100 kilometers (683 miles) to the north, a wildfire is sweeping through Chapada dos Veadeiros .

Severe drought returns to Amazon. And it's happening earlier than expected

Holder of one-fifth of the world's fresh water, the Amazon is beginning the dry season with many of its rivers already at critically low levels, prompting governments to anticipate contingency measures to address issues ranging from disrupted navigation to increasing forest fires. The Amazon Basin is facing one of the most severe droughts in recent years in 2024, with significant impacts on several member countries, stated a technical note issued Wednesday by the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, which includes Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. In several rivers in the southwestern Amazon, water levels are the lowest on record for this time of year. Historically, the driest months are August and September, when fire and deforestation peak. So far, the most affected countries are Bolivia, Peru and Brazil, according to ACTO. On Monday, Brazil's federal water agency decreed a water shortage in two major basins, Madeira and Purus, which cove

French, Brazilian presidents meet, announce $1.1 bn investment for Amazon

The Brazilian and the French presidents on Tuesday announced a plan to invest 1 billion euros (USD 1.1 billion) in the Amazon, including parts of the rainforest in neighbouring French Guiana. The two countries' governments said in a joint-statement the money will be spread over the next four years to protect the rainforest. It will be a collaboration of state-run Brazilian banks and France's investment agency. Private resources will also be welcomed, Brazil and France said. French President Emmanuel Macron's and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Incio Lula da Silva are meeting this week to revive the relationship between the countries after years of frictions with former President Jair Bolsonaro, deepen cooperation to protect the rainforest and boost trade. Macron started his three-day visit to Brazil in the Amazon city of Belem, where he met his long-time ally Lula. The French president then took a boat to the Combu island to meet with Indigenous leaders. Both Macron and Lula saw a .

Global warming, not El Nino was primary cause of Amazon drought: Report

Human-induced global warming, and not El Nio, was the primary driver of last year's severe drought in the Amazon that sent rivers to record lows, required deliveries of food and drinking water to hundreds of river communities and killed dozens of endangered dolphins, researchers said on Wednesday. Both climate change and El Nio contributed about equally to a reduction in rainfall. But higher global temperatures were the biggest reason for the drought, according to World Weather Attribution, an initiative that brings together climate scientists to rapidly analyze extreme events and their possible connections to climate change. The drought was agricultural, combining reduced rainfall with hotter conditions that evaporated moisture from plants and soil. It was that heat-driven evaporation that was critical in the drought's severity, said study co-author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Imperial College of London. What is now about a one-in-50-year event would have been much

In Brazil's Amazon, rivers fall to record low levels during drought

The Negro River, the Amazon's second largest tributary, on Monday reached its lowest level since official measurements began near Manaus 121 years ago. The record confirms that this part of the world's largest rainforest is suffering its worst drought, just a little over two years after its most significant flooding. In the morning, the water level in the city's port went as low as 13.5 metres (44.3 feet), down from 30.02 metres (98.5 feet) registered in June 2021 its highest level on record. The Negro River drains about 10% of the Amazon basin and is the world's sixth largest by water volume. Madeira River, another main tributary of the Amazon, has also recorded historically low levels, causing the halt of the Santo Antonio hydroelectric dam, Brazil's fourth largest. Throughout Brazil's Amazon, low river levels have left hundreds of riverine communities isolated and struggling to get access to drinkable water. The drought also has disrupted commercial navigation that supplies ...

Amazon nations seek support on climate change, urge developed countries

Eight Amazon nations called on industrialized countries to do more to help preserve the world's largest rainforest as they met at a major summit in Brazil to chart a common course on how to combat climate change. The leaders of South American nations that are home to the Amazon, meeting at a two-day summit in the city of Belem that ends Wednesday, said the task of stopping the destruction of the rainforest can't fall to just a few when the crisis has been caused by so many. The members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, or ACTO, are hoping a united front will give them a major voice in global talks. The forest unites us. It is time to look at the heart of our continent and consolidate, once and for all, our Amazon identity, said Brazilian President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva. The calls from the presidents of nations including Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia came as leaders aim to fuel much-needed economic development in their regions while preventing the Amazon's ongoing dem

Brazil builds 'rings of CO2' to simulate climate change in the Amazon

In the depths of the Amazon, Brazil is building an otherworldly structure a complex of towers arrayed in six rings, poised to spray mists of carbon dioxide into the rainforest. But the reason is utterly terrestrial: to understand how the world's largest tropical forest responds to climate change. Dubbed AmazonFACE, the project will probe the forest's remarkable ability to sequester carbon dioxide an essential piece in the puzzle of world climate change. This will help scientists understand whether the region has a tipping point that could throw it into a state of irreversible decline. Such a feared event, also known as the Amazon forest dieback, would transform the world's most biodiverse forest into a drier savannah-like landscape. FACE stands for Free Air CO2 Enrichment. This technology first developed by Brookhaven National Laboratory, located near New York City, has the ability to modify the surrounding environment of growing plants in a way that replicates future levels of ...

Great Britain to donate $100 million to save Brazil's Amazon rainforest

Britain pledged Friday to give about USD 100 million to the Brazilian government's fund to protect the Amazon rainforest, as the South American country beefs up protection of the environment under its new leadership. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Brazil's President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, who took office in January, announced the contribution to the Amazon Fund on Friday after meeting in London ahead of Saturday's coronation of King Charles III. The fund was launched in 2009 to fight against deforestation and build sustainable initiatives in the Brazilian rainforest, a vital natural reserve soaking up fumes from oil, natural gas and coal in South America. The committee that governs it was partially dismantled when rightist President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, and rebooted by the leftist Lula this year. "President Lula has exhibited great leadership on climate change," Sunak said on Twitter, adding that he was pleased that Britain would contribute 80 million pound

Human activity degraded more than a third of remaining Amazon forest: Study

The Amazon rainforest has been degraded by a much greater extent than scientists previously believed with more than a third of remaining forest affected by humans, according to a new study. The study shows that up to 38 per cent of the remaining Amazon forest area - equivalent to ten times the size of the UK - has been affected by some form of human disturbance, causing carbon emissions equivalent to or greater than those from deforestation. The paper was led by an international team of 35 scientists and researchers, from institutions such as Brazil's University of Campinas (Unicamp), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and UK's Lancaster University, it said. The work is the result of the AIMES (Analysis, Integration and Modelling of the Earth System) project, linked to the Future Earth international initiative, which brings together scientists and researchers who study sustainability, the study said. The findings, ...

How Burning trees in Brazil's Amazon melts snow in the Himalayas

Scientists are only beginning to investigate the connections between far-flung components of the planet's climate system

Amazon rainforest deteriorating too fast for species, climate to adapt

Already, 17% of the rainforest has been impacted by disturbances like logging, fires and road expansion, and 14% of it has been replaced with pasture or cropland

Brazil Amazon fires hits 5-year high in August amid surge in deforestation

More fires burned in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest this August than in any month in nearly five years, thanks to a surge in illegal deforestation. Satellite sensors detected 33,116 fires according to Brazil's national space institute. The dry season months of August and September are usually worst for both deforestation and fire. It was also the worst August for fire in 12 years. That includes August of 2019, when images of the burning rainforest shocked the world and drew criticism from European leaders. Bolsonaro had recently taken office and was turning environmental enforcement on its head, saying criminals should not be fined and promising development of the Amazon. The far-right president downplayed the raging fires then and continues to do so today. He told media network Globo on Aug. 22 the worst single day for outbreaks of fire in 15 years that the criticism is part of an effort to undermine the nation's agribusiness sector. Brazil does not deserve to be attacked in th

Brazil's Amazon deforestation surges to worst in 15 years, data shows

Jair Bolsonaro's term blamed for acceleration of Amazon losing forest cover.

India lost 14% tree cover amid Covid, rainforest destruction up 12% in 2020

The resulting carbon emissions from this primary forest loss (2.64 Gt CO2) are equivalent to the annual emissions of 570 million cars

Fires in Amazon rainforest up 28% to 6,803 in July, worrying experts

Environmentalists worry at the rise because August traditionally marks the beginning of the fire season in the region