INTERVIEW - Global Warming Demands Global Effort - Brazil
Date: 05-Feb-07
Country: BRAZIL
Author: Maria Pia Palermo
The United Nation's panel on climate change released its latest report on Friday strengthening its view that rising temperatures on Earth in the past 50 years are very likely, or 90 percent probable, the result of humans.
With the rise in average global temperatures come rising sea levels, more devastating hurricanes and flooding as well as the expansion of deserts and droughts, the report said.
Brazil's Amazon forest, the largest rainforest that has been called the lungs of the world, could face more and stronger droughts, which has in the past coincided with higher rates of deforestation.
"Humanity should make every effort to prevent this, not only in the Amazon forest but in all of the planet's forests that are threatened," Silva, the daughter of former rubber tappers, told Reuters in a telephone interview on Friday night.
Forty-six nations called for the creation of a more powerful UN environment agency on Saturday, saying the survival of humanity was at risk, but the United States, China and Russia did not sign up.
SHOVING MATCH
Silva said that even if developing countries such as Brazil did their part, if developed countries such as the United States did not contribute to slow carbon emissions, societies would likely fail to slow warming.
"A shoving match doesn't solve anything. Everybody has to do their part," she said. "The rich are pointing at the poor (countries) and the poor, at the rich, when we are all running the risk of seeing this catastrophe happen."
Silva said that countries will need to change their development models to account for a changing environment.
"Brazil is looking to change this paradigm of how economic growth does under varying environments," she said and added that the current debate is not limited to the environment.
The vast majority of Brazil's electric energy generation comes from hydroelectric dams. If these reservoirs suffer from prolonged drought, economic growth will suffer severely as it did after the 2001 energy rationing.
Silva pointed out that Brazil has one of the world's most developed biofuels production and distribution networks in the world, mostly based on a highly efficient cane-based ethanol industry. Ethanol accounts for 40 percent of all non-diesel vehicle fuel consumed by motorists in the country.
But the main center-south sugar cane belt could easily suffer from drought and force Brazil to find fuel elsewhere.
"At a moment such as this, in which we are discussing all this environmental catastrophe, it is not pertinent to place environmental concerns in opposition to economic development and vice-versa," she said.