Brazil has the power to save the Amazon rainforest, or destroy it
economist.com
economist.com
Wood, Soybeans and Cattle. The agricultural industry is behind this.
Europe has done that to other's countries (colonies) forests as well.
It may be politically easier to impose sanctions or tariffs on foreign countries than to ban or tax their own electorate. I'm in favour of forcing other countries to clean up especially if those countries in turn force my country to do the same.
Look, if you reason like that you essentially say that you can never apply any pressure on others, because pressure might turn out to be too much, and might then lead to destabilization, and might then lead to conflict, which might grow into a horrible large-scale war. But that's putting yourself in a very weak position. Others may well take advantage, and you may end up in an even worse situation - on average. All that doomsday thinking about pressure is probably usually being to pessimistic. And even if things go badly, they shouldn't do so overnight; it's quite unlikely another nation wouldn't have the opportunity to reduce pressure before push comes to the rhetorical shoving.
The whole point to fight against climate change is to save future lives, but if this comes at a huge cost of present lives, then that outweighs the potential future problems.
If you put pressure on a country economically, especially one that's poor then you're creating enemies for yourself for generations. It destroys goodwill and cooperation. Look at Russia right now. They're clearly moving towards isolating themselves from the global economy, even though they brought this on themselves with hostile actions. Now imagine what would happen when other countries band together against a poor country to do the same.
I think the ill-will is probably worth it, especially if it turns out to work and future Brazilians agree that it worked. And how pressure (I didn't say sanctions, a previous poster did!) is applies matters, obviously the aim should be to both minimize the pain to normal Brazilians, and to make it as clear as possible why the sanctions (if they're part of that pressure packages) apply, and to do so so forcefully that change is inevitable.
I don't actually think Russia is a good example here at all; because the sanctions imposed on Russia are due to state belligerence - it's not easy to target those sanctions, and the Russian state has ways to subvert whatever targetting does exist. That's quite different in Brazil's case. The Brazilian state may not longer be enforcing the rules against deforestation, but it's still at least officially the policy, and I kind of doubt most Brazilians actively want the rainforest to disappear. Instead, the problem is economic incentives; and those can be more targetted externally, for instance by targetting industries that primarily cause the destruction; e.g. a ban on beef and milk products from countries in which deforestation for cattle ranching occurs, etc. If you want to retain the appearance of neutrality and don't mind spending a bit of money, you could even offset that by reductions in tariffs elsewhere, or even by subsidizing some other thing Brazilians care about or whatever.
Regardless, that's only ever going to work if Brazil eventually sees the light and agrees that saving the rainforest is worthwhile, so whatever penalties are part of the pressure package must never be enough to simultaneously piss off enough Brazilians to matter while being small enough that they stay in force for long enough to cause bad blood. If that's not doable, better to look for other pressure points; there's nothing to be won by pissing people off, harming yourself (sanctions aren't free) and Brazil, and then not having anything to show for it.
Otherwise it is nothing more than hooliganism.
People in poor countries suffer. You're basically saying that they should have fewer opportunities than others.
Of course we should do our best towards fairness as well, but perfectionism amounts to giving up.
Edit: also, many rich countries have chopped away their forests and it's now plain that doing sustainable forestry would have been much better even for the time.
If all you have to burn is wood, and all you can grow are relatively unimproved crops, then that's what you burn and grow. But nowadays even the poorest of countries has better options available, and likely can get some help in exploring those options too.
Also, brazil is not some weak, destitute country. It's GDP is comparable to italy & france, and even per capita it's similar to the EU members bulgaria and romania. At PPP, the average income is pretty much smack on the world average, similar to china and serbia (the poorest EU country). Brazil isn't rich, but neither is it poor; it has the means to spend at least a small amount of effort avoiding deforstation. And let's not forget that deforestation will likely hurt Brazil too in the medium term; trying to avoid that isn't asking for a major sacrifice. It's asking for calm, rationality, and discipline. And yes, that's not at all trivial, but it's not a black and white affair either; some improvement is probably achievable, right?
Bulgaria is a poor country. Bringing them up as an example is a bad idea, because life there isn't great.
>But nowadays even the poorest of countries has better options available, and likely can get some help in exploring those options too.
Yeah, and that "help" will come after we've sanctioned them into irrelevance, right?
How would you feel if people discussed openly like this that China should buy a large chunk of the US and force the US to submit through sanctions from the world? Sanctions that would likely severely impact the quality of life of the people in the US? (Even then Americans would still be richer than Brazilians are right now.)
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As to sanctions, and the fairness and perception thereof:
I don't think that fairness matters; nor should matter. There's no good way to figure out what's "fair" and what's not in the first place, and different people have different perceptions. Waiting for fairness simply implies not acting; and that's too costly. The whole situation isn't trivially generalizable to other countries anyhow; deforestation of the amazon happens in the amazon basin, i.e. largely in Brazil. This circumstance applies here, not elsewhere, and circumstances aren't always irrelevant.
Furthermore: the only reason to apply sanctions in the first place (and I hope I wasn't the poster to use that word?) is to induce change. If the sanctions are too mild and change not induced, they're merely harmful. If sanctions do induce change, then there's no "sanctioning into irrelevance" to speak of anymore, right?
But personally: I'd hope that sanctions could be applies precisely enough to induce change without impacting quality of life very much for the vast majority of brazilians that aren't chopping away daily. E.g. by prohibiting the trade in goods that encourage chopping as long as chopping persists (beef and vegetable oil IIRC?); If you want fairness; how about a simultaneous push to lower tariffs or other barriers on other goods. The aim should not be to punish, simply to force change.
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Finally, I'm going to emphasize that I really think aiming for international fairness is a terrible idea here - but... if indeed a similar issue were to face the US or EU, I'd vehemently agree that sanctions are warranted. And there are issues where it'd be only fair to apply pressure even today. But the thing is: it's not a tit-for-tat game; the point is to cause change. Sanctions that don't cause change are worse than pointless; they're damaging. And however unfair that may be, I don't think it's going to be easy to leverage the US like that anytime soon. Maybe china, you're right... but then the question is whether they'd do that even if it's in the rest of the world's interest - after all, sanctions typically hurt the sanctioning country too (both directly and indirectly), not to mention cause diplomatic damage. If if china had the leverage, would they "waste" it on something like GHG, or instead prefer to "win" the next trade war?
Which brings me to a small dose of realism: it might be benevolent and selfless to apply pressure on Brazil wrt. the rainforest today, but which country is going to waste whatever leverage they have over Brazil and squander diplomatic goodwill over a rainforest that's everyone's problem, most specifically Brazil's too? Brazilians might even be better off in the long run - but countries aren't easily that selfless, so it's not going to happen. This whole discussion is likely going to remain hypothetical.
I have been to Brazil and the situation is very different there. You are correct that the GDP is comparable, but the gap between the rich and the poor there is far worse, though I don't have the stats to back up my claim. Just an observation.
That being said I'm sure that the short term profits they make from cutting the rainforest will definitely only help widen the gap between the rich and the poor there. I agree with you that they have other options to better their situation in a more sustainable way.
Ref:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...
How is that fair?
There is nothing good here, much less perfection. US and China, only 2 countries, can do far more to fight climate change. I want Amazon to be saved as much as anybody else. Deforestation of Amazon is something large scaled stuff and protecting it is also a big task. If we want Brazil to stop Amazon deforestation, we must also make sure that counties like US, China must also take similar big steps.
[1] https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/how-china-brought-it...
What "suffering" has the rest of the world done to brazil ?
That’s how you mitigate the externality that’s going on.
And a tariff works as well as a subsidy, but is easier to get the party imposing it to enact because it generates revenue rather than consuming it.
https://medium.com/@indica/climate-winners-and-losers-in-two...
Essentially countries that are causing climate are the industrialised world (obv.). Countries that are vital to stopping climate change because they have huge green areas, ie Brasil, are actually being heavily impacted by climate change and now they are being climateblamed by the first world for chopping down their forests for productive activities. Well if the first world wants the forest to stay they ought to pay for it. They also ought to drastically reduce their carbon emissions.
It’s funny how the same citizen of the same countries who are not doing their share of reducing emissions (US) are claiming in the same breath that Brasil should be punished for destroying a forest the West is desperate to protect. Well then protect it - tax your corporations for carbon emissions and buy up the amazon to protect it. Simple.
It seems like a pretty direct relationship. Your link is comparing who caused the damage to who suffers it, but that's not the same as comparing who caused to who can prevent it. The people who can prevent it are the people still causing it. Notice that Brazil is the same color (red) in both versions of that map. (It's also a misleading comparison because the "harm" side is measuring change in GDP growth per capita, but GDP growth per capita is smaller in developed countries to begin with. And then comparing that per capita number with absolute rather than per capita CO2 emissions.)
> Countries that are vital to stopping climate change because they have huge green areas, ie Brasil, are actually being heavily impacted by climate change and now they are being climateblamed by the first world for chopping down their forests for productive activities. Well if the first world wants the forest to stay they ought to pay for it.
Should we make the same argument all around? Generating electricity is for productive activities. If the third world wants the US stop burning coal then they should pay for it? No. The country doing the bad thing should suffer the cost of stopping it.
> Well then protect it - tax your corporations for carbon emissions and buy up the amazon to protect it. Simple.
It's easier to get tariffs put on a foreign country than pass a tax on your own people. It would be nice if some other countries (China? Europe?) could put some tariffs on the US tied to some CO2 targets as well.
Yeah sure if there were tariffs all around. But the US hegemony was until recently sort of predicated on little tariffs and global trade. So your advocating a sort of ... I don’t even know how to describe it - reverse carbon mercantilism where everybody attacks each other’s carbon emissions through tariffs? That sounds like a good recepy for dramatically worsening international relations.
Because nobody is forcing them to do otherwise. So get somebody to.
> That sounds like a good recepy for dramatically worsening international relations.
Not really, because the point of the tariffs is to change behavior, not to actually collect the tariffs. You impose a high enough cost that reducing CO2 emissions is less expensive than paying the tariffs, so countries do that and then the tariffs don't get imposed because they're only imposed on countries that don't hit their targets.
Essentially the citizenship gets off free for not voting in more responsible politicians, and hey, “it’s the other countries fault for not forcing us to do it”. Hilarious.
It’s like any internal change is impossible i his mind - the only way anything can happen is if other countries tariff each other, and if other countries force the US’s hand... why isn’t he campaigning for change instead of sitting around and saying other, “more responsible” countries, need to force the US to take action?
That’s what I meant with “getting off free”. The population of the US, as far as I can tell, can choose some of their governments direction.
I still don’t understand how you would get this to work unless it was some sort of universal agreement. If it wasn’t such, what would stop it from descending into a carbon war, similar to the trade wars we have now with Trump, with cleaner countries aggressively adding tariffs to poorer, “dirtier” countries? It would just be a form of de-development for poor countries who can’t upgrade.
The main reason would be that the poorer countries as a rule aren't actually dirtier. Countries by CO2 per capita:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
It's basically a list sorted by approximately how rich they are, with rich oil states and big first world countries like the US, Canada and Australia at the top and impoverished African countries at the bottom.
Moreover, actual poor countries like Haiti and Kenya are irrelevant in this game. They're emitting negligible amounts now and for new infrastructure renewables are already cheaper.
This is all about the western countries and BRIC. None of them are "poor" to the extent that they can't be expected to pay the cost to clean up their own house. It's one thing to worry about countries like Ethiopia, but Russia is not that.
Meanwhile the nature of the shift away from carbon makes it an economic stimulus for non-oil exporting countries like India and China because it allows them to stop paying to import oil and instead pay for renewables that can be from domestic producers.
“Tariffs are easier to enable”. Sure, FOR YOU. By you are fucking over Brasil twice - once by enacting climate by your irresponsible, untaxed and unregulated carbon emissions. Then by BLAMING Brasil for doing something productive with THEIR forest land.
Why don’t you just tax your own carbon emissions and make a difference instead? Oh it’s politically difficult. Same as any action against carbon emissions.
So let’s fuck over the third world twice by A) causing climate change which will affect them more than us and B) making THEM PAY for OUR IRRESPONSIBILITY.
Why ? Because it’s more politically feasible to fuck them than to limit our own industrial capacity. America First
And it doesn't even necessarily change anything. Read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem
The difference between tariffs and subsidies is who gets the money. But even that doesn't really change very much unless the different people have significantly different preferences. If the American fat cats are just going to invest the money into the same ventures as the Brazilian fat cats then there is no real difference at all.
Suppose we give them money for the rain forest so they leave it alone, and they take the money and invest it in the S&P 500, and then take the returns from that and reinvest it in the same thing.
Suppose instead we threaten them with trade sanctions if they don't leave the rain forest alone, keep our money and invest it in the S&P 500 ourselves.
It's the same result in practice. The real cost to Brazil is that they don't get to have an agriculture industry where there used to be rain forest. Which fat cat subsequently gets to be the nominal owner of some shares of SPX has no real effect on ordinary humans. The fat cats care but nothing real changes for anybody else.
Because we all know Brazilians don't need oxygen to breathe.
In the Mato Grosso Region, it is cut down in order to make way for soy. In Goias, there are plans to build dams in areas of preservation.
This is the region where my favorite animal lives: the maned wolf.
These places are also quite dry and the Amazon produces the humidity they need. Without the Amazon, the Southeast will become a lot drier. So Brazilians themselves ought worry about it.
Stopping buying from Brazil won’t halt the internal markets purchasing of beef and soy, which as I am aware makes up the majority of the land usage.
Just to clarify, I am not pro bringing down the Amazon rainforest, only raising the flag on the tendency to outsource responsibility when it comes to the environment.
Pressuring Brazil via trade might work; especially since it's simply not in Brazil's own (medium to long term) economic interests to deforest.
Pressuring the US and china via trade will simply not work. Who is going to do that pressuring, exactly? The EU is busy trying to stave off collapse and infighting, most of africa has more pressing matters than picking fights with superpowers, Russia and other fossil fuel exporters have strong interests is keeping GHG emissions high at least for a while... so... india, maybe? Yeah, right.
Avoiding deforestation is a good idea regardless of what others do with respects to GHG emissions. Hurting yourself and others because life isn't fair enough is ridiculously short sighted. And you know, maybe you could think of other ways to coax china and the US to reduce GHG emissions. At least china isn't run by self-delusional maniacs, so maybe you can get them on board, and then maybe you can pressure the US with china. Or maybe the US miraculously cures its own partisan infighting and decides to be rational and less self destructive, and can help with china. But waiting for their leadership to do anything while whining that life is unfair sounds like a pretty bad idea right about now.
Not practical but a solution...
Why would we want that? "We" want the rainforest, habitat to so many wildlife, to remain intact, as undisturbed as possible. So if the protected rainforest is then part of brazil or a hypothetical WWF or greenpeace state doesn't really matter to me, as long as the rainforest remains protected.
And yes, the main problem seems to be the poverty of the local population. When you are poor and starving, you cannot really care about enviroment. But as far as I know, all the industrialscale rainforest cutting and soy farming did not really changed something about the poverty, or did it?
Because Brazil wants Brazil to remain one country. That kind of a thing takes precedence over essentially any environmental issues for them. You can disregard it, but you will then not understand why Brazil won't play ball.
All the indigenous people want to be so much part of Brazil? (Or were ever asked, if they want to be part of it in the first place?)
I kind of doubt that.
So naivlely asking, why should the corrupt oligarchies in the cities, should have any rights about the rainforest in the first place, when all they care about is to squeeze as much money out of it as possible?
Because teritorial integrity is the sacred cow of modern politics and everybody too scared, what else might happen, if this dogma is to be questioned? Probably yes. So serious international pressure on brazil about really protecting the rainforest, is right now probably the way to go. (Which of course, does not exclude pressure on other sinners)
But it probably does not hurt, if people think about loudly about other consequences, of what might happen if the brazilian government continues to not give a damn, as there are really many supporters of the amazonas rainforest around the globe.
Compromising another country's territorial integrity can very easily lead to a justified war.
So again, why is the amazonian rainforest the property of the brazilian government? Did they plant it? Did they bought it from the people who used to live there? I don't think so. In the end, it comes down to power. Your government might be stronger than the natives living there, but like I said, more people care about the rainforest now, than the people who lived there.
They fought for and defended their territory just as other sovereign countries.
Quote from some levels above:
> Why do the natural oil reserves in Texas or Alaska belong to the US?
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pristine-untou...
People in Recife[0] are poor? O.k., maybe a single city isn't fair. How about Pernambuco[1]? Something like 31% of the entire population of Brasil is below the poverty line[2] and I somehow doubt that that specific one-third of the population only lives throughout the north and northeast.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recife
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pernambuco
[2] - https://archive.fo/sBTbE
(1) Low-hanging fruit. Brazil has a huge CO2 sink today. It doesn't need to change infrastructure or teach its public new habits or almost anything in order to preserve it. We can preserve and even improve this CO2 sink with a single decision to ban its destruction. Other countries such as the U.S. has very few such big-ticket items -- it has a million small-ticket items, many of which require social engineering (reduce consumption, stop traveling) or big infrastructure changes (electric cars, public transit, gas tax, nuclear and renewable power, bans on various power-inefficient things).
(2) Global warming is global. One country can destroy the environment for the entire planet. It's our responsibility to act everywhere. Environmentalism doesn't need borders. One could also argue that Brazil doesn't have the moral right to destroy a natural resource like this (nor does any other country).
Your comment smells of whataboutism. How dare we impinge on another country's sovereignty when our own garden desperately needs tending? The answer in all such cases is, of course: You can do both.
Eu não posso entender: Your proposed solution is that Brasil should carry-on doing whatever it wants with the Amazon Rain Forest and other countries should address their own CO^2 emissions, correct?
What is the argument, then, when you consider that Brasil will surpass those very same countries in CO^2 emissions when it no longer has a sink to counteract the effects of its own emissions?
Essentially, you're saying, "Everyone should look after their own messes and let us do what we want," whilst largely ignoring the fact that Brasil would - based on your proposition - be the resultant Sampson to the environment as a direct byproduct of that very premise.
Why can't it be both that the "world's lungs", as the Amazon Rainforest is oft coined, not be devastated and other countries fix their emissions?
This "muh sovruntee" mentality is precisely why we're stagnating (or even regressing) any progress on the positive feedback loop that we're currently sliding into. For example (if I understand correctly), it's why the states backed out of the Paris Agreements[0].
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...
Yes, because that's exactly how western fibrous became rich. Now that you're rich you want to bar this path for other countries.
I hope you understand that when you suggest intentional pressure to divide a country you're essentially asking for war.
Where is this assumption coming from that I am suggesting international pressure to divide a country? To stop deforestation of Amazon Rainforest? Sure. However, there's a vast berth between that and dividing a country and the former doesn't automatically equate to the latter, yeah?
Once again, that doesn't mean Brazil should just burn the whole thing to the ground. But the way this will be accomplished is not through hypocrite, neo-imperialistic BS politics. But rather through economically sound negotiations, international agreements, multilateral commitments, that are advantageous for the parties involved.
Brazil has about 66.3% of its overall land in a “reserved/protected” state, which is protected by law.
Source: https://agroecologia.org.br/2019/01/14/censo-agropecuario-de...
This is over 631 million hectares of land destined for preservation, Equivalent to 48 European countries COMBINED.
Amazon is not just IN BRAZIL, but spans over 9 nations.
No, I am not saying that’s a “green light” for full on deforestation nor I am saying that Brazil is doing a the most fantastic job preserving it.
What I am saying is that Brazil IS doing something to preserve the Amazon AND other forest land such as “Serra do Mar” and that a coalition of funds/resources could help improve enforcement of the law in these Protected areas. This much more “attainable” or acceptable by the current Brazilian government, which is currently very nationalist and patriotic. (President is retired Army captain, very right wing)
Brazil would not part/sell with a piece of its national sovereign territory to anyone, even if it’s for a “greater good”, just as US would not sell the Tongass forest in Alaska or the Humboldt-Toiyabe in California/Nevada “for greater good”
Every country has it’s share in controlling carbon emissions and global warming. No country should “outsource” their share of responsibility by enforcing environmental protection standards they are not willing to withhold themselves.
TL;DR: Brazil has some protections in place, could use some help, would not sell the Amazon because it’s part/territory of Brazil and 8 other countries.
Full disclosure: Brazilian by birth, American by choice
One can understand how this attitude undermines the integrity of the reserve.
There is no way that world politicians and governments are going to move in time to prevent this, because it would take unpopular and easily attackable measures to prevent that.
If some government tries to heavily tax beef, there is going to be a riot, and those politicians would be putting a target on their backs for attacks by populists.
There is no way, it all happens slowly, much slower than the electoral cycle, the politicians in charge are usually seeking personal glory and long mandates, these measures would mean political suicide.
12 years is the time we have to prevent the rise of 2 degrees, its not hapening its as good as done.
I increasingly view demands for coordination as counterproductive. There will never be full consensus about anything.
Meanwhile, if e.g. California imposed a carbon tax on its own, would it destroy them? No, people wouldn't stop living in California just because it became more economical to install solar panels or buy a Nissan Leaf rather than a Toyota. And a market of even that size that went hard for fossil fuel alternatives would both show others that it can be done and create an economic advantage for itself by getting ahead of the curve and causing the companies implementing what must be the future for everyone as businesses inside their jurisdiction.
> If some government tries to heavily tax beef, there is going to be a riot, and those politicians would be putting a target on their backs for attacks by populists.
The answer is to make it revenue neutral and distribute the money as a cash dividend to the population. Then people whinge about the tax and love the credit and it cancels out across the population -- exactly cancels out, because that's what revenue neutral means. But you still get the consumer preference for things that don't destroy the world.
It's time to stop fighting these wars on their respective front lines, and aggressively pursue the responsible ministers, executives and shareholders.
If we did factor in those costs, if we put a value on the Amazon as the lungs of the world, then it would be more profitable to preserve it than to destroy it.
A carbon tax is a bipartisan solution to this problem. Factor in the negative externalities, and pay a dividend to places that provide a global, environmental service by protecting their forests.
Particularly on the point of fertility, the best we can do is help the final billion people that currently live in extreme poverty. This causes the transition from large families and high mortality rate to 2-child families with low mortality, independent of religion or anything else. We are almost there, except for that last 13%.
The population explosion we have seen in the last century is due to the transition, where people got large families and suddenly none of the children died before they could get children of their own. The projection from the UN is that the population increase will stop around the year 2100 and top off at about 12 billion. That's a lot of people, but there is no reasonable alternative: nobody will stand for killing even one billion people, let alone the multiple billions that would make a significant difference in humanity's footprint. For perspective, to kill one billion, you would have to kill everyone currently alive in both north and south America. We can't let Africa starve to death (most of them aren't starving to death anymore anyway), so withholding vaccines or development aid won't prevent those four extra billion people from coming into the world, either.
We need to continue to support countries to make the transition as fast as possible. Even if it is a big risk to try and live with 12 billion people on this planet, that is the only way forward that people will support, and so it is our only option.
By the way, if anyone else would like a copy of Factfulness, I think the book is hugely important to read for everyone. If you think the price is too steep, I would be happy to pay 50% of your copy. (I would say 100%, but people abuse stuff that is free, and it's not expensive anyway.) I can also share a preview of the book to help you decide whether you should buy a copy or not.