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Six months after the first round of planting, the team was ready to measure the 44 trees in one sample plot. Luiz Carlos Batista Lobato, a botanist who specializes in tree censuses, walked across the plot to document three trees that had died, many that were taller than him and one that was more than two inches thick. In a few years, Mr. Batista Lobato said, monkeys and armadillos would come to eat the fruits of different trees and birds would feast on the açaí berries, dispersing their seeds as they move around the forest. Watching the trees start to grow helped to dispel some of the skepticism that farmers across the region still have. “We end up feeling like following the same path,” he added, as he watched the sun set on a vast pasture.

Persons: Luiz Carlos Batista Lobato, Batista Lobato, ”, Djalma Soares, Mr, Soares Locations: Maracaçumé

☆ Tackling Climate Change in the Birthplace of Oil
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-11 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For the second year in a row, the United Nations climate summit known as COP will take place in a petrostate. COP29 will be in Baku, Azerbaijan, and overseen by Mukhtar Babayev, who worked for more than two decades at Socar, Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company. There’s a precedent: Last year’s climate summit was controversially hosted by the United Arab Emirates and led by Sultan Al Jaber, who also runs the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. It remains to be seen whether Babayev, a former low-ranking executive who is now Azerbaijan’s environment minister, will have the same impact. But there is also a poignant historical resonance to COP29: By some measures, Azerbaijan is where the modern oil industry began.

Persons: Mukhtar Babayev, There’s, Sultan Al Jaber, Al Jaber’s, COP28 Organizations: United Arab, Abu, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Locations: United Nations, Baku, Azerbaijan, Socar, Azerbaijan’s, United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi

☆ It’s Always Fire Season Now
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It’s the end of fire season in the Amazon, where I am, and I can smell the smoke from burning trees. So can millions of people in Indonesia, India and the United States. This is almost certainly the hottest year on record, and it seems to be fire season somewhere just about every day. So far this year, wildfires have sent 2,020 megatons of carbon into the atmosphere, according to data from Europe’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. That’s more than what Russia, the world’s third-largest emitter in 2021, behind the U.S. and China, produced that year.

Organizations: Monitoring Locations: Indonesia, India, United States, Russia, China

It’s no secret that fossil fuels are still going strong, as we discussed last month. But a new United Nations-backed report paints an alarming picture of how dramatically coal, oil and gas production is expected to grow in the coming years. If current projections hold, the United States will drill for more oil and gas in 2030 than at any point in its history, our colleague Hiroko Tabuchi reports. In fact, almost all of the top 20 fossil fuel-producing countries plan to produce more oil, gas and coal in 2030 than they do today. “We cannot address climate catastrophe without tackling its root cause: fossil fuel dependence.”

Persons: Hiroko Tabuchi, António Guterres Organizations: United Nations Locations: United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia

☆ Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Falls to a Five-Year Low
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil fell to a five-year low, the country’s National Institute of Space Research announced on Thursday, a sign that Brazil, which has the biggest share of tropical forest in the world, was making progress on its pledge to halt all deforestation by the end of the decade. The decline in tree loss is estimated to have reduced the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5 percent. “Behind this was a political decision,” Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, said on Thursday at a news conference. “We are changing the image of the country when we change this reality.”The announcement was an encouraging sign that local policies could change the trajectory of global forest loss. The world lost 10.2 million acres of primary forest in 2022, a 10 percent increase from the year before, according to an annual survey by the World Resources Institute.

Persons: ” Marina Silva Organizations: National Institute of Space Research, World Resources Institute Locations: Brazil

☆ Climate Change Is Causing Severe Drought in a Volatile Mideast Zone, Study Finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Human-made climate change is driving a yearslong extreme drought in Iran, Iraq and Syria, an area that encompasses a region known as the Fertile Crescent and a cradle of civilization, scientists said on Wednesday. In the last three years, the drought, the second worst on record, has shriveled wheat crops and led to tensions between neighboring countries and communities over access to dwindling water supplies. It has also displaced tens of thousands of people, and helped push millions into hunger. The crisis is evidence of how global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels can act “as a threat multiplier,” said Rana El Hajj, a technical adviser at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center in Lebanon, and one of the 10 authors of the study. It was put out by the World Weather Attribution initiative, an international scientific collaboration that specializes in rapid analysis of extreme weather events.

Persons: ”, Rana El Hajj Organizations: Climate Locations: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon

☆ Clean Energy’s Powerful Momentum
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For the past few months, we’ve been telling you all about the U.S. energy transition that’s arriving faster than you think. But the move toward solar is global: the study’s authors expect solar to be the cheapest source of electricity in almost all countries by 2027. “The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, told Brad. Between 2010 and 2020, the study found, the cost of solar cells fell by 15 percent each year. “The pace of decline in price initially surprised many people,” my colleague Ivan Penn, who covers the energy sector, told me.

Persons: we’ve, Fatih Birol, Brad, Ivan Penn Organizations: International Energy Agency

A toxic algae bloom, likely linked to the drought and extreme heat, has also proliferated in the lake, creating a red stain in the water, although scientists are unsure if it could harm humans or animals. “We’re using nets to try to steer the dolphins out of this area,” Dr. Fleischmann said. Wildfires have consumed more than 18,000 square miles of the Amazon since the start of the year, an area twice the size of Vermont. Checking air quality data each morning has become an anxious habit in the city, as children and older people have ended up in hospitals struggling to breathe, according to doctors in Manaus. “It’s really hard to fill your lungs with air,” she said.

Persons: Dr, Fleischmann, Camila Justa, “ Locations: Vermont, Manaus

☆ The Fault Lines at Climate Week
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-21 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Still, oil producing nations and corporations haven’t yet shown any signs that they are ready to slow down. Britain’s government, a climate leader for years, just announced a change of course that will weaken key environmental pledges, including delays to a ban on the sale of gas and diesel cars. The prime minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Store, told Somini that this is the century when the world will phase out fossil fuel. But he also said he is against setting a deadline for the transition, and defended his country’s continued investment in oil and gas expansion. “By the end of this decade, you will have very good business arguments for not investing in oil and gas and rather investing in solar, wind, hydrogen, these new sources.”

Persons: ”, David, “, Jonas Gahr, Somini Organizations: International Energy Agency Locations: Norway

A lack of proof means that roughly a third of those groups remain unprotected, making expert trackers like Mr. Candor, who have learned how to find forest dwellers who don’t want to be found, critical to their survival. Mr. Candor’s family moved to the Amazon when he was 6. Three years later, Mr. Candor’s mother died. Soon, he stopped going to school and began learning how to survive in the wilderness.

Persons: I’m, ”, Rio Pardo, Candor, Candor’s Locations: Brazil

Ecuador voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to halt oil drilling in one of the most biodiverse places on earth. With almost all ballots counted, 59 percent of voters sided with the young activists who spent a decade fighting for the referendum, as we wrote last week. It is widely considered to be the first time a country’s citizens voted decisively to leave oil in the ground. In a separate referendum, Ecuadoreans also voted to block mining in a biosphere reserve. The oil will keep flowing in dozens of other sites in the Ecuadorean Amazon.

Persons: Ecuadoreans, Monserrat Locations: Ecuador

There was virtually nothing but rainforest for miles, and then the government agents spotted it: a makeshift shelter, the fire still smoldering. “He was just here,” said one of the agents, Jair Candor, crouching beneath the shelter in June as his partner snapped photographs. Candor had spent 35 years searching for a man who did not want to be found — and this time, he just missed him. That man, Tamandua Piripkura, has lived his life on the run. He has lived isolated, deep in the Amazon rainforest, his entire life, believed to be about 50 years.

Persons: ”, Jair, Candor, Tamandua Piripkura

Should Ecuador continue drilling in one of the most biodiverse corners of the Amazon or should it keep the oil underground? On Sunday, its people will decide in a binding referendum that landed on the ballot after a decade-long fight by young activists. As the world faces twin ecological crises of climate change and ecosystem collapse, the vote will determine what one country’s citizens are willing to give up to protect the planet. But oil is Ecuador’s most important export and the government is campaigning for drilling to continue. According to official estimates, the country stands to lose $1.2 billion in revenue a year if the oil is left underground.

Locations: Ecuador

The fires in Hawaii would be shocking anywhere — killing at least 36 people, in one of the deadliest wildfires in the United States in modern history. The explanation is as straightforward as it is sobering: as the planet heats up, no place is protected from disasters. The story of this week’s blaze arguably began decades ago, when Hawaii started experiencing a long-term decline in average annual rainfall. Since 1990, rainfall at selected monitoring sites has been 31 percent lower in the wet season, and 6 percent lower in the dry season, according to work published in 2015 by researchers at the University of Hawaii and the University of Colorado. There are multiple reasons for that change, according to Abby Frazier, a climatologist at Clark University who has researched Hawaii.

Persons: Abby Frazier Organizations: University of Hawaii, University of Colorado, Clark University Locations: Hawaii, United States

☆ Uruguay Wasn’t Supposed to Run Out of Water
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Manuela Andreoni | More About Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Uruguayans have been drinking, cooking and bathing with salty water for months. The longest drought the country has ever recorded left its capital, Montevideo, almost completely dry, forcing the city to add brackish water to its supplies. Water stress is a major concern all over the globe. Climate change didn’t directly cause the drought in Uruguay and neighboring Argentina, as we reported last year. But global warming was a factor in extreme heat that made the drought worse, scientists said, by increasing the loss of moisture from soil and plants.

Organizations: Times Magazine Locations: Montevideo, Iran, Cape Town, São Paulo, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina

On Tuesday, the leaders of eight countries that are home to the Amazon River basin agreed to work together to conserve the world’s largest rainforest at a groundbreaking meeting convened by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. The agreement, called the Belém Declaration, for the Brazilian city where the meeting was held, provides a road map to stave off the rampant deforestation, caused in large part by industrial agriculture and land-grabbing, that has severely damaged the rainforest and has major implications for Earth’s climate. The meeting was also expected to yield a separate agreement on Wednesday among other nations with major rainforests — including the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo and Indonesia — to more closely coordinate protecting the ecosystems globally. The Amazon rainforest is not only a haven of biodiversity but also plays an important role in the fight against climate change because it pulls huge amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and stores it away. Over the past half-century, around 17 percent of the forest has been razed and an even bigger share is severely degraded.

Persons: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Organizations: Democratic Locations: Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Indonesia

Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and yet the vast majority have not been mapped or explored. And man-made climate change is to blame. In today’s newsletter we’ll take a deep dive into what’s happening, with help from our colleagues. ‘Astonishing’ heatThe average temperature of the world’s oceans spiked to 70 degrees Fahrenheit in April, and it’s nearly back to that level once again. (She also made all of the graphics in today’s newsletter.)

Persons: it’s, Elena Shao Locations: Atlantic, Florida, Antarctica

Linda Ressler is an airplane cabin cleaner at the airport in Phoenix, where the temperature has reached or surpassed 110 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 days in a row and counting. Ressler, 57, works the overnight shift inside planes where the air conditioning is off and nighttime temperatures regularly approach 100 degrees. This week, as she was wiping down a tray table, she briefly lost consciousness from the heat. You’re overwhelmed by the heat.”Ressler is just one of millions of workers around the world struggling under extreme temperatures. Heat waves are gripping three continents right now, just after Earth recorded what scientists said were likely its hottest days in modern history.

Persons: Linda Ressler, ”, Ressler Locations: Phoenix

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