Article originally published on the Mídia Ninja website, on 24/10/2024

Don’t be surprised by the use (once again!) of the figure of the apocalypse. Fires and floods, organized crime and false prophets, among other signs of the times, bring us closer to it, and it is not easy to find another similar one. It is also worth repeating that the apocalypse, in general, is the end of “one world,” and that “another world” will come ‒ in Christian belief, the kingdom of God on Earth. Despite everything, the Bible lends hope its popular strength.

In 2023, the Amazon, once called the “lungs of the world,” emitted more greenhouse gases than it absorbed due to uncontrolled forest fires. Heated by the greenhouse effect, the oceans are releasing methane into the atmosphere instead of oxygen. There are many signs of the “tipping point,” the point of no return, after which, according to scientists, the climate crisis becomes irreversible and begins to feed on itself.

Cities isolated by drought or destroyed by floods. Heat waves. Record fires, criminals. The natural course of the “flying rivers”, which carry rain from the Amazon to the center-south of the country, was taken over by a gigantic cloud of smoke and soot, affecting all of Brazil and neighboring countries.

Popular wisdom says that we only learn through love, or through pain. Love is the energy to protect and rescue lives, and to bring people together to build the future. It does not move those responsible for the climate emergency. Pain, in itself, does not teach enough to transform. Without the accumulation of alliances and projects through love, everything can go backwards when we turn to pain.

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Resilience of evil

By 1970, there was already scientific evidence that the accumulation of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere was trapping more heat from the sun's rays in the atmosphere and causing the Earth's average temperature to rise. 

In 1992, at the UN conference held in Rio de Janeiro (RIO-92), heads of state from around the world signed two conventions, one on the conservation of biological diversity and one on global climate change.

The Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 by world leaders, and all countries declared commitments and targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At the end of a decade, countries must renew and renegotiate these commitments, known as “NDCs” (Nationally Determined Contributions), at upcoming UN conferences.

The fact is that, after half a century of knowledge about the serious climate emergency (or 30 years after the UN convention), countries or contemporary civilization have not been able to contain the increase in emissions and begin a reduction process. They continue to increase, as do their sources: the production and use of coal, oil and gas, as well as the destruction of forests, among others.

Here in Brazil, predators are taking advantage of the severe drought to use fire as a weapon of political revenge, economic competition, or as an expression of hatred or revolt. Petrobras is planning an energy transition with no clear horizon. Not even the agribusiness sector that is most open to debate is taking responsibility or organizing itself to curb land grabbing and illegal deforestation. It wants an NDC without any progress, as if the worsening climate crisis, which is so threatening to agriculture, were willing to wait for us.

Between April and May of this year, Porto Alegre suffered a devastating flood, the worst climate disaster in the history of Rio Grande do Sul. Negligence in maintaining the dike system that protects the city worsened its impact. But this did not prevent the current mayor, Sebastião Melo (MDB), from almost being reelected in the first round and is the favorite to go to the second round on October 27.

Tragedy, in itself, does not change history. It triggers a crisis, but change presupposes prior accumulation of options that mobilize hearts and minds at the right time. At every right time. Otherwise, the pain and cost of the journey are prolonged.

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Beyond the limit

Even if, by some miracle, it were possible to instantly reduce global emissions to zero, it would still take a century or more to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. Unless a global reforestation effort can shorten the path. However, a process of gradual reduction of global emissions has not even begun.

Recent studies indicate that the extreme weather events that have been occurring in many places were not expected until 2050 or later. Global warming is accelerating and reducing the time for humanity to respond. Meanwhile, chronic wars and trade disputes are making it harder to move forward in international negotiations. We will see what goals countries will adopt when reviewing their NDCs. They are likely to fall far short of what is needed to meet the urgency of the climate challenge.

Brazil has been consistently reducing deforestation in the Amazon, which is its main source of emissions. This is providing an important stimulus to the global effort to reduce emissions. However, since 2023, it has been suffering from floods that have caused victims in several cities, successive heat waves, consecutive record droughts and arson in the Amazon and Pantanal, with clouds of soot, reduced water availability and greater agricultural losses.

Even so, the ruralist caucus in Congress continues to approve bills that reduce environmental protection and the rights of traditional peoples. It attacks the government's environmental department and honors climate skeptics, wallowing in climate denialism. What matters most is the sealing of the deal for immediate use on social media and electoral speeches, as well as easy money. And the rest can go to hell!

No solution will fall from the sky, especially because the crisis was created and continues to be fueled by human civilization, which is responsible for finding a solution or not. In Brazil, the upper echelons of society are signaling that they will push the envelope until new tragedies occur. On the other hand, residents of high-risk areas in cities, farming families, indigenous peoples, traditional and peripheral communities and other vulnerable groups are the focus of the agenda for resistance and overcoming the crisis, the socio-environmental priority.

Given that climate conditions will continue to worsen before they begin to improve, the priority agenda is one that can save the lives and livelihoods of these populations and increase the resilience of the territories and urban areas in which they may live. Organizations and social movements can structure networks of cooperation and solidarity around the most basic needs to survive the inevitable worsening of the crisis.

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Forest: water and food

Brazil holds 12% of the world's freshwater supply. Although this water is not distributed equally and is more abundant where fewer people live, especially in the Amazon, it is an essential geopolitical asset in a world of overpopulation and need. However, with the increase in land occupation, deforestation and pressure on springs and rivers, there has been a sharp reduction in the availability and surface area of ​​water in recent decades.

The unusual scenes of riverside dwellers and indigenous people walking kilometers along dry riverbeds in search of drinking water leave no doubt that, if we enter a new normal, Amazon communities will have to rearrange themselves in their territories and will need new technologies to remain there.

The gravity of the situation justifies the convening of a conference of socio-environmental movements in partnership with the scientific community, to share recent studies and discuss the best options to face the crisis. Scientists are also perplexed by the acceleration of the climate crisis, but communities need to have access to existing information to guide survival strategies.

Each case is different, but Brazil should learn from the good initiatives of other countries, such as the inspiring experience of Ethiopia, which promoted the planting of 250 million trees in a single day, as part of the ongoing national mobilization, year after year, to, through afforestation, contain sandstorms and the advance of the desert over cities and agricultural regions.

Social movements and socio-environmental organizations must take advantage of current agendas, such as the UN conference on climate change (COP-30) in Belém in 2025, to draw everyone's attention to the survival demands imposed by the climate crisis on forest peoples and communities.