Dr. Carlos Nobre's Roadmap for Brazil's Climate Future
Dr. Carlos Nobre is a Nobel Laureate and co-author of the IPCC AR4 Report that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He’s also one of Brazil's top climate scientists. Dr. Nobre is a member of the Brazil Academy of Science and a founding member of the World Resources Institute Brazil. He is known for his work on the risk of the savannaization of the Amazon rainforest due to deforestation and climate change, and most recently he's promoted a series of solutions that he refers to as Amazonia 4.0.
Today's episode was meant to focus on the Brazilian context of emissions, energy and climate change, and we do indeed cover these topics. But first, Dr. Nobre takes some time to set important context about the progress, or relative lack thereof, that the world has made on decarbonization since his Nobel Prize-winning contributions. And he sounds alarm bells, that global insecurity and war in Ukraine and Israel, create risk of escalating fossil fuel exploration and production in the name of national sovereignty.
From there, we spend time on the Brazilian context, which as Dr. Nobre points out, is unique among industrialized nations, in that land use rather than energy production is the bulk of Brazil's emissions. He shares his roadmap for how deforestation can be halted and some of the challenges in doing so, which he ties back to organized crime and drug trafficking. Lastly, we discuss his vision for Amazonia 4.0 in which the country leans in via policy and infrastructure development to support the production and export of many of its natural resources rather than exploiting its land for cattle production.
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Episode recorded on Oct 16, 2023 (Published on Dec 11, 2023)
In this episode, we cover:
Lack of progress since the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 and the global challenge for humanity
Global instability as a result of recent wars
The concerning speed of the transition
Emissions breakdown in Brazil and deforestation reductions in 2023
Potential for emissions reductions with regenerative agriculture as the 2nd largest exporter of food
Deforestation in the Amazon and main drivers, including cattle ranches, gold mining, and organized crime
Dr. Nobre's Amazon 4.0 proposal
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Cody Simms:
Today on My Climate Journey, our guest is Dr. Carlos Nobre, Nobel Laureate as one of the co-authors of the IPCC AR4 Report that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, and one of Brazil's top climate scientists. Dr. Nobre is a member of the Brazil Academy of Science and a founding member of the World Resources Institute Brazil. He is known for his work on the risk of the savannaization of the Amazon rainforest due to deforestation and climate change, and most recently he's promoted a series of solutions that he refers to as Amazonia 4.0. Today's episode was meant to focus on the Brazilian context of emissions, energy and climate change, and we do indeed cover these topics. But first, Dr. Nobre takes some time to set important context about the progress, or relative lack thereof, that the world has made on decarbonization since his Nobel Prize-winning contributions via the IPCC in 2007. And he sounds alarm bells, that global insecurity and war in Ukraine and in Israel, create risk of escalating fossil fuel exploration and production in the name of national sovereignty.
From there, we do spend time on the Brazilian context, which as Dr. Nobre points out, is unique amongst industrialized nations, in that land use rather than energy production is the bulk of Brazil's emissions. He shares his roadmap for how deforestation can be halted, and he also shares some of the challenges in doing so, which he ties back to organized crime and drug trafficking. Lastly, we discuss his vision for Amazon 4.0 in which the country leans in via policy and infrastructure development to support the production and export of many of its own natural resources rather than exploiting its land for cattle production. It was my honor to host this episode and I hope you enjoy it. But before we start, I'm Cody Simms.
Yin Lu:
I'm Yin Lu.
Jason Jacobs:
And I'm Jason Jacobs, and welcome to My Climate Journey.
Yin Lu:
This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms:
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change, and all the ways people like you and I can help. Dr. Nobre, I'm so appreciative of you for coming on the show. I think, and I need to go back and check our records, but I think you are our first Nobel Laureate to appear on the podcast, so thank you so much for making your time today, to help us learn about Brazil and help us learn about the Amazon.
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Thank you very much. It's my pleasure. Of course, I should let you know that in 2007, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report won the Nobel Peace Prize and all authors, I was one out of 200 authors, we all were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Cody Simms:
It's an amazing accomplishment and a huge contribution to our society, especially at a time in 2007 when climate change wasn't as much in the common lexicon as it might be today in 2023. Do you feel like, looking back, that report helped accelerate progress toward solutions in significant ways?
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Very worrying, because that report in fact, it was awarded Nobel Peace Prize because it was the first IPCC report, which made it very clear, how close we were of many tipping elements of the earth system, and how important would be to combat the carbon emergency immediately reducing emissions, et cetera, et cetera. This was 2007. We are 2023, and 2023 the year with the maximum emissions of greenhouse gases. The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, 2021 to COP 22, and then in 23 summary for the IPCC also saying we are going to be increasing emissions up to 2025, but that there has to be this radical, urgent reduction of emissions. But it seems to be very difficult to reach these targets, because the Ukraine War and now the Israel-Hamas war is creating a tremendous instability. The Ukraine War gave countries number one today, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases China, but even the US authorized new exploration of petroleum natural gas in Alaska, UK had a very serious challenge of reducing, not exploring, fossil fuels by 2030.
China also had many plants, and now because of the Ukraine war, many countries authorized exploration of fossil fuels, coal, and petro oil and natural gas. And also of course, nobody knows what this war in the Middle East, Israel-Hamas war, whether that would also induce more countries to start exploring fossil fuels again. So this is a big risk, because even getting to stabilizing emissions by 2025, even without the wars, seems to be very, very difficult. Of course, all the climate extremes reach a record 2022, and now more records in 2023, and we are reaching 1.3 degrees. And if emissions continue at this rate, we are going to reach 1.5 degrees. The world's meteorological organization said we may reach 1.5 degrees within seven years, and then permanently 1.5 degrees in 10 years. So that shows how challenging is to maintain the temperature in maximum 1.5 degrees, because really we have to reduce emissions at this rate. I consider that to be perhaps the biggest challenge of humanity, globally speaking humanity, how to reduce emissions.
More than 70% of emissions is from fossil fuels. Fossil fuel consumption of the world still increasing and subsidies for fossil fuel productions more than a trillion dollars. So we're still moving, economically speaking, the way we've been moving for many, many decades, for all 20 century, and now decades of 21st century. So that's really, I would say we are the edge of this, chipping elements of the earth system, and we are not moving in the direction of protecting the planet, protecting humanity, protecting all the biodiversity. So we are really going in the wrong direction unless we quickly, drastically, emergently, we start reducing emissions.
Cody Simms:
I appreciate very much the sobering reminder and overview there to start our conversation. And what I heard you say is, "Look, we sounded the alarm bells in 2007. The world basically thanked us for our work, gave us this award, and then proceeded frankly to not move fast enough at all, do not the work that needed to be done in a significant way." And potentially over the last few years, as urgency began to take more center stage on the global level, and you started to have nation states step up and make commitments, we're now facing a world with greater amounts of instability and war. And by necessity, countries may decide to move backward on their climate pledges in order to try to maintain some form of advantage from a sovereignty perspective, which creates significant challenges for the global citizenry that we all live in.
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
For sure. That's exactly what we are seeing, associated mostly with the wars. And so many countries are becoming less serious about the challenges they admitted in the Paris Agreement. So really this is a very, very serious issue unfortunately, because when you see technology has improved so much in the world. Just to give you one example, as I said, more than 70% of emissions from fossil fuel today, energy, renewable energy is much cheaper than fossil fuel fired energy like coal fired, natural gas, oil fired power plants. For instance, the tropics here in Brazil. They are three times more expensive, the energy generated. So this potential, it's gigantic, it's global, it's not only in one or two countries. Even in Europe, US wind energy, solar energy, this is much cheaper. So we have to give scale. That's a big challenge, but it's doable. But as you probably know, the fossil fuel industry has today something like 16%, 17% of GDP, the global value, economic value. 16%, 17%. So it's the most powerful industry in the world. So that's why they have a political discourse of, "Yes, we agree on energy transition." What they don't agree is the speed of energy transition.
For many of these fossil fuel sectors, organizations, they say, "We may reach 2050 with something like 40% to 50% of greenhouse gas emissions today." That's impossible, because we need really to reduce tremendously emissions by 2050. And then of course to get a net-zero, we'll have some emissions. But there are sectors which are more difficult to get to zero. For instance, livestock farming, the cattle emits a lot of methane. Globally, there is increase in the beef consumption all over the planet.
So it'll be very difficult to get completely zero net emissions from agriculture, particularly livestock farming. So therefore there has to be zero emissions from energy to be able to find carbon dioxide removal techniques to compensate emissions that will come from agricultural sector. It's almost impossible to get completely net-zero emissions, or zero emissions, agricultural sector. So therefore it's really very urgent for the energy sector to move towards the renewable energy. In fact, we are not seeing, as I said, the production of fossil fuel is increasing. The subsidies is more than a trillion dollars in the global economy. So the subsidies for renewable energy, $200, $300 billion, so much less than the continued expansion of fossil fuel energy generation. So that's why this is a big challenge. But economically, the fossil fuel industry is very powerful politically, they're very powerful globally. So that's a big challenge, we have really to combat the climate emergency by finding ways to accelerate energy transition towards a zero energy emissions.
Yin Lu:
Hey everyone, I'm Yin, a partner at MCJ Collective, here to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning, and doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast. We started in 2019 and have grown to thousands of members globally. Each week we're inspired by people who join with different backgrounds and points of view. What we all share is a deep curiosity to learn and a bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change.
Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community. A number of founding teams have met, several nonprofits have been established, and a bunch of hiring has been done. Many early stage investments have been made, as well as ongoing events and programming, like monthly women in climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops, and more. Whether you've been in the climate space for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcjcollective.com and click on the members tab at the top. Thanks, and enjoy the rest of the show.
Cody Simms:
Let's look at that from the lens local to you in Brazil, where as I understand it, the energy sector emissions is only somewhere around one fifth of the emissions in Brazil. And actually agriculture, including cattle that you mentioned, is a larger category than energy, and unfortunately, deforestation is the largest category of essentially emissions calculations today, at least as I understand it, related to the Brazilian economy. Is that accurate?
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Yes, absolutely accurate. A few tropical countries, particularly Brazil and Indonesia for instance. Today, first largest emitter is China, second US, third India, fourth Russia, fifth Brazil, sixth Indonesia. The first four is very large emissions from fossil fuel. China 85%, United States 75%. In Brazil, the emissions from the energy sector in the last national inventories is, as you say, one fifth of our Brazil's emissions a little bit. The last calculation into 2022, Brazil had a very large production of renewable energy, there was also plenty of rainfall for the hydropower plants.
Cody Simms:
Which is a huge source of electricity, hydropower. Brazil is one of the largest hydroelectric energy producers in the world.
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Yes. Last year, 92% of electricity was generated by renewable sources, water, hydropower, solar, and wind. And the wind and solar energy, they're growing fast in Brazil. So in Brazil it's less, one of the least in the world. 2020, 18% of fossil fuels were from the electricity sector, although of course the transportation sector generates most of the greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. As I said, last year, electricity, 92% of electricity was renewable sources. Only 8% came from.
Cody Simms:
Oh wow. So that power emissions number is actually mostly fueling petrol for cars, trucks and transportation.
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Yes. So that's a very important element. In Brazil, 75% of emissions come from land use, 50% deforestation, mostly the Amazon forest, and 25% agricultural emissions, mostly from livestock farming, the cattle. So if you take the cattle, the new deforestation for a new cattle ranch and the emissions directly by the cattle, this is 63% of Brazilian emissions. So almost all deforestation is illegal, this is land grabbing in the Amazon. So fortunately we start having some good news this year, 2023. Compared to 2022, we have already a reduction January through September compared to the same nine months in 2022. We had a reduction of 50% of deforestation in the Amazon. So we are reaching already 250 million tons of carbon dioxide reduction compared to the emissions in 2022. And Brazil's government is promising getting to zero deforestation by 2030. We are having a reduction of deforestation in most Amazonian cultures.
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, even Bolivia, had a very large increase in deforestation in 2022. This year, that reduced. So we are seeing all Amazonian cultures really promising, at least moving towards getting a zero deforestation before 2030. So in that case, Brazil would reduce 50% emissions by 2030, one of the first countries in the world. And certainly China, US, India, Russia will not meet these targets of 50% reduction of emissions. A few European countries may, because they're moving towards debt. Nordic countries, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, they may reach those targets, but not the largest emitters, as I said. But Brazil can be the only high emission developing country to reach those targets by 2030. And then Brazil really can reach the net-zero by 2040, even one decade before 2050. Why? Because if we get to zero deforestation, so we reduce 50%, and then Brazil is also moving fast to renewable energy.
So we are growing the renew energy, reducing emissions by fossil fuel, and also challenging, but why not? Also, Brazil is the fourth-largest producer of food in the world after China, India, and the US. Brazil is the second-largest exporter of food after US. However, globally speaking, production of food represents close to 30% of emissions. So we have to move towards the so-called regenerative agriculture. Brazil has tremendous potential regenerative agriculture. So if Brazil moves in that direction, it'll continue high production of agricultural products, particularly food systems, but reduce emissions, reduce emissions. And in fact, I mean there are good examples of farms in Brazil that may reach, are very close to reaching even net-zero. For instance, one is called regenerative livestock farming. It's integrated distance crop, livestock farming, and the forestry. So you have one large pasture, we start reforesting part of the pasture. And also you have crops, this so-called sustainable and regenerative livestock farming may reach very close to net-zero emissions.
The emissions by enteric fermentation by the cows is compensated by forest restoration, forest trees growing, and also management of pasture, very advanced management, you enhance soil crop. So there are good examples, and also these so-called regenerative livestock farming, is much more productive. You produce much more milk, dairy products, but also beef. So this is the way to go. Make sense, like renewable energy, make an analogy, very similar to renewable energy. Solar, wind, green hydrogen is still more expensive than not green hydrogen. Hydrogen made of natural gas is one third of the price of green hydrogen. However, 20 years ago, solar energy was five times more expensive than today. So if you give scale, you put a lot of technology, new innovative technology, and you give scale.
So the green hydrogen will also become very inexpensive, much cheaper than fossil fuels. So that's the way we are doing the same, making analogy, regenerative agriculture, regenerative livestock farming not only reduces emissions, but also much more productive. So that's the way. So that's why I say Brazil by 2040 can get to net-zero, zero deforestation. And then I have to say Brazil, during COP 28 in Dubai, we will launch the So-called arc of restoration. It's a large scale project to produce tremendously large forest restoration in the Amazon. Brazil wants to restore a large part of the forest degraded areas in the Amazon, and that will remove hundreds of millions of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere. So it'll really support Brazil getting to net-zero by 2040, the first high emission country to get to net-zero, before many other countries.
Cody Simms:
I have so many questions. I want to start with understanding deforestation more, and then let's move into how do we incentivize reforestation. On the deforestation front, roughly what percentage of the Amazon to date has been deforested, and what have been the primary reasons for that happening?
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Yes, the whole Amazon Forest, originally about 6.5 meter square kilometers, about 17%, 18% have been deforest. More or less the same amount, 17%, 18% have been degraded. Still there are trees there, but they're increasingly being degraded. This is about, closely speaking, one million square kilometer. The forest one million square kilometer degraded. The main driver of deforestation all over the Amazon is cattle ranches. 90% of the first deforestation in the Amazon lowlands, Amazon lowlands is more than 80% of the Amazon forest, is deforestation is due to cattle ranches. Then a second fact of deforestation is mining, particularly gold mining, which in almost all of the Amazon cultures is completely illegal. Also, oil exploration and other uses. And also the main factors of degradation is select logging for timber industry. Also, the timber industry is almost all illegal. And the big challenge is the fact that almost all deforestation, there is a lot of land grabbing, mostly for livestock farming, for illegal gold mining, and many other deforestation drivers.
This is almost all controlled by organized crime. The organized crime has a close connectivity with the drug trafficking. So the cocaine drug trafficking, finances for money laundering to illegal gold mining for illegal land grabbing, illegal select logging for timber. All those things are controlled. It's a big, big organized crime in the whole Amazon, not only in Brazil, in the whole Amazon, all interconnected. The cocaine drug trafficking is mostly Colombia, Peru, Bolivia. But today they are connected to all Amazonian countries, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil. So this is certainly a big challenge, how to combat the organized crime. And then of course, I mentioned to you the arc of restoration project. We are going to restore a lot of deforest areas, almost all illegal deforestation. And also, big challenge is to find a new economy for the Amazon. And then we call this economy a new social bioeconomy. Social because we have to value the knowledge of indigenous people, local communities. So social bioeconomy is an economy based on the social biodiversity of the tremendously high diversity of forest products.
Cody Simms:
This is your Amazon 4.0 proposal, I believe?
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Yes. So this is the concept, a new social dichotomy, and we call of healthy standing forest and flowing rivers, really making based on not on cattle ranches or commodity products like soy crops, maze crops, but also mostly the forest standing. The so-called agro forestry systems, economically they make more sense producing large number of products. Few cooperatives in the Amazon, they produce more than 50 products from the biodiversity. A lot of those people in the cooperatives they reach middle class, so improve their livelihoods, socially, economically, maintaining the forest standing. So this is the new idea of the social bioeconomy of healthy standing forest and flowing rivers. We say flowing rivers, because also hydropower dams, they disturb a lot, the aquatic ecosystems, they bring a lot of risks to species. So today with solar, wind, and the other forms of renewable energy, we do not have anymore to create new hydropower dams.
So this is the healthy standing forest and the flowing rivers, and healthy flowing rivers because also the illegal gold mining using mercury is bringing terrible risks to all the live species of the rivers, particularly the fish species. So even a lot of most Amazonian populations consume fish as the main element of animal protein, and the metal mercury is coming to the body of the Amazonian people, and that tremendous risk for the health, this is already happening all over the Amazon. So we have to have a healthy flowing rivers, we have to get rid of illegal gold mining, the use of mercury. So those are the main drivers and the main challenges. But again, the social bioeconomy, with the products from the social biodiversity, as I said, they're much better. You can have a much more powerful economy for the Amazon cultures as a whole. Just to give you one figure, one hectare, 10,000 square meters, of cattle ranch produces a profit per year of $100, and also hires one to two workers in for 100 hectares.
The cooperatives of these agroforestry systems producing many, many forest products. One hectare produces a profit between $300 and $700 and hires 20 to 40 people, 100 hectares. So it hires 20 times more workers than cattle ranches, and has a profit which is three times to seven times higher. And this improves tremendously the life of the goods of hundreds of thousands of Amazonian population. So that's this other challenge, bringing this new social bioeconomy, giving scale investments, we have to have major investments from Amazonian government, but also from the private sector, hundreds of billions of dollars to create conditions for all the Amazonian population. So this is the idea that we want to demonstrate a feasibility of Amazonia 4.0 project. We are starting in fact with a participate, this podcast coincidentally, we started this capacity development of a community last week, producers of cocoa. And now we brought a very modern industry, 4.0 laboratory for industrialization of the cocoa, which is getting from the seeds to chocolate.
So now we're starting capacity development, about 45 producers of cocoa, some young people, women. So now these groups, they live in a forest in the Amazon producing agroforestry systems, many, many products including cocoa. So now we want to give scale to start doing capacity development, showing the feasibility of using. And particularly this laboratory that we have there in the Amazon, has renewable energy solar panels, to demonstrate the feasibility of producing high quality value added products, and then to do bio industrialization in the Amazon. And also we are developing laboratories for Brazil nuts, for high quality cooking oils, for acai berry. Also a laboratory we have a designed, and now we are looking for funding to construct, for genome sequencing. The Amazon has the highest biodiversity, but the Amazonian people have very little knowledge to produce the DNA, all the forest, the plant animal products.
But also this laboratory that we designed, also we want to do the genome sequencing of microorganisms. That's because of the risk of epidemic pandemics. So this is a portable laboratory that will be brought to do capacity development. And also we already developed a system for these communities to register the DNA using a blockchain system. So that's the concept of Amazon 4.0. But also we are developing the so-called Amazon Rainforest Business School, this is one component of Amazon 4.0. So a modern business school for this sustainable future of the Amazon. We are developing 20 courses from an online platform. And also we are planning to create in the Amazon the so-called Amazon Institute of Technology. This will be a high quality institute of technology, let's say MIT, Institute of Technology. Then, in many Amazonian countries, public private partnership creating many innovation hubs, and the educational systems for these new social bioeconomy. We are developing feasibility study now for five top areas.
One is forest and social biodiversity, as I mentioned, tremendous economic potential. The second one is altered landscapes, how to restore two million square kilometers in the Amazon. The third one is sustainable infrastructure, how to develop the transportation, energy, connectivity, sustainable infrastructure. 95% of the Amazon deforestation is closely associated with roads. They are within 5.5 kilometers on both sides of roads, millions of kilometers of roads in the Amazon, mostly illegal. The fourth one is watering the Amazon, the importance of the ecosystems, the connectivity. And the fifth one is urban Amazon. So we are developing all this feasibility study, finishing beginning of 2024. We are hopeful the Amazonian cultures, the governments, the global private sector will finance. We estimated the initial cost of this beautiful institute of technology, something like $500 million. So that's the Amazonian 4.0 project we have developed.
Cody Simms:
Thank you for sharing. And what I'm hearing you say broadly is one, the bulk of deforestation in the Amazon has been driven primarily through the cattle industry. And at this point doing further deforestation in the Amazon is moving to the point of being primarily illegal, much of that activity driven by organized crime. And even in areas where there is legal cattle raising, which is a significant portion of still the business that's happening in the region, the productivity of these cattle farms is actually relatively low compared to the economic viability that the region could produce if the region was able to better industrialize native products that are part of the forest themselves. Whether that's cocoa, whether that's Brazil nuts, whether that's acai, whether that's other superfoods, and becoming a true world exporter of these materials by investing in the technology and the infrastructure needed to better support the growth of industry in these forests, while doing so in a way that is respectful and recognizes the importance of biodiversity as the feedstock for this industrialization of the forest, quote unquote. Am I following correctly there?
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Thank you very much. A perfect summary of everything that I said.
Cody Simms:
I am so grateful to have learned from you today, and appreciate all the work that you're doing, and all the work you have done. So thank you for joining us.
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Thank you very much. Thank you for your beautiful summary.
Cody Simms:
All right, bye.
Dr. Carlos Nobre:
Bye-bye.
Jason Jacobs:
Thanks again for joining us on the My Climate Journey podcast. At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity. If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at mcjcollective.com. And if you have a guest suggestion, let us know that via Twitter at MCJPod.
Yin Lu:
For weekly climate op-eds jobs, community events, and investment announcements from our MCJ venture funds, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter on our website.
Cody Simms:
Thanks, and see you next episode.
