Common Dreams
May 21, 2024
A man rides a bicycle in a flooded street at the historical center of Porto Alegre, Brazil on May 3, 2024 © Anselmo Cunha / AFP
Experts emphasized the escalating risks of climate-related disasters and their disproportionate impacts on low-income people on Monday following flooding in Brazil that has killed at least 150 people and displaced more than 600,000.
The floods that hit over recent days and weeks have knocked out bridges and the main airport in Porto Alegre, a port city in southern Brazil. More than 460 of the 497 municipalities in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sol have been affected, with more than 2 million people impacted, according to provisional government data.
"The situation is catastrophic," said Rachel Soeiro, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical coordinator in Brazil, who visited the area by helicopter. "We were able to view the towns from above and noticed that in some cases we couldn't even see the roofs of houses.”
More than two feet of rain has fallen so far this month, according Brazil's national weather service, inundating large areas.
"Whole towns and large, urban city centers are in some cases almost completely underwater," the BBCreported on Saturday.
Experts connected the extreme rainfall to climate change, which increases the likelihood of such weather events. Incidents of extreme flooding have increased "sharply" across the planet in the last two decades, according to a study in Nature Water released last year.
"In many ways, this is not a disaster of Brazil’s making. The whole planet is experiencing increasingly rapid climate changes due largely to the greenhouse gases produced by a handful of wealthy nations," Cristiane Fontes (Krika), executive director of World Resources Institute (WRI) Brasil, wrote in a commentary earlier this month in which she called the situation a "wake-up call for the world."
In recent weeks, flooding has also hit China, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia, and WRI's staff in Kenya are dealing with dam breaches from heavy rains, Fontes noted.
A Brazilian expert indicated that the flooding, catastrophic as it has been, should not come as a surprise.
"People on the streets here in Brazil, they've attributed this change to global climate change driven by the increase of fossil fuels," Paulo Artaxo, a physics professor at the University of Sao Paulo, and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He explained that was in line with IPCC projections showing that southern Brazil would face more extreme rainfall due to tropical and polar currents.
In Brazil, as elsewhere, climate impacts are not evenly distributed. MSF relief efforts are focused on the most vulnerable, including Indigenous communities, one of which had been isolated by rising waters and without help for 10 days before being reached by the humanitarian group.
"Assisting those who are most vulnerable is one of our main concerns in such situations," Soeiro said. "These people were already facing difficult situations before the flooding. But their needs have risen further and access to them has become more difficult."
Some wealthy people in Porto Alegre have choices such as escaping to a second home, but in "rundown towns" on the city's periphery, low-income people have no such options, according to CNN.
Brazilian left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged to provide relief money to families that lost their homes. Brazil is one of most unequal countries in the world, according to World Bank data.
May 21, 2024
A man rides a bicycle in a flooded street at the historical center of Porto Alegre, Brazil on May 3, 2024 © Anselmo Cunha / AFP
Experts emphasized the escalating risks of climate-related disasters and their disproportionate impacts on low-income people on Monday following flooding in Brazil that has killed at least 150 people and displaced more than 600,000.
The floods that hit over recent days and weeks have knocked out bridges and the main airport in Porto Alegre, a port city in southern Brazil. More than 460 of the 497 municipalities in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sol have been affected, with more than 2 million people impacted, according to provisional government data.
"The situation is catastrophic," said Rachel Soeiro, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical coordinator in Brazil, who visited the area by helicopter. "We were able to view the towns from above and noticed that in some cases we couldn't even see the roofs of houses.”
More than two feet of rain has fallen so far this month, according Brazil's national weather service, inundating large areas.
"Whole towns and large, urban city centers are in some cases almost completely underwater," the BBCreported on Saturday.
Experts connected the extreme rainfall to climate change, which increases the likelihood of such weather events. Incidents of extreme flooding have increased "sharply" across the planet in the last two decades, according to a study in Nature Water released last year.
"In many ways, this is not a disaster of Brazil’s making. The whole planet is experiencing increasingly rapid climate changes due largely to the greenhouse gases produced by a handful of wealthy nations," Cristiane Fontes (Krika), executive director of World Resources Institute (WRI) Brasil, wrote in a commentary earlier this month in which she called the situation a "wake-up call for the world."
In recent weeks, flooding has also hit China, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia, and WRI's staff in Kenya are dealing with dam breaches from heavy rains, Fontes noted.
A Brazilian expert indicated that the flooding, catastrophic as it has been, should not come as a surprise.
"People on the streets here in Brazil, they've attributed this change to global climate change driven by the increase of fossil fuels," Paulo Artaxo, a physics professor at the University of Sao Paulo, and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He explained that was in line with IPCC projections showing that southern Brazil would face more extreme rainfall due to tropical and polar currents.
In Brazil, as elsewhere, climate impacts are not evenly distributed. MSF relief efforts are focused on the most vulnerable, including Indigenous communities, one of which had been isolated by rising waters and without help for 10 days before being reached by the humanitarian group.
"Assisting those who are most vulnerable is one of our main concerns in such situations," Soeiro said. "These people were already facing difficult situations before the flooding. But their needs have risen further and access to them has become more difficult."
Some wealthy people in Porto Alegre have choices such as escaping to a second home, but in "rundown towns" on the city's periphery, low-income people have no such options, according to CNN.
Brazilian left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged to provide relief money to families that lost their homes. Brazil is one of most unequal countries in the world, according to World Bank data.
Deforestation exacerbated deadly Brazil floods, say experts
The floods devastating southern Brazil have been exacerbated by deforestation, much of it driven by soybean farming, according to experts, who urge the country to restore its forests and their vast water-retaining root systems.
Issued on: 22/05/2024 -
'Open people's eyes'
At the national level, deforestation surged under the government of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, a climate-change skeptic and ally of the powerful agribusiness sector who was in office from 2019 to 2022.
"It became easier to get permits (to clear vegetation), and Rio Grande do Sul played a big role" in benefitting from those permits, said Sordi.
A local municipal council member from Bolsonaro's Liberal Party, Sandro Fantinel, caused controversy last week by saying the region should clear more trees around roads, arguing their weight and water-swollen roots had caused landslides during the floods.
Sordi says disasters like the current one have the potential to "open people's eyes" to the scientific evidence of climate change and its "warning signs."
"Sometimes we only pay attention when the problem arrives."
(AFP)
The floods devastating southern Brazil have been exacerbated by deforestation, much of it driven by soybean farming, according to experts, who urge the country to restore its forests and their vast water-retaining root systems.
Issued on: 22/05/2024 -
Destroyed houses, damaged cars, branches, and debris are seen in Cruzeiro do Sul following the devastating floods that hit the region in Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, on May 14, 2024.
© Nelson Ameida, AFP
The key agricultural state of Rio Grande do Sul has been hit by an unprecedented climate disaster for the past three weeks, with cities and rural areas alike inundated by torrential rains that have left more than 150 people dead and some 100 missing.
It is the region's fourth extreme weather event in less than a year, a phenomenon scientists say is driven by climate change -- and also deforestation.
"There's a global component to climate change, and also a regional one, which is the loss of native vegetation. That increased the intensity of the floods," says biologist Eduardo Velez of MapBiomas, an organization that uses satellite images to track deforestation.
According to the group, Rio Grande do Sul lost 22 percent of its native vegetation, or 3.6 million hectares (8.9 million acres), from 1985 to 2022.
Those wildlands have largely been replaced by fields of rice, eucalyptus and especially soybeans, of which Brazil is the world's biggest producer and exporter.
Vicious cycle
Native forests help ensure water permeates the soil, preventing it from accumulating on the surface, says Jaqueline Sordi, a biologist and journalist based in the region who specializes in climate issues.
Vegetation also holds soil in place, helping to prevent erosion and landslides.
The deep brown color of the water that has flooded the state capital, Porto Alegre, along with 90 percent of Rio Grande do Sul's towns, "shows just how many tons and tons of soil were washed away" in the rains, Velez told AFP.
In a vicious cycle, that mud has now accumulated in the beds of rivers, making them shallower -- and therefore more likely to flood next time.
"Beyond relocating people (from high-risk areas) and rebuilding infrastructure, it's extremely important to have policies on restoring native vegetation," said Velez.
Rio Grande do Sul "urgently" needs to restore more than a million hectares of forests in order for them to adequately perform their proper environmental role, according to a 2023 study by the sustainable development group Instituto Escolhas.
But Velez says there is still no "heavyweight" plan to do that in Rio Grande do Sul, despite a deal it signed last year with other states in southern and southeastern Brazil to reforest 90,000 hectares by 2026.
The key agricultural state of Rio Grande do Sul has been hit by an unprecedented climate disaster for the past three weeks, with cities and rural areas alike inundated by torrential rains that have left more than 150 people dead and some 100 missing.
It is the region's fourth extreme weather event in less than a year, a phenomenon scientists say is driven by climate change -- and also deforestation.
"There's a global component to climate change, and also a regional one, which is the loss of native vegetation. That increased the intensity of the floods," says biologist Eduardo Velez of MapBiomas, an organization that uses satellite images to track deforestation.
According to the group, Rio Grande do Sul lost 22 percent of its native vegetation, or 3.6 million hectares (8.9 million acres), from 1985 to 2022.
Those wildlands have largely been replaced by fields of rice, eucalyptus and especially soybeans, of which Brazil is the world's biggest producer and exporter.
Vicious cycle
Native forests help ensure water permeates the soil, preventing it from accumulating on the surface, says Jaqueline Sordi, a biologist and journalist based in the region who specializes in climate issues.
Vegetation also holds soil in place, helping to prevent erosion and landslides.
The deep brown color of the water that has flooded the state capital, Porto Alegre, along with 90 percent of Rio Grande do Sul's towns, "shows just how many tons and tons of soil were washed away" in the rains, Velez told AFP.
In a vicious cycle, that mud has now accumulated in the beds of rivers, making them shallower -- and therefore more likely to flood next time.
"Beyond relocating people (from high-risk areas) and rebuilding infrastructure, it's extremely important to have policies on restoring native vegetation," said Velez.
Rio Grande do Sul "urgently" needs to restore more than a million hectares of forests in order for them to adequately perform their proper environmental role, according to a 2023 study by the sustainable development group Instituto Escolhas.
But Velez says there is still no "heavyweight" plan to do that in Rio Grande do Sul, despite a deal it signed last year with other states in southern and southeastern Brazil to reforest 90,000 hectares by 2026.
'Open people's eyes'
At the national level, deforestation surged under the government of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, a climate-change skeptic and ally of the powerful agribusiness sector who was in office from 2019 to 2022.
"It became easier to get permits (to clear vegetation), and Rio Grande do Sul played a big role" in benefitting from those permits, said Sordi.
A local municipal council member from Bolsonaro's Liberal Party, Sandro Fantinel, caused controversy last week by saying the region should clear more trees around roads, arguing their weight and water-swollen roots had caused landslides during the floods.
Sordi says disasters like the current one have the potential to "open people's eyes" to the scientific evidence of climate change and its "warning signs."
"Sometimes we only pay attention when the problem arrives."
(AFP)
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