Brazil Faces Serious Power and Crop Losses

Scientists warn that Brazil can expect falling hydroelectric supplies and severe crop failures by 2040 as climate change reduces rainfall and increases drought.

The effects of climate change over the next 25 years could see Brazil face intense droughts that turn hydroelectric power stations in the Amazon into white elephants, and cause heavy crop losses and epidemics of dengue fever, malaria and leptospirosis.

That is the conclusion of the largest climate change study ever undertaken in Brazil – conducted by the Secretariat of Strategic Issues (SAE), a government department with ministerial status.

The objective of the SAE study (currently available only in Portuguese) was to foresee how climate change could affect the country’s main economic sectors, and to suggest strategies for increasing their resilience.

The report was published with surprising discretion, given its importance, at the end of October.  No major media picked it up, and it might have passed unnoticed, but for Observatório do Clima (OC), a civil society network.

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