Brazil Has Done More to Stop Climate Change than Any Other Country, Study Finds

Thanks to its effort to reduce tropical deforestation, Brazil has kept 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere since 2004.  That’s more than any other country has done to reduce climate change, according to a new study published Thursday.

“Brazil is known as a leading favorite to win the World Cup, but they also lead the world in mitigating climate change,” the study’s lead author, Earth Innovation Institute director Daniel Nepstad, said in a statement.”

Though climate change is usually traced to the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation in Brazil has also played a huge role in causing it. Brazil’s Amazon rainforest — which once had the highest deforestation rate in the world as of 2005 — absorbs a huge amount of carbon dioxide, effectively preventing the gas from being emitted into the atmosphere.

When so much of that forest was burned and plowed over, though, a huge amount of carbon was emitted into the atmosphere instead of absorbed, making Brazil one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters.  “Land use” emissions dwarfed those from energy or agriculture.

But now, Brazil seems to be taking steps to reduce their impact.  The study, published in the journal Science, showed that Brazil was able to save more than 33,000 square miles of Amazon rainforest since 2004 while still being able increase beef and soy production. Saving those forests amounted to a 70 percent decline in deforestation, putting an enormous brake on greenhouse gas emissions.  According to National Geographic, the cuts are more than three times bigger than the effect of taking all the cars in the U.S. off the road for a year.

Brazil Has Done More to Stop Climate Change than Any Other Country, Study Finds