The Institute for Society, Population and Nature (ISPN) will be present at the 27th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP-27) between November 6 and 18, in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to reinforce the role of the Cerrado biome in maintaining global climate balance.
The goal of this participation is to bring the voice of the Cerrado to the world. This biome, besides being the savanna with the greatest biodiversity on the planet, is also home to many Cerrado peoples, communities, and families. These peoples obtain their income from family farming and the sustainable use of fruits, bark, and fibers from the biodiversity, which helps in the conservation of ecosystems. All this amidst pressure on their territories due to the uncontrolled expansion of monocultures and pastures.
In addition to members of its technical and communications advisory team, ISPN is supporting the participation of representatives from the Articulation of Black and Rural Quilombola Communities (CONAQ) and the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) at COP. Guilherme Eidt, public policy advisor, and Raisa Pina, communications advisor, will be present at the event as spokespeople for the Institute. News and highlights will be published by the team on ISPN's social media (see below).
ISPN is one of the only organizations participating in COP with the goal of expanding knowledge about the Cerrado and raising awareness about the threat to the biome and its people. The organization warns that, just like the Amazon, the Cerrado needs to be considered when discussing climate change and mitigation.
“The attention of the socio-environmental field and society generally focuses on tropical forests, even though non-forest biomes, such as the Cerrado, extend across 57% of the world's tropical belt,” comments Guilherme Eidt, technical advisor at ISPN, adding that “to guarantee climate security, it is also necessary to protect savannas and grasslands.”
Eidt explains that such vegetation types are "important centers of endemism and biodiversity, and provide an important service in regulating the climate, concentrating significant carbon sinks and stocks, especially below ground."
Its carbon stock exceeds 13 billion tons. It is also home to 5% of all the planet's biodiversity: more than 12 plant species, of which 4 are endemic, and more than 2.600 animal species, not counting the hundreds of traditional communities still invisible on official maps.
The Cerrado is the second largest biome in Brazil and Latin America, covering approximately 24% of Brazilian territory and occupying a total area of over 2 million km², an area larger than France, Portugal, Spain, and Italy combined. Rich in water, it contains the headwaters of important river basins, such as those of the São Francisco River, the Tocantins River, and the Plata River.
What is concerning is this: more than half of the biome has already been deforested and is now occupied by agriculture and livestock farming. The uncontrolled expansion of agribusiness ventures has resulted in extremely high rates of deforestation, with an area of Cerrado equivalent to the Federal District being deforested in the first half of 2022 alone: approximately 472.816 hectares, according to SAD Cerrado.
This scenario fuels not only violence against traditional communities inhabiting the region, with arson, land grabbing, among other things, but also carbon dioxide emissions, since the deforested savanna is unable to retain its carbon reserves.
Challenges for 2022
The scenario of nature being pressured by commodities and generating growth in greenhouse gas emissions is similar all over the planet. And COP-27 seeks to answer an important question amidst all this: How to limit global warming to 1,5°C and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050?
The meeting takes place between countries that are signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and has been held annually since 1995 over a period of two weeks.
This time, the discussions will be based on the latest part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, published in February 2022, which indicates that global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be reduced by 45% by 2030 to avoid a global catastrophe.
The IPCC survey concluded, based on more than 18 scientific publications, that with the climate policies agreed upon by governments up to 2020, the planet would reach a warming of 3,2ºC, more than double the limit established by the Paris Agreement at COP21 in 2015, of 1,5ºC by the end of the century, to avoid an irreversible catastrophe.
To give you an idea, in the last decade, between 2010 and 2019, average greenhouse gas emissions reached the highest levels in human history. Given this scenario, mitigation and adaptation to climate change are achievable provided there is accelerated, coordinated action.
The COP's task will continue to be similar to that of previous years, since, according to Article 7 of the Agreement, the conference must examine the obligations of the Parties and the institutional mechanisms established, promote and facilitate the exchange of information on measures adopted by member countries to address climate change and its effects, evaluate the effectiveness of measures to limit GHG emissions, among other things.
The meeting is attended by government delegates representing their respective signatory countries – and they are the only ones with voting power – as well as journalists and representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as ISPN – which participates as an observer.
In the meetings, decisions are made by consensus. And since interests are often divergent, negotiations can be slow and arduous. In the end, these decisions must be adopted by the signatories to guide activities in the period following the COP.
The institute will hold two events at COP 27, alongside partners such as Fase, WWF-Brazil, IPAM, Instituto Cerrados, and Rede Cerrado. The first will be at Panda Hub, WWF's event space, on the 6th at 15 pm. The second will be at Brazil Hub on Thursday the 10th at 11:30 am.
Previous editions
The last edition, COP 26, was held in Glasgow, United Kingdom. On that occasion, Brazil, without the presence of President Jair Bolsonaro, participated on two fronts: on the one hand, it sought to regain the trust of the international community, amidst a setback in environmental policy, presenting a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, a rather ambitious goal without concrete measures to achieve it. On the other hand, the Minister of the Environment, Joaquim Leite, presented an agenda defending agribusiness and mining.
The Brazilian delegation, the largest at the entire Conference, included representatives from agribusiness associations, but did not include civil society organizations. At the same time, indigenous leaders, especially women, played a central role in criticizing the anti-environmental policies of President Bolsonaro's government.
The COP was ratified in 1994, a year before the first edition, and is an instrument of the UN Convention on Climate Change, which was itself adopted in 1992 during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, or ECO-92, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
About ISPN
ISPN is a Brazilian non-governmental, non-profit organization, founded in April 1990 and headquartered in Brasília and Santa Inês, Maranhão. With 32 years of experience, it is recognized for its expertise in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, supporting indigenous peoples, traditional communities, and family farmers in the Cerrado, Amazon, and Caatinga biomes. Its mission is to contribute to achieving social equity and environmental balance by strengthening sustainable livelihoods and strategies for adapting to climate change.
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Service
- The role of local people to protect one of the largest carbon stock and biodiversity: the Cerrado
Panda Hub
November 6th at 15 PM (local time) - EU-Mercosur Association Agreement and the deforestation-free products due diligence: challenges for the Cerrado and safeguards debate
Brazil Hub
November 10th at 11 PM (local time)
Photo: André Dib, Cavalcante, Goiás, 2017. Communities in the Cerrado biome play a fundamental role in their conservation.