CSNews Desk
Scientists warn that Brazil can expect falling hydroelectric supplies and severe crop failures by 2040 as climate change reduces rainfall and increases drought. This is the conclusion of the largest climate change study ever undertaken in Brazil – conducted by the Secretariat of Strategic Issues (SAE).
The objective of the SAE study was to foresee how climate change could affect the country’s main economic sectors, and to suggest strategies for increasing their resilience.
The new study brings together two climate models – broad brush data from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and more detailed information on South America from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
With this data, the study produces two simulations: one, called RCP 8.5, assumes that the world carries on as now, doing little to keep temperature rise below the internationally-agreed threshold of 2°C; the other, RCP 4.5, assumes efforts to control emissions, but not energetically enough to keep global warming down to 2°C.
Under both scenarios, Brazil becomes hotter and drier overall, though there are regional variations, with the south receiving more rain while the Amazon and the north-east get considerably less, particularly in the summer.
The scientists in the SAE study looked not only at projected rainfall as climate change intensifies, but also at the predicted impact on river flows, because energy generation at hydroelectric power plants depends on how much water is flowing through them.
Results suggest that the flows at the country’s four largest power stations – Itaipu, Furnas, Sobradinho and Tucuruí – will decline between 38% (RCP 4.5) and 57% (RCP 8.5). Brazil has suffered serious water shortages in the last three years, so this projection prompts considerable concern.
With this situation, Brazil could fall into a vicious cycle: the more dams built in the Amazon, the greater the deforestation, which adds to climate change, which in turn reduces the efficiency of the dams.
The report also looks at the impact of climate change on agriculture, and concludes that some of the country’s main crops could suffer a serious decline in the areas already under cultivation – corn (28%), beans (26%) and rice (24%).
Worst affected would be the country’s main export crop, soybeans, declining by up to 39%. This would mean significant financial losses, since the crop currently brings in US$ 20 billion in export earnings annually.
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