Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 had their highest increase in almost two decades. Data from SEEG, the Climate Observatory's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimating System, show that last year the country emitted 2.42 billion gross tons of CO2 equivalent, an increase of 12.2% compared to 2020 (2.16 billion tons).
A higher increase was only seen in 2003, the year in which the country reached its historical emissions record. In that year the increase was 20%, driven by the explosion of deforestation in the Amazon.
Last year, the emissions from deforestation were also the main responsible for the increase. Driven by the third consecutive year of growth in the area deforested in the Amazon and other biomes during Jair Bolsonaro's administration, emissions from land use change (LUT) and forests increased by 18.5%. The destruction of Brazilian biomes emitted 1.19 billion gross tons last year - more than Japan - compared to 1 billion tons in 2020.
But almost all sectors of the economy had a strong increase: it was 3.8% in agriculture and cattle raising, a sector that usually has small fluctuations in greenhouse gases; 8.2% in the sector of industrial processes and use of products; and 12.2% in the energy sector, the highest increase since the "economic miracle" of the military dictatorship, in 1973. The waste sector was the only one with stable emissions from 2020 to 2021.
Energy: highest increase in 50 years
The increase in energy and industry is due to a number of factors. One of them is the recovery of the economy after the most severe phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. In this case, Brazil followed the global trend: a UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) report released last Thursday (10/27) showed that after a 4.7% drop in 2020, the pandemic's peak year, world emissions rose again rapidly in 2021 and may have broken the historical record of 2019.
In Brazil, the energy sector emitted 435 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2021 versus 387 million in 2020. "Proportionally, emissions exploded due to the fact that consumption fell in 2020 because of Covid. Last year, energy consumption returned to 2014 levels," says Felipe Barcellos, a project analyst of the Institute for Energy and Environment, the organization responsible for energy calculations and industrial processes in the SEEG.
However, two other factors explain the largest increase in emissions in almost 50 years in the sector. One was the water crisis of 2021, resulting from the worst drought in nine decades in the Center-South of the country. This dried up the hydroelectric plants and forced the use of thermoelectric plants, which the government made permanent. This reduced the share of renewable energies in the national electricity matrix. While electricity consumption increased by 4%, emissions from electricity generation grew by 46%. A third factor, also due to the drought, was the fall in the sugar cane crop in the Southeast, which led to a rise in the price of ethanol - consequently reducing the biofuel's share in transportation.
Agriculture and cattle raising had the highest emissions of the historical series
601 million tons, against 579 million in 2020. If it were a country, the Brazilian agribusiness would be the 16th largest emitter on the planet, ahead of South Africa. Cattle-raising - especially methane emitted by cattle burps - is the main source, with 79.4% of the sector's emissions. The significant increase in the cattle herd in 2021, of 3.1% (six times more than the average of the last 18 years), was the main factor influencing the increase in emissions. The last time the country saw such a large increase in the number of cattle was in 2004.
In agriculture, the increase in the consumption of nitrogen fertilizers (13.8%) and the volume of lime in crops, which rose 20%, weighed heavily.
"The most worrying thing is that, even with the commitments made by the country in its NDC (the target in the Paris Agreement), in the Global Methane Commitment, and in the ABC Plan, which is over ten years old, in 2021 we had record emissions for livestock and agriculture in Brazil," points out Renata Potenza, Imaflora's Climate and Agricultural Chains coordinator. "Considering the emission reduction targets assumed in the country's NDC for 2025 and 2030, the current level makes reaching these targets increasingly distant."
In the waste sector, which mainly comprises garbage disposal (64% of emissions) and sewage treatment (28%), emissions remained essentially unchanged (91.1 million tons in 2021 versus 91.2 million in 2020).
"In fact, there was a small - very small - reduction, on the order of 0.12%. This is unprecedented in the historical series," observes Iris Coluna, ICLEI's technical advisor, responsible for the estimates for this sector. "And it was for a very good reason. There was a reduction in emissions related to the final disposal of solid waste, leveraged by an increase in the amount of methane recovered in landfills.
Methane comes from the decomposition of organic waste in landfills. One way to minimize the impact of these emissions (and still earn revenue) is to capture the methane and burn it to generate energy. Burning the methane (CH4) produces CO2, which by comparison has a much lower potential to warm the planet. In addition, the CO2 is offset by the photosynthesis that produced the biomass, ultimately decomposed in the landfill (and which generates methane).
"We went from a recovery of 452,000 tons of methane in 2020 to 531,000 tons in 2021, due to the increased capture of the Caieiras and CTR Leste landfills, in São Paulo," explains Coluna. "But we have plenty of room to expand the adoption of these targets by diversifying treatment routes, increasing composting and recycling rates, and decreasing generation."
The champion remains the same
The big villain, responsible for 49% of all the country's emissions, was land use change. Deforestation in the Amazon, accounted for 77% of emissions by MUT in 2021. The increase in the sector's gross emissions, of 18.5%, is only exceeded in the historical series by the year 2003, in which growth was 30%. A significant increase, of 65%, was also detected in the carbon emitted by deforestation in the Atlantic Forest. In the Cerrado, the emissions were 117 million tons, with an increase of 4%. "The deforestation rate in 2021 in the Legal Amazon was 13,038 km² [about 5,033 square miles], the highest since 2006, when deforestation was steadily decreasing from the 27,772 km² seen in 2004. This shows that the increase in emissions today is reflecting this setback in deforestation patterns", comments Bárbara Zimbres, IPAM researcher.
The SEEG also made an estimate of the impact of fires not associated with deforestation, such as those produced by forest fires in the Amazon. They are produced by man, but are not accounted for in the official Brazilian inventory. They were able to have their extent verified for the first time through MapBiomas Fogo. If they were computed, they would represent an 8% increase in emissions by MUT in Brazil.
According to Tasso Azevedo, SEEG coordinator, the ten-year balance of the System shows that Brazil has had a lost decade to control its climate pollution. "Since the regulation of the National Policy on Climate Change, in 2010, we have been skating. Not only have we failed to reduce our emissions consistently, but we have increased them in recent years, and significantly so," he highlights. "Brazil has the public policy tools, the technology and the resources to change its trajectory, but it is necessary that the government and society understand that this is fundamental to provide security to the population in times of accelerated extreme events and also to leverage the economy."
About the SEEG - It was created in 2012 to meet a determination of the PNMC (National Policy on Climate Change). SEEG was the first national initiative to produce annual estimates for the entire economy. It was incorporated into the Climate Observatory in 2013. Today, in its 10th edition, it is one of the largest national databases on emissions in the world, including Brazilian emissions from five sectors (Agriculture and Livestock, Energy, Land Use Change, Industrial Processes and Waste).
The estimates are generated according to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) guidelines, based on the Brazilian Inventories of Anthropogenic Emissions and Removals of Greenhouse Gases, of the MCTIC (Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications).
