Posted on 7/16/2023 3:55 am / Updated on 7/16/2023 7:18 am
In Campo Novo in Rio Grande do Sul, around 80 houses were partially or fully affected by the extratropical cyclone (Source: Photo: Joel Vargas/Ascom GVG)
Thousands of Brazilians have been affected by extreme events such as floods, droughts, cyclones, fires and floods this year. Often unavoidable tragedies result from environmental degradation and carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The extratropical cyclone that struck the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina last June claimed 16 lives. This week, the storm hit these regions again, claiming three lives in addition to material damage.
Experts warn that the extreme events that are devastating the places they pass will become even larger and more frequent in the future. As justification for such a tightening, scientists cite the latest reports on climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The studies detail the devastating consequences of rising greenhouse gas emissions and the threats they face today.
The geographer and professor at São Paulo State University (UNESP) João Lima Sant’Anna Neto warns of these consequences. “The trend is that the phenomena are becoming stronger precisely because of warming. Mankind has chosen to use fossil fuels, and global warming is mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions, but we also need to address deforestation.” The tendency is for these phenomena to become stronger and reach more people, precisely because humanity has tripled and occupies more space,” he elaborates.
Nubia Armond, a professor in the Department of Geography at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), explains that there are currently increasing resources to study extreme events around the world and to establish a link between the frequency of events and climate change. “What we have seen is that more than 80% of the events studied are affected by climate change, either in their magnitude or in the shortening of their occurrence interval,” says Nubia.
Among the factors affecting the intensity of the phenomena, the rise in temperature will be crucial. “Some areas will see a decrease in precipitation and others an increase, leading to heterogeneity in the occurrence of extreme events.”
Town planning
Organizing the city to avoid environmental disasters could be a strategy adopted in Brazil. Paulo César Zangalli, a professor in the Department of Geography at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), draws attention to this factor. “We should have understood the extreme events involved in designing and planning the spaces we live in. When cities were developed, no thought was given to solving this urban problem that has existed since the 1970s,” he points out.
Unesp Professor João Lima supports Zagalli’s statement and illustrates that cities with fewer trees tend to suffer more from flooding. “The cities that people live in do not have the necessary infrastructure to minimize the impact of these extreme impacts. All of these streams and rivers were canalized keeping the volume of water in mind. If there is an increase in precipitation with impermeability in cities, much more water will flow to the places that cannot drain, so floods will become more frequent and larger. This not only has to do with climate change, but also with climate change “The way we created urban space,” explains Lima.
social cutout
Another perverse problem of climate change is that poor people tend to be hit the hardest. This is because it is mostly found in more geographically exposed areas. Nubia cites this as one of the elements configuring the vulnerability.
“In order to promote adapted sociospatial structures, we need public policy. We know that population groups from socially disadvantaged social groups tend to suffer more from the effects of extreme events,” he emphasizes.
There is also the challenge of rebuilding life after material losses, which have a greater impact on the lower classes. According to the researcher, the solution lies in the strategic orientation of public policies for this part of the population. “The tragedy in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro in 2011 is a very vivid example of this. There are people who waited until two years ago for the social pension. Public policies must be heavily targeted at these groups because, if they survive, they have difficulty moving forward.”
With the intensification of environmental and climate problems, adapting to change has become a necessity. According to the IPCC report, climate policies in at least 170 countries include adaptation to these risks. However, in several countries these efforts have yet to progress towards implementation. Measures to build resilience and adaptation focus even more on immediate impacts and nearterm risks.
The IPCC report also pointed out that developing countries alone will need $127 billion a year by 2030 and $295 billion a year by 2050 to adapt to climate change. However, adaptation funds were just $23 billion in 2017 and $46 billion in 2018, accounting for just 4% and 8% of climate finance, respectively.
Future
The latest IPCC report leaves no doubt as to how great the risks are if no significant changes are made to address the climate crisis. Environmental education and the formulation of public policies are two factors identified by experts as urgent and necessary for Brazil to be prepared to deal with extreme events in the future.
“In that sense we are very late and we are not concerned with educating the new generations who are facing such issues. This is really a very serious case, very serious. In developed countries like the United States and Japan.” “Environmental education and climate change have long been part of school curricula,” João Lima pointed out.
Zangalli mentions that Brazil needs to invest in and subsidize research to create proper conditions for monitoring and preventing extreme events. “These are concrete measures, they don’t solve the problem, they only alleviate it. In terms of structural dynamics, there is a need to change the way we think about cities. The climate protection measures that the Brazilian capitals have produced are an indication of how climate policy works.” today they are elements of the organization and production of urban space. The problem is that today they adhere more to international treaties than to their own reality,” he warns.
*Intern under the supervision of Taísa Medeiros
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