Brazil pledges on climate change, zero deforestation are a ‘crushing disappointment’

SÃO PAULO — Brazil announced to much fanfare this week plans to zero illegal deforestation on its territory by 2030 and restore an area of rainforest the size of Pennsylvania. But experts say the plans are unambitious and activists called the promises “a crushing disappointment” that mounted to nothing more than targets already stipulated by Brazilian law.

Climate change was among the headlining issues in a joint declaration made Tuesday by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and US President Barack Obama at the White House.

“We have committed to reach … a zero illegal deforestation rate between now and 2030,” Rousseff said, describing climate change as “one of the world’s central challenges for the 21st Century.”

Rousseff also vowed Brazil would restore 120,000 square kilometers (46,330 square miles) of forest over the same period.

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15 September 2014

Huge observation tower takes shape in Amazon rainforest

Anadolu Agency

SÃO PAULO — Work has begun on a giant observation tower in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest in a bid to boost understanding of atmospheric interactions, including global climate change, one of the project’s coordinators confirmed to the Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday.

Once complete, the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) is expected to rise some 330 metres from the forest floor, in an area around 160km northeast of the Amazonian city of Manaus, capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state.

The tower, a joint project between the Brazilian National Institute for Amazon Research (INPA) and Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, is set to gather data on the atmosphere, including greenhouse gases, aerosol particles and the weather.

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