In a world of higher electricity demand growth, clean electricity is stepping up to the challenge. Spearheaded by exponential solar expansion, clean power is set to grow faster than demand, marking the start of a permanent decline in fossil generation. 2024 both clarified and consolidated the shape of the global …
The leakage of four million litres of crude oil from a refinery operated by state-owned Petrobras Limited has resulted in Brazil's worst enviornmental disaster in 26 years. The oil spill has contaminated the Iguacu river and endangered its acquatic life. Jose Sarney Filho, environmental minister has warned Petrobras to control …
A pest which ruins a third of Brazil's oranges each year could soon be eliminated, thanks to the genome sequencing. According to Andrew Simpson of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the bacterium, Xyella fastidiosa is the first plant pest genome to be completely sequenced. This …
The forest fires of 1997 and 1998 created enormous ecological damage and human suffering and helped focus world attention on what is an increasing problem. This report is a follow-up to the WWF International Discussion Paper The Year the World Caught Fire which was published in December 1997. However, eighteen …
Government inspectors in Brazil are burning fields and seizing sacks of bio-engineered soybean seeds. Brazil is yet to approve the cultivation of these beans and has thus emerged as the world's premier source of the regular variety. So food companies, which use soybean oil or soybean meal in everything from …
Environmentalists in Brazil won a major victory when a legislative proposal to open more areas to logging and harvesting was put on hold till March. If the Congress approved the bill, it would have been "the largest known setback for Brazilian environmental laws", said Andre Lima, a representative from Brazil's …
The coffee output in Brazil has been below 30 million 60-kg bags because of the severe drought. However, officials said that it is very early to fully quantify the loss. "Whatever we are seeing in the coffee harvest in Brazil is very serious. We have calculated that 65 per cent …
to stop the illegal trade of animals from the Amazon, Brazil has launched a training course for police officers to detect forged export permits. Every year, about 12 million animals, worth us $1.5 billion in the international market, are smuggled out of Brazil, says Denner Giovanini, head of the National …
it is an attempt to achieve environmentally-friendly logging. Mil Madeireira, a Brazil-based forestry company, has evolved a way to cut trees in such a way that when a tree is cut, it falls in an area where few other trees would be affected. The company's logging method has been acknowledged …
according to a new report released by BirdLife International, a global wildlife group, one in eight of the world's bird species faces extinction in the next millennium because of damage to the environment. BirdLife International, representing 2.2 million people in 105 countries, said that 1,200 bird species could become extinct …
Fifteen years ago, Brazilians did not even have a name for the lush, tropical rainforest that tumbles from seaside mountains to the ocean along much of the nation's Atlantic coast. They came up with a name just in time. The Mata Atlantica or the Atlantic rain forest, is now one …
Coffee plantation owners in Brazil heaved a sigh of relief after the much-awaited spring showers lashed the parched country. The showers came after days of prolonged drought, which had hit the country's coffee belt and was threatening to cause heavy losses in the coming season, said Cooxupe, a leading cooperative …
A Brazilian judge has asked the Monsanto Company to shelve plans to launch sales of genetically modified (gm) soybeans this year. He further ruled that the biotechnology giant's local unit must perform a one-year environmental impact study before selling its transgenic crop in the country. "Whenever there is a potential …
The Brazilian government has launched a campaign to monitor illegal logging and fires that are destroying the Amazonian rainforests. The government's environment agency, ibama, has joined hands with the army to save the precious reserve. Six army helicopters will assist ibama in surveying the major deforestation zones in central Brazil, …
Officials in Brazil's tourist capital Rio de Janeiro were struggling to stop the latest sewage pipe leak polluting the city's famous beaches. Some four million tourists visit Rio each year, but recently the beaches have worn a deserted look, with the few sunbathers staying clear of the less than sparkling …
To mark World Environment Day, Greenpeace launched a campaign to save the Amazon rainforest with the cooperation of the government of Brazil ( Down To Earth , Vol 8, No 2). Thilo Bode, executive director of Greenpeace International said, "The fight against the destruction of the Amazon rainforest will be …
Environmentalists have consistently raised the demand that urgent steps are needed to protect the Amazon rainforests in Brazil. The significance of their demand is reinforced by a recent study that shows that the forests are being damaged at twice the speed as normally believed. This was revealed in a study …
The concept of joint implementation as a way to implement climate change mitigation projects in another country has been controversial ever since its inception. Developing countries have raised numerous issues at the project-specific technical level, and broader concerns having to do with equity and burden sharing. This paper summarizes the …
Despite new measures to curb destruction of the world's largest rainforests in the Amazon basin, deforestation has increased by 30 per cent. Preliminary figures from satellite monitoring showed 16,800 sq km of forests
in recent years, restructuring of the electric industry in Brazil has been occurring at a rapid pace. Installed electric capacity in Brazil now stands at about 60 gegawatts (gw), of which 94 per cent is generated by hydropower stations. The consumption is growing at the rate of 4 to 5 …
