Protecting the Amazon rainforest and making it an engine of sustainable economic growth, in contrast to current logging, would bring Brazil billions in the coming decades, according to a study published on Tuesday. By developing sustainable industries, especially solar power generation, and shifting to low-carbon agriculture, the Amazon region could pave the way for Brazil’s transformation into a green economic powerhouse, adding 40 billion reais ( 7.6 billion euros) per year to the national economy by 2050, according to the report. The study, by the Brazilian office of environmental group World Resources Institute and think tank Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, modeled several scenarios for the economic future of the world’s largest rainforest from the status quo. up to the optimal scenario of zero deforestation and green growth.
This last solution would not only protect one of the most important carbon sinks on the planet, but also save money, by creating 312,000 additional jobs over the next three decades, while preserving or restoring an area of forest estimated at 810,000 square kilometers, or 1.5 times that of France. “This study shows that making the Amazon a priority would benefit all Brazilians,” said economist Rafael Feltran-Barbieri of WRI Brasil, one of more than 100 authors who contributed to the study. “This model, which would make the Amazon the catalyst for the decarbonization of the entire Brazilian economy, is without a doubt the greatest opportunity for economic and social development in the country’s modern history,” he said. he in a statement.
Based on techniques and econometric models developed by various research groups in Brazil, the study found that 83% of the production of livestock, crops, timber and other low value-added products in the Brazilian Amazon, main drivers of deforestation, was exported. The region has a trade deficit of 114 billion reais per year (21 billion euros) with the rest of Brazil and the world, according to the study. Significant investments, worth an additional 2,560 billion reais by 2050 (490 billion euros), are needed to reverse this model and move to an economy with high productivity, high employment and high added value. The cost of inaction would be more than twice as high, due to damage from extreme weather events and other impacts of climate change, according to the study.
