Climate change could cost Brazil 2 trillion dollars: study

(AFP)

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil could lose 2.05 trillion dollars over the next four decades from climate change, according to a new study by the country's Applied Economics Research Institute and 10 associated institutions.

The farming and hydroelectric-dependent energy sectors would be most affected, mainly because of changes in rainfall the study said, while the regions to be hit hardest would be the Amazon and other northern areas.

The study calculated that 600 million dollars a year in investment were needed to adapt crops to a changing climate, and said 51 billion dollars would be needed up to 2050 to establish clean energy sources.

Welfare programs would have to be beefed up in affected regions and better measures against deforestation implemented.

An economist specializing in the environment, Ronaldo Seroa da Motta, coordinator of the institute's Carbon Markets Studies unit, told AFP that Brazil's biggest contribution to climate change was deforestation.

That produced nearly 60 percent of national greenhouse gas emissions and made Brazil the fourth biggest polluter of those gases in the world, he said.

Brazil's target of reducing emissions by 36 to 39 percent based on an estimate of 2020 output needs to be matched by other nations, he said.

"In short, if other countries don't do their part, climate change could occur even if Brazil does its part," he said.

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