How close is the Amazon to a 'tipping point?' Brazil’s election could help shape its future

SAO PAULO (AP) — While Brazil's presidential candidates have not made policy of the Amazon a major campaign topic, climate scientists and environmentalists say the winner of Sunday's race could determine whether, and how soon, the world's largest rainforest could reach a “tipping point.”

The key threshold, heavily debated among scientists, in simple terms would be when the dense, humid, moisture-generating forest shifts to a drier ecosystem. That would come with irreversible consequences for biodiversity and the climate, as the forest absorbs massive amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that drives global temperature to rise. Brazil contains about 60% of the Amazon, which is spread across several countries in South America.

Here is a look at the two presidential candidates and how their different visions of the Amazon may intersect with a potential tipping point:

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, trying to win a fourth nonconsecutive term, has sought to curb deforestation and finance a sustainable economy through international donations and public and private funding. If he wins, he is expected to continue such policies.

Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, has said he doesn't believe climate change is real while casting himself as an environmental defender. He has offered few details on his plans for forest protection or financing. He has called for a “modernization” of environmental laws and giving landowners in the Amazon more decision-making power, which environmentalists say would weaken safeguards and allow deforestation to accelerate.

Deforestation surged under Jair Bolsonaro, who governed from 2019 through 2022, as he dismantled enforcement agencies and loosened environmental norms. Meanwhile, under Lula's current government, the lowest Amazon deforestation rate on record was announced last week.

A tipping point is a critical threshold beyond which a small change can trigger a major shift in an ecosystem or climate system. Scientists study such risks in regions or systems like the Amazon, Antarctic ice sheets and circulation patterns of the Atlantic Ocean.

For the Amazon, some research suggests that losing more than 20% of the forest, combined with global warming of around 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the early 1800s, could trigger widespread changes. About 17% of the Amazon has already been cleared and temperature rise is currently at about 1.4 C (2.5 F).

Crossing that threshold could set off a self-reinforcing cycle in which parts of the rainforest lose their ability to recover from drought, fire and other disturbances, giving way to a drier ecosystem.

“As the climate changes and puts increasing stress on the Amazon, the forest holds until it can’t anymore and collapses, either in parts or all at once, a process that could take decades or centuries once the tipping point is crossed," said Bernardo Flores, an Earth system resilience expert and member of the Science Panel for the Amazon, an independent scientific initiative dedicated to protecting the basin and guiding sustainable development.

David Lapola, who studies how the Amazon responds to rising carbon dioxide levels, is more cautious. A lead author of an upcoming U.N. climate report chapter on tipping points, he said models suggest a risk of collapse, but observations and experiments have yet to establish that losing 20% of the forest would trigger it.

“That doesn’t mean we should stop worrying, that we should forget about this problem. We need to investigate it, to have a scientific task force to get to the bottom of it,” he said.

A 2024 study led by Flores, the resilience expert, and published in Nature, estimated that 10% to 47% of the Amazon could face multiple threats by 2050, potentially turning parts of the forest into different ecosystems and worsening climate change in the region.

Still, Flores said that we cannot know precisely how closely the Amazon is to a tipping point, and forest degradation could mean its closer than models suggest. “I think the main sign would be the Amazon starting to become very dry and experiencing extensive burning,” he said.

Forest degradation, driven by wildfires, logging and drought, affects about 40% of the Amazon and has outpaced clear-cutting in recent years.

Climate scientist Carlos Nobre, among the first to warn that extensive deforestation could push the Amazon past a tipping point, said changes already underway show the forest is approaching that threshold.

“Today, we know that the southern Amazon is particularly vulnerable,” Nobre said. “The dry season is now four to five weeks longer. Conditions are approximately 20% to 30% drier, and temperatures are two to three degrees Celsius higher.”

Rising temperatures and more frequent droughts are stressing trees and increasing mortality, weakening even intact forests’ ability to absorb more carbon than they release, Lapola, the U.N. report author, said. Those forests could cease to be a net carbon sink by the mid-2030s if the decline continues, though the projection remains uncertain.

Parts of the Amazon already emit more carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that drives global warming, than they absorb, according to research by Luciana Gatti of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.

Her latest study, published Wednesday in Nature, found that the Amazon released an annual average of 1.17 billion metric tons more carbon dioxide than it absorbed from 2010 through 2024. Fires, worsened by climate change, were the main source of emissions.

Nobre said preventing further damage requires sustained cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and economic alternatives to clearing forests for cattle ranching and farming, the leading drivers of deforestation.

“We must achieve zero deforestation, forest degradation and fires,” he said.

At the U.N. climate talks in 2023, Brazil launched its “Arc of Restoration,” an initiative to replant and foster agroforestry practices to restore 24 million hectares in the southern Brazilian Amazon: 6 million by 2030 and another 18 million by 2050. But meeting such goals could depend on who Brazilians elect on Sunday.

“If we succeed, we can save the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest and one of its greatest reservoirs of biodiversity,” Nobre said.

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