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Brazil’s hydro dams could make its greenhouse gas emissions soar
Posted by GlobalPost: Simeon Tegel on July 1st, 2013
GlobalPost: Officials here frequently claim that the huge hydroelectric dams that increasingly dot the Brazilian Amazon are a source of "clean energy.' The dams often flood vast areas of rain forest, leading to a major loss of biodiversity and the devastating displacement of indigenous communities from their ancestral lands. That is justified, President Dilma Rousseff claims, because they help fight climate change. "[Hydroelectric power] does not emit greenhouse gases, and that means we have a renewable energy...
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Latin America’s climate conundrum
Posted by GlobalPost: Simeon Tegel on July 17th, 2012
GlobalPost: From Tierra del Fuego to Tijuana, Latin America is highly vulnerable to climate change, which is expected to trigger a series of natural disasters that could even reverse local victories in the fight against poverty.
Droughts will grip regions from the southern cone to northern Mexico. Extreme storms are increasingly battering Central America. Rising seas will swallow up vast coastal areas. And many Andean glaciers will disappear forever.
Meanwhile, the greatest threat to the Amazon -- home...
REDD: Saving the Amazon rainforest
Posted by GlobalPost: Simeon Tegel on February 1st, 2012
GlobalPost: International negotiators are closing in on a new solution for combating climate change -- and saving the world's remaining forests.
Some 20 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions now come from deforestation, especially in the lush, green band of tropical rainforest that circles the earth.
That is more than from global transport.
So representatives from member states involved in UN climate negotiations are attempting to hammer out a way to make it more profitable to protect forests than...