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from agricultural production alone, according Amazon in the coming months and time for the
to ClimateWatch, a database managed by the economy to start recovering,”
World Resources Institute.
Brazil’s environmental reputation took another
Another 329 million metric tons occurred major hit recently when Vice President
because of the conversion of grasslands, and Hamilton Mourão unveiled new satellite
destruction of forests. data that showed the destruction of about
Argentina had 128 million metric tons emis- 11,000 square kilometers of Amazon rain forest
sions from agricultural production in 2016, this year – a 9.6% increase from last year.
plus 102 million metric tons from land use It’s the highest level of deforestation since
change and deforestation. 2008, according to data maintained by the
By comparison, EU and U.S. ag emissions Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and
totaled 395 million metric tons and 381 million Innovation. Mourão tried to downplay the new
metric tons respectively, and both the EU and data, stressing that the rate of increase in defor-
U.S. are net negative when it comes to con- estation has been higher in recent years, but the
version of grasslands or forests, according to negative backlash, domestically and internation-
ClimateWatch. ally, was immediate.

Brazil’s ag emissions are likely to keep growing. Carlos Rittl, a senior fellow at the German
Farmers there are expected to increase their Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies,
plantings of five major crops, soybeans, corn, proclaimed President Jair Bolsonaro’s “great
wheat, dry beans and rice, by 16% over the next achievement when it comes to the environment
decade to 178 million acres, up from 153 million has been this tragic destruction of forests, which
acres last year. has turned Brazil into perhaps one of the great-
est enemies of the global environment and an
Meanwhile, the Climate Observatory, a international pariah too.”
Brazilian environmental advocacy group esti-
mates that Brazil’s carbon may have grown by Not much thought would have been given to the
as much as 20% this year from 2018 “depend- situation twenty years ago. The annual accounting
ing on the trajectory of the deforestation in the of Amazon deforestation rarely made the front

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