The world's largest rainforest is vital to curbing global warming. However, scientists have shown that it has already begun to emit more CO2 than it absorbs, approaching a "point of no return" that would see it turn into savannah.
Using air samples collected during jungle flybys, researchers showed that emissions in the Amazon increased from 240 million tons on average from 2010 to 2018 to 440 million in 2019 (+83%) and 520 million in 2020 (+117%). The average of these two years is double those of the previous eight years.
The study, published in the journal Nature, was conducted by a team from Brazil's space agency INPE. This same team was one of the first to detect that the Amazon was emitting more carbon than it was absorbing, in another study published in Nature in 2021.
The researchers noted that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon (about 60% of South America's rainforest, which spans nine countries) increased by 80% in 2019 and 2020, compared to the average for the 2010-2018 period.
They also found a 14% increase in burned areas in 2019, and 42% in 2020.
According to the authors of the study, these figures show the effects of the "dismantling" of public environmental protection agencies during the mandate of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
These agencies "have stopped imposing fines or seizing land where environmental crimes have been found," Luciana Gatti, the lead author, told AFP.
In Brazil, nearly a fifth of the rainforest has been deforested, mostly leaving for agricultural land or grazing land for livestock.
The agricultural sector is one of the growth engines of Latin America's largest country, which exports soybeans and beef massively around the world.
"The world wants cheap meat, cheap soy to feed livestock, that's also why the forest is destroyed," Gatti said.
Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva succeeded Bolsonaro in January, promising that Brazil was "back" in the fight against climate change.
In the first seven months of his mandate, deforestation in the Amazon fell by 42.5% compared to the same period last year (January-July).