Natural disasters caused losses of US$115 billion worldwide this year; see other highlights Curto Verde

🌪️ Natural disasters caused losses of US$ 115 billion worldwide this year

Economic losses caused by natural catastrophes around the world reached 115 billion dollars in the first ten months of the year, reported reinsurer Swiss Re this Thursday (1st).

“Hurricane Ian, along with other winter storms in Europe, flooding in Australia and South Africa, as well as hailstorms in France and the United States, represents an estimated loss of $115 billion to date,” according to a statement from the Swiss group.

Hurricane Ian, this year's biggest-loss catastrophe, resulted in costs of between $50 billion and $65 billion, said Swiss Re, which aims to insure insurers.

For the Zurich-based group, this hurricane is the second most economically damaging natural disaster in history, behind only Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

🌳 The Amazon is the biome with the most pastures in Brazil

In the last two decades, the pasture area grew 40% in Amazon. In the same period, this type of soil cover decreased substantially in Atlantic forest (28%) and in Cerrado (10%), where 10,2 million hectares were transformed into temporary crops.

The advance of pastures over the Amazon placed it at the top of the list of biomes with the largest area, in percentage terms, at 36%. With the exception of Minas Gerais, with 19,3 million hectares, the other two leading states in terms of pasture area in Brazil are in the Legal Amazon: Pará (21,1 million hectares) and Mato Grosso (20,2 million hectares) .

The data is part of a unprecedented mapping of the MapBiomes, which was presented this Wednesday (30). He reveals that the main use given to Brazilian soil continues to be pasture: of the entire deforested area in Brazil, which now approaches 35% of the national territory, approximately 90% was or continues to be pasture.

💰 UN calls for strong public and private investment for environmental protection by 2025

The world must dramatically increase funding for actions to protect and restore natural and modified ecosystems to achieve key climate goals, biodiversity and land degradation – states the UN in a report released this Thursday (1st).

The study is launched on the eve of a meeting of delegates from almost 200 countries in Montreal next week to draft a new global agreement on biodiversity.

Another COP? Understand the importance of COP15 on biodiversity

After the Climate Summit in Egypt (COP27), the world turns to the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), which takes place from December 7th to 19th in Montreal, Canada. Plans to protect the natural world and prevent its destruction will be discussed. O Curto explain!

According to the report “State of finance for nature” (*), published by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), investments are expected to increase to US$384 billion per year by 2025, more than double the current US$154 billion per year.

By 2030, financial flows of US$484 billion annually will be needed for sustainable ecosystem management actions to face challenges such as limiting levels of global warming below 1,5°C, stop the loss of biodiversity, achieving land degradation neutrality and more, according to the report.

🌱 Petrobras announces Strategic Plan 2023-2027

A Petrobras announced, on Wednesday night (30), its strategic plan for the period between 2023 and 2027.

The plan provides US$4,4 billion for low carbon initiatives, which will mostly be used to reduce the intensity of emissions from the company's main activities.

The announced objectives are to carbon neutrality in its activities and in the energy acquired by 2050. By the end of the decade, the goal is to reduce these carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 30%. Other commitments include an end to the burning of methane and the reinjection of 80 million tons of CO2 equivalent using carbon sequestration.

The Petrobras Carbon Neutral Program and the Decarbonization Fund, which aim to finance solutions to reduce the company's emissions, were also reinforced, says the statement – ​​the fund went from US$248 million in the last period to US$600 million.

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Deforestation in the Amazon falls by 11% in one year, but the increase under Bolsonaro is almost 60%

Deforestation in the Amazon between August 2021 and July this year reached 11.568 km², according to data from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), an organization linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology. The drop is 11% compared to the same period of the previous year. The four years of Bolsonaro's government, however, saw a 59,5% increase in destruction, compared to the previous four years, under the administrations of Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer, according to a calculation made by the Climate Observatory based on official data.

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