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Deforestation and Wildfires in Brazil Contributing to ‘Most Intense and Widespread Drought in History’

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16 Sep, 2024

This post was originally published on Eco Watch

Brazil is facing its worst drought on record, fueled by widespread deforestation and wildfire destruction in the Amazon and surrounding regions, scientists say.

The destruction hinders the area’s natural water cycle, especially its crucial “flying river” phenomenon. As the trees in the Eastern Amazon and Cerrado regions absorb rainfall brought about by moisture coming from the Atlantic, they later release water vapor into the air through transpiration, which then brings rainfall to much of Brazil and other parts of South America. 

But the trees the process requires are being destroyed, leading to rivers drying up and areas that were once green now resembling deserts.

Luciana Gatti, a climate researcher at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, told The Washington Post, “This is a process connected from the bottom to the top, with the flying rivers at the top being weakened, and the earth being weakened at the bottom, erasing natural fountains and reducing river levels.”

Nearly 40% of the Amazon’s most vital areas are unprotected, Reuters reported Wednesday. That includes a large part of the Amazon’s northeast, nestled against the Atlantic Ocean, which holds an immense amount of carbon compared to the rest of the region. 

As the Amazon’s northeast is being destroyed, not only is it disrupting the water cycle and leading to further droughts elsewhere, but it’s also releasing an enormous amount of carbon into the atmosphere.

“This is the first time that a drought has covered all the way from the North to the country’s Southeast,” Ana Paula Cunha, a researcher at CEMADEN, Brazil’s National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters, said in a statement last week. “It is the most intense and widespread drought in history.”

Amid the destruction, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva recently flew into the Amazon. “It seems to me that things are getting worse, year after year after year,” he said. 

“In the Pantanal we’ve had the worst drought in the last 73 years… This is a problem that we have to fix because otherwise humanity is going to destroy our planet,” Lula added. “We cannot destroy that which we rely on for our life.”


Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on a flight over the Pantanal on July 31, 2024. Ricardo Stuckert / Lula Oficial

The Cerrado region in the country’s southeast, which is also a crucial part of the water cycle, is in the midst of its worst drought in at least 700 years, a new study shows.

The team examined geological data to “extend the perception of drought caused by global warming to a period long before the weather station’s records began,” Francisco William da Cruz Junior, a professor at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Geosciences and one of the study’s authors, told the São Paulo Research Foundation.

“This proved that the Cerrado is drier than it was and that the dry weather is associated with the disruption to the hydrological cycle caused by the rise in temperature due to human activity, especially greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

More than 59% of the country is under stress from drought. In São Paolo, Brazil’s most populated city with more than 21 million residents, wildfires have reduced air quality to the second lowest in the world, The Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, the city’s Pinheiros River turned green from pollution and drought. 

“You can put this in capital letters,” Gatti said. “It will get worse and worse. We are heading toward an apocalyptical situation, and unfortunately, we only wake up at the last minute.”

The post Deforestation and Wildfires in Brazil Contributing to ‘Most Intense and Widespread Drought in History’ appeared first on EcoWatch.

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Taking the electronic pulse of the circular economy

Taking the electronic pulse of the circular economy

In June, I had the privilege of attending the 2025 E-Waste World, Battery Recycling, Metal Recycling, and ITAD & Circular Electronics Conference & Expo events in Frankfurt, Germany.

Speaking in the ITAD & Circular Electronics track on a panel with global Circular Economy leaders from Foxway Group, ERI and HP, we explored the evolving role of IT asset disposition (ITAD) and opportunities in the circular electronics economy.

The event’s focus on advancing circular economy goals and reducing environmental impact delivered a series of insights and learnings. From this assembly of international expertise across 75+ countries, here are some points from the presentations that stood out for me:

1. Environmental impact of the digital economy

Digitalisation has a heavy material footprint in the production phase, and lifecycle thinking needs to guide every product decision. Consider that 81% of the energy a laptop uses in its lifetime is consumed during manufacture (1 tonne in manufacture is equal to 10,000 tonnes of CO2) and laptops are typically refreshed or replaced by companies every 3–4 years.

From 2018 to 2023, the average number of devices and connections per capita in the world increased by 50% (2.4 to 3.6). In North America (8.2 to 13.4) and Western Europe (5.6 to 9.4), this almost doubled. In 1960, only 10 periodic table elements were used to make phones. In 1990, 27 elements were used and now over 60 elements are used to build the smartphones that we have become so reliant on.

A key challenge is that low-carbon and digital technologies largely compete for the same minerals. Material resource extraction could increase 60% between 2020 and 2060, while demand for lithium, cobalt and graphite is expected to rise by 500% until 2050.

High growth in ICT demand and Internet requires more attention to the environmental footprint of the digital economy. Energy consumption of data centres is expected to more than double by 2026. The electronics industry accounts for over 4% of global GHG — and digitalisation-related waste is growing, with skewed impacts on developing countries.

E-waste is rising five times faster than recycling — 1 tonne of e-waste has a carbon footprint of 2 tonnes. Today’s solution? ‘Bury it or burn it.’ In terms of spent emissions, waste and the costs associated with end-of-life liabilities, PCBAs (printed circuit board assembly) cost us enormously — they generally achieve 3–5% recyclability (75% of CO2 in PCBAs is from components).

2. Regulating circularity in electronics

There is good momentum across jurisdictions in right-to-repair, design and labelling regulations; recycling targets; and voluntary frameworks on circularity and eco-design.

The EU is at the forefront. EU legislation is lifting the ICT aftermarket, providing new opportunities for IT asset disposition (ITAD) businesses. To get a sense, the global market for electronics recycling is estimated to grow from $37 billion to $108 billion (2022–2030). The value of refurbished electronics is estimated to increase from $85.9 billion to $262.2 billion (2022–2032). Strikingly, 40% of companies do not have a formal ITAD strategy in place.

Significantly, the EU is rethinking its Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) management targets, aligned with upcoming circularity and WEEE legislation, as part of efforts to foster the circular economy. A more robust and realistic circularity-driven approach to setting collection targets would better reflect various factors including long lifespans of electronic products and market fluctuations.

Australia and New Zealand lag the EU’s comprehensive e-waste mandated frameworks. The lack of a systematic approach results in environmental degradation and missed positioning opportunities for businesses in the circular economy. While Australia’s Senate inquiry into waste reduction and recycling recommended legislating a full circular economy framework — including for imported and local product design, financial incentives and regulatory enforcement, New Zealand remains the only OECD country without a national scheme to manage e-waste.

3. Extending product lifecycles

Along with data security and digital tools, reuse was a key theme in the ITAD & Circular Electronics track of the conference. The sustainable tech company that I lead, Greenbox, recognises that reuse is the simplest circular strategy. Devices that are still functional undergo refurbishment and are reintroduced into the market, reducing new production need and conserving valuable resources.

Conference presenters highlighted how repair over replacement is being legislated as a right in jurisdictions around the world. Resources are saved, costs are lowered, product life is extended, and people and organisations are empowered to support a greener future. It was pointed out that just 43% of countries have recycling policies, 17% of global waste is formally recycled, and less than 1% of global e-waste is formally repaired and reused.

Right to repair is a rising wave in the circular economy, and legislation is one way that civil society is pushing back on programmed obsolescence. Its global momentum continues at different speeds for different product categories — from the recent EU mandates to multiple US state bills (and some laws) through to repair and reuse steps in India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The European Commission’s Joint Research Commission has done a scoping study to identify product groups under the Ecodesign framework that would be most relevant for implementing an EU-wide product reparability scoring system.

Attending this event with the entire electronic waste recycling supply chain — from peers and partners to suppliers and customers — underscored the importance of sharing best practices to address the environmental challenges that increased hardware proliferation and complex related issues are having on the world.

Ross Thompson is Group CEO of sustainability, data management and technology asset lifecycle management market leader Greenbox. With facilities in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, Greenbox Group provides customers all over the world a carbon-neutral supply chain for IT equipment to reduce their carbon footprint by actively managing their environmental, social and governance obligations.

Image credit: iStock.com/Mustafa Ovec

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