Amazon forest burning provided the human collectivity with an impression on the catastrophic results of deforestation, changes in land use and increased emissions of fossil fuels.

Climate change and its impacts-

1. Many cities have seen high temperatures never before experienced
2. Heat waves have accelerated
3. Melting of glaciers (esp. in Greenland)
4. Recent floods in Mumbai, Kerala and North Karnataka
5. Energy and transport are mainly responsible for the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere.

Fossil fuel emissions and changes in land use patterns – deforestation, industrial agricultural systems and desertification – are major drivers of climate change.

IPCC Report-

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently brought out a special report on Climate Change and Land.
• It covers desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.
• According to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) –
• Cumulative carbon emissions from land-use change since 1750 amounted to almost 180 Gigatonne (Gt), driven largely by the more than six-fold expansion of cropland.
• Fossil fuel use contributed 375 Gigatonne (Gt) since 1750, that is more than 12 times that of the net cumulative emissions from terrestrial ecosystems.

However, the AR5 report also points out that-

• The net carbon emission of terrestrial ecosystem from deforestation and land-use pattern remains neutral since 1750.
• Even though the cumulative land-use change increased the levels of carbon emission; it was absorbed from the existing vegetation, thus maintaining the carbon emission level at minimal.

According to Global Carbon Project reports-

Fossil fuel emits about 9.9 Gt (Gigatonne) of carbon annually to the environment compared to 1.5Gt from land-use change. Terrestrial ecosystem absorbs ~3.8 Gt of carbon annually, indicating carbon emission from fossil fuels remain in the atmosphere compared to other sources.

Concerns-

• From the literature in IPCC AR5, carbon emission from deforestation and logging was compensated to carbon absorption from the forest re-growth, thereby keeping the overall carbon emission at 0.11 Gt per year.
• But the carbon emissions from fossil fuels are majorly leading to global warming and increases the summer temperature remarkably compared to deforestation and land-use change.
• The emission effect from deforestation and land-use change can be reversed by planting more vegetation, carbon absorption from untouched forest areas and biomass, but the fossil fuel emission from coal, gas, oil cannot be reversed and even cannot be compensated from the existing vegetation.

Way forward-

• The Amazon Forest Fire is not the first occurrence, but every year the fire is growing, destructive, bigger ecosystems. Similar forest fires occur mostly because of the increases in the summer temperatures in Africa (Zambia, Angola, and Democratic Republic of Congo), Sibiu and Canada.
• The Amazon forest is a conservator of millions of species of vegetation, animals, birds, ecosystem and biodiversity but preventing deforestation is a real challenge.
• Use of alternate source of energy in place of fossil fuels may minimize the effects of global warming and reduce carbon emission to the atmosphere.
• Developed nations have made fewer attempts in order to reduce the use of fossil fuel and have reached only a 1.3% decrease in the use of fossil fuels in the 26 years since 1990 under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Those nations will also assist to preserve our land-based ecosystems and drastically mitigate global warming if they join forces to agree on Paris Climate Change Accord to maintain global warming at manufacturing rates to 2 percent and in non-industry fields to 1.5 percent.