While the Clean Development Mechanism focuses on the reduction of carbon emissions, it overlooks other greenhouse gases emitted by hydropower. While methane does not stay in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide only persisting for up to 12 years , its warming potential is far higher.
Belo Monte has been linked to these methane emissions by numerous opposition actors. Further research has found that the vegetation rotting in the reservoirs of dams across the globe may emit a million tonnes of greenhouse gases per year. As a result, it is claimed that these projects are — in fact — making a net contribution to climate change.
Far from providing a sustainable, renewable energy solution in a climate-changed world, Belo Monte is instead cast as exacerbating the problem that it is meant to solve. Belo Monte is just one of many dams across the globe that have been justified — and funded — as sustainable pursuits. Yet, this conflates the ends with the means. The environmental credentials of these projects remain contested, with Belo Monte providing just one example of how the sustainability label may finally be slipping.
Portsmouth Climate Festival — Portsmouth, Portsmouth. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in. But it is the company and the government that are to blame, according to the federal prosecutor in Altamira, Thais Santi, who reported with horror her visit to another tribe, the Arara at Cachoeira Seca.
They just stood there motionless, asking for food, asking to have homes built for them… They had stopped talking and meeting each other. The only time they met was at night to watch a telenovela on a plasma TV. It was brutal … The Emergency Plan had created an absolute dependence on the company. Reversing the damage seems impossible.
The village chief, Juruna tells us he is planning another protest on canoes to try to secure more territory before the dam is completed. The police can kill us. The endless round of talks with government officials, Norte Energia representatives, NGO activists and journalists takes up so much energy that many say they barely have time to tend the land or go fishing. When they do fish, they say the catches are much lower than in the past because of the blasting and the dust and the extra upstream demand for food for the construction workers.
Conservationists say the situation will get worse when the river is closed off. There are several fish, including the acari, that are unique to the Volta Grande Big Bend where the hydropower plant is being constructed. Much of this aquatic life is dependent on the rise and fall of the river.
Many species reproduce in flood water ponds that will disappear once the dam is built. The fluctuation of the Xingu also affects the temperatures of tributaries, which could effect the tracaja turtle. The gender of this species is determined by whether the sand of the banks is hot female or cold male. Reduced flow on the trunk river will mean lower temperatures and probably a higher proportion of males. It is not only indigenous tribes who are affected. Before the construction started, he used to spend the night on the river, diving into the depths to catch zebra fish for aquariums, harpooning asas and using wooden traps for pescada.
But once the project started, he said the catches started to decline drastically. Like many former fishermen in the area, he now makes a living breaking rocks for the dam. Despite the many tales of woe, Belo Monte is the precursor for more barrages in Amazonia.
Many of the most accessible rivers are already tapped so future expansion is expected to come from the Amazon and Cerrado regions. Since , the paper notes that Brazil has lost 44, sq km of protected land. They called for greater investment in solar, wind and biofuels to reduce the destruction this causes. Brazil also failed to comply with precautionary measures issued by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which were intended to protect the life, health, and integrity of local communities.
Though Belo Monte began operations in May , it is not yet operating at full capacity. In April , a federal court suspended the dam's operating license because the consortium in charge did not complete basic sanitation works in Altamira, the city nearest to and most affected by the dam. In a complaint to the Ontario Securities Commission, a coalition of civil society organizations calls attention to the repeated dissemination of misleading information by Canadian-based company.
We made our first participation ever in the HRC and joined the discussions on the right to a healthy environment and the protection of environmental human rights defenders. Blog Press Center Publications. Holding Brazil accountable for the Belo Monte Dam When fully operational, Belo Monte will be the third-largest dam in the world, constructed in one of the most important ecosystems on the planet: the Amazon rainforest.
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