Why The Result Of Brazil’s Elections Could Be Bad News For The Climate

[sabbat hunter]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/30/3585968/brazilian-elections-bad-news-climate/

The Belo Monte dam, which will flood 1,500 square kilometers of rainforest, an area larger than the city of New York, and displace 40,000 indigenous people. Although technically clean energy, there is much dispute over the dam’s economic, social, and environmental viability. Its construction will have a significant carbon footprint, but the dam itself will only run at 40 percent capacity for much of the year. The bulk of power produced by the dam will be sold at subsidized rates to energy-intensive industries like aluminum smelting. The funneling of energy to industries in the region is likely to foster their growth, and therefore further deforestation. The project has been mired in legal disputes since its inception, with independent and public institutions having issued numerous conflicting reports on the environmental and social impacts of the dam. A ruling by the Brazilian high court this April identified major irregularities in the project’s latest environmental impact assessment report, threatening to halt construction for the sixth time in four years.
Rousseff is coupling her strategy of hydropower expansion in the Amazon with a heavier reliance on fossil fuels. Brazil’s ten-year energy plan funnels 70 percent of its budget to fossil fuels (much of it for offshore drilling), and only 9.2 percent of it for renewables, with environmentally questionable hydro composing the bulk of the renewable budget.

[geek tragedy]

1. I was rooting for Silva. Roussef doesn't give a shit

about the planet only her own re-election and her industrial buddies.