Sergio Abranches

Country negotiators in Geneva have initiated formal talks ahead of Paris’ COP 21. After only two days of talks, the draft text for a future climate agreement has ballooned to close to 100 pages. Most of the countries added contributions to the original text, making it to more than double its size. Pages added were fewer than the required amount to absorb all visions and interests from all parties to the negotiation. It would have required more than 200 pages to accommodate all countries’ visions. True negotiations will now start aiming at streamlining the text. So far the Geneva environment was calm. It is likely, though, that selecting which demands will enter the text to be sent to Paris would have a greenhouse effect on the climate of negotiations. More »

Sergio Abranches

Brazilian total greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) have increase 7.8% despite dismal economic growth in 2013. Official emissions data are not annually updated, but a coalition of think-tanks and NGO’s established the Climate Observatory to provide independent yearly estimates of Brazilian GEEs by sectors of economic activity. This independent research endeavor has provided estimates showing the trajectory of Brazilian carbon emissions since 1970 (since 1990 including emissions from deforestation). This increase in emissions reflects a reversal of the downward trend of total emissions observed since 2005, when deforestation rates started to drop sharply. While deforestation represented the major source of emissions, falling deforestation rates would bring emissions down, even if emissions from other sources were growing significantly. Over the last five years this situation has changed very much. More »

Will the 2014 World Cup in Brazil be the stage for a surge of protest movements as most, particularly the government fear? Nobody can tell for sure. The June 2013 mass protests that created a climate of stress at the Confederations’Cup and led to a downwards trend on presidential popularity were unprecedented and unpredicted. This spontaneous outbreak of discontent, often amplified through mobile communications and social networks, elude the explanations sociologists and political scientists have for mass rallies, riots and other forms of public demonstrations of dissatisfaction all over the world. More »

Sergio Abranches

He fought an oppressive, violent, and illegitimate regime. He wouldn’t comply with laws that were unacceptable, because they promoted institutionalized racism and segregation. He got a life sentence based on those laws, and spent 27 years in jail. The apartheid regime and the tyrannical political system that supported it were defeated by the persistent resistance of the majority he inspired. When he was elected to be South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela has chosen to be democratic and communitarian on the best tradition of his Xhosa people. He refused to be vindictive and resentful, as so many others have been in similar circumstances. He was incomparable. The Xhosa tradition is based on Ubuntu that says that sharing and relating with others is the core of our humanness. An isiXhosa saying Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu means that the person becomes a person through other persons. Our fulcrum is our humanness which is realized only through other humans. More »

Sérgio Abranches

The release of IPCC’s Summary Report for Policymakers today has ended speculations that animated the social media over the last few weeks, but has not eliminated controversies. A full view of the scientists’ take on the scientific state of the art on the physics of climate change will have to wait for the final draft of the Working Group I contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report due on 30 September. More »