Science is essential for curbing global warming, forest loss, and biodiversity loss

Ten years after the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 in the French capital by 194 countries and the European Union, the goal of limiting the increase in the average global temperature to below 2 °C compared to pre-industrial levels by the end of this century has faced a series of setbacks.  

To advance the climate agenda and contain the global warming crisis, which is interlinked with the loss of forests and biodiversity, the role of science must be revived and refocused.

Bárbara Pompili, the French Ambassador for the Environment, made this assessment at the opening of the Brazil-France Forum on Forests, Biodiversity, and Human Societies. The forum is being held from June 16th to 18th at the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) in Paris.

The event was organized by FAPESP in partnership with the University of São Paulo (USP) and is part of the FAPESP Week France program, which began on June 10th in Toulouse, the capital of the Occitanie region in southern France.

“Ten years after the Paris Agreement, many people still question the anthropogenic origin of climate change or doubt the existence of the problem itself. These same people also minimize the importance of biodiversity loss and its impacts and reject the link between the environment and our health, for example. Not content, they decide to attack the thermometer, that is, science and scientists,” said Pompili.

“That’s why forums like this are important, because they bring together the main social actors we can rely on, which are scientists. In this sense, we must continue to work together, beyond our borders, so that we can better understand the magnitude of these problems and better prepare ourselves for the future,” she said.

Rita Mesquita, National Secretary for Biodiversity at Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment, believes that the best solutions for tackling climate change are based on nature and, above all, biodiversity.

“If we want to be able to tackle global warming, we’ll have to discuss biodiversity in the context of climate change and recognize that maintaining nature means conserving the basis for sustaining life on Earth,” she said. 

Challenges for forests

According to Giles Bloch, Director of the MNHN, there is a great variety of tropical, boreal, Mediterranean, and temperate forests in the world. Like all plant formations, they are subject to multiple influences, such as climate, soil formation, altitude, and weather. 

“This means that the forest is a complex ecosystem that offers numerous habitats for different species and populations of animals, plants, and microorganisms that maintain interdependent relationships. This invites us to reflect on the threats to forests and, at the same time, highlights the urgency of their conservation,” he said.

“Forests, in addition to their remarkable biodiversity, also play a central role in regulating the climate, as well as essential economic functions, and are subject to strong pressures linked to human activities and environmental changes. Maintaining them therefore represents a major challenge,” he said.

Marco Antonio Zago, President of FAPESP, said this challenge is especially great for countries like Brazil, which has more than half of its territory covered by forests.

“There are almost 5 million square kilometers. These forests and woodlands are more concentrated in the Amazon region, but in fact, they’re distributed in all regions of Brazil, including the state of São Paulo,” he said.

Zago pointed out that FAPESP is responsible for the largest and most successful strategic research programs on biodiversity, global climate change, and renewable energies in Brazil. 

“FAPESP has funded more than 5,700 projects related to Sustainable Development Goal [of the United Nations] 6, on drinking water and sanitation, as well as almost 4,000 projects related to SDG 13, on action against global climate change, and 1,800 related to SDG 15, on terrestrial life. The BIOTA-FAPESP program [FAPESP Program for Research into the Characterization, Conservation, Restoration, and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity], which began 25 years ago in São Paulo, is known as a virtual biodiversity institute, brings together more than 1,200 researchers from all over the country, and has already funded over 350 projects,” he said.

“We’re here to discuss, to think together about solutions to the issues of the relationship between forests, biodiversity, and their populations and society in general. FAPESP will always be available to support this research, especially that carried out in collaborations between São Paulo and France,” he said.

Collaboration with France

FAPESP is one of the French National Research Agency’s (ANR) main partner funding agencies, said Claire Giry, the institution’s president.

“Our partnership with FAPESP is part of a shared approach between the two institutions aimed at promoting scientific excellence. Researchers from both countries have been working together on topics of common interest, in a system of scientific evaluation of projects carried out by the ANR since 2011 that allows the results of projects approved by one partner agency to be ultimately recognized by another.”

Thanks to FAPESP’s support for joint research projects on forests, Brazilian science has been able to contribute significantly to advancing the understanding of the deep historical relationship between indigenous and traditional populations and life in the Amazon Rainforest over the last 30 years, said Eduardo Neves, Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at the University of São Paulo (MAE-USP).

Until the late 1990s, the prevailing hypothesis was that the indigenous presence in the Amazon was ancient. This idea was based on the notion that the forest was unhealthy and inhospitable, and had never been densely occupied in the past.

However, through archaeological research carried out by MAE and Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi researchers in Belém – sometimes in partnership with French colleagues – it has been possible to demonstrate that indigenous peoples have occupied the Amazon for at least 13,000 years and that the region is crucial for water production and biodiversity. 

“Plants that are consumed all over the world were first cultivated in the Amazon by indigenous populations. The oldest ceramics in the New World were first produced there, and indigenous peoples modified the forest, so that the forest we know today isn’t only ecological heritage, but also biocultural,” he said. 

“There’s a fundamental intellectual contribution made by traditional populations that created this Amazon that we know today and, therefore, there’s no future for the forest without contemplating this very sophisticated knowledge that’s been used to promote these landscapes,” he stressed.

During the event, FAPESP signed a memorandum of understanding with a French institute to enable joint symposia between researchers from São Paulo and France.

“Some of the priority themes are climate and ecological transition, dialogue with Africa, and fair democracy and globalization, which are also closely linked,” said Eva Nguyen Binh, director of the institute.

The event was also opened by André Maciel, Minister Counselor at the Brazilian embassy in Paris, and Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, Chairman of the Engie group.