"Irish farmers should be preparing to renew the fight against Brazilian beef on the grounds of carbon footprints, a leading bio-energy expert has warned."
I've repeated it before, despite all the press on the Amazon Forrest, CO2 emissions is something Brazil should not worry about. The emission per capita remained for the least years neatly below 1,8 metric tons per capita. More than 20 times lower than the US emission per capita,; more than 5 times lower than the Belgian emission per capita and more than 3 times lower then the South African emission per capita. In other words: South Africa needs to reduce the CO2 emission per capita by 300% before Brazil has to start working and the US needs to drop emissions by 2.000% (!!) before Brazil is required to take action.
The most interesting is the GDP/emission ration. Brazil scores 2.000 US$ GDP output per metric ton emission, that is higher than the US with 1.936 US$ per metric ton CO2. And honestly, despite all the "green" mumbo jumbo in the current US speech, I believe that Brazil will further widen its lead on the US when it comes to GDP output / metric ton CO2.
And preserving the Amazon? Simple: global payments for ecological services rendered by the Amazon such as the carbon retaining in its forests could go a long way to preserving them, a new study has found. This study is just last week published by WWF; a must read.
Exactly my point: people want Brazil to preserve the Amazon for preserving the carbon retaining capacity of the forest? OK, then pay Brazil for rendering this service. Once there used to be forest in the US and Belgium where both countries put production cpacity without ever worrying of the carbon retaining capacity of those forests.
I'll eat my excellent Brazilian meat (Picanha and piece of Brazilian Mignon with parmesan risotto) in March without any carbon-emission guilt.
