The state of Rio Grande do Sul hit by extreme climate events: 90 victims, 200,000 displaced after a week of rain in one of the most productive areas of the country. Lula prepares reconstruction and reaffirms commitment against climate change.
The heavy rains recorded in the state of Río Grande Do Sul, in southern Brazil, between Argentina and Uruguay, turned into a tragedy. Since April 29th, a storm has hit relentlessly, affecting 78% of the state’s municipalities according to the latest Civil Defense report.
1.4 million people suffered losses due to the extreme climate event. The official victims are 90, 132 missing, 361 injured and the displaced exceed 200,000 people. The airport in Porto Alegre, the capital of the state where 1.4 million people live, has been closed since the weekend, and most communication routes are blocked. There is fear of looting, which has already begun in some populous areas of the capital, and the spread of diseases due to the difficult health conditions and the difficulties in reaching hospital centres.
The damages from an economic point of view are still difficult to calculate. Rio Grande do Sul is the fifth Brazilian state in terms of contribution to the national GDP, surpassed only by São Paulo, Río de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Paraná. Economists at JP Morgan, although they argued that the impact on Brazil’s global growth is not considerable, warned of a possible increase in prices of rice, of which the state of Rio Grande do Sul is the largest national producer, which could push up inflation across the country.
According to the National Confederation of Municipalities, the damages in just 36 of the more than 400 municipalities in the state already add up to almost 100 million euros. President Lula da Silva flew over the areas hit by the storm and announced extraordinary investments for reconstruction. “Brazil owes a lot to Rio Grande do Sul, it is a very important state from an artistic, cultural, working and our culture point of view. What we will do is give Rio Grande do Sul what it deserves to be able to move forward with its life”, Lula said in a press conference, after presenting a decree to parliament for the declaration of the catastrophe and the immediate sending of an extraordinary aid package.
Climate disasters in Brazil are certainly not new, but they have seen a huge increase in recent years. In February 2022, more than 530mm of rain fell in 24 hours, practically destroying the city of Petrópolis, in the state of Río de Janeiro, causing the death of 230 people. In March 2023, the northeastern states were hit by unprecedented rains that displaced hundreds of thousands.
Only a few months ago, Brazil was in the headlines around the world due to the record temperatures recorded last summer: 45º in Río de Janeiro and other cities in the centre-north. And Rio Grande do Sul itself had been hit by several months of drought which put the corn and soybean harvest at the beginning of the year in serious danger.
According to the Integrated Disaster Information System, from 2003 to today, 27,459 emergency declarations due to climatic factors have been recorded, and 574 cases declared as natural disasters, the majority concentrated in the northeast region, while only 11.7% correspond to cases recorded in Río Grande do Sul. It is estimated that in Brazil internal refugees due to climate disasters will exceed 700,000 in 2022.
A situation that has already set alarm bells ringing around the world, as Brazil is the main economic power in Latin America and one of the main suppliers of raw materials globally. According to a recent OSCE study, climate change costs the country 1.3% of gross domestic product every year. 55% of the losses concern transport infrastructure, 44% energy supply and 2% water supply.
The OSCE underlines that the water issue is particularly sensitive for the Brazilian economic system: two thirds of the country’s electricity system in fact depends on hydroelectric power plants. The effects of floods and droughts are also very harsh in the food sector, one of the leading sectors of Brazilian exports. The national agricultural production index fell by 5.2% in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 due to a decrease in soybean and corn production due to the water emergency.
The situation in Brazil is particularly exceptional precisely because of its exuberant geography, and the action of human beings on it. The destruction of the Amazon Rainforest (12% of the original surface has been deforested in the last half century) has drastically reduced the production of oxygen in the central-northern region of the country, thus causing the increase in general temperatures in the center and on the Brazilian coasts, which in turn cause the alternation of long periods of drought and short periods of intense rainfall.
All this, added to the phenomenon of El Niño, which increases the temperature of the waters of the South American Atlantic, has fueled a fatal cocktail which is evident in the devastating images of Rio Grande do Sul in recent days. A situation that has already led the Brazilian government to take a leading role in international summits related to climate change.
The next Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in 2025 in Belêm, in the middle of the Amazon, and the Lula government is committed to obtaining concrete results in the fight against climate change, one of the cornerstones of the foreign policy of his third mandate.
The state of Rio Grande do Sul hit by extreme climate events: 90 victims, 200,000 displaced after a week of rain in one of the most productive areas of the country. Lula prepares reconstruction and reaffirms commitment against climate change.
The heavy rains recorded in the state of Río Grande Do Sul, in southern Brazil, between Argentina and Uruguay, turned into a tragedy. Since April 29th, a storm has hit relentlessly, affecting 78% of the state’s municipalities according to the latest Civil Defense report.
