The meeting emphasized the need for a swift transformation of basic science into applied science (photo: RPGCC)

Climate change
FAPESP supports projects that address multiple ways of tackling climate change
2025-10-08
PT

Workshop held at the State University of Campinas as part of the Research Program on Global Climate Change outlines the challenges to be faced and the scientific efforts to predict and mitigate the problems caused by global warming.

Climate change
FAPESP supports projects that address multiple ways of tackling climate change

Workshop held at the State University of Campinas as part of the Research Program on Global Climate Change outlines the challenges to be faced and the scientific efforts to predict and mitigate the problems caused by global warming.

2025-10-08
PT

The meeting emphasized the need for a swift transformation of basic science into applied science (photo: RPGCC)

 

COP30

By André Julião  |  Agência FAPESP – The urgent need to change the development model to avoid exceeding a 1.5 °C increase in the global average temperature requires rapidly transforming basic science into applied science. This is necessary to solve problems such as transitioning the energy, industry, and transportation sectors; managing forests, oceans, and biodiversity sustainably; transforming agriculture and food systems; building resilience in cities, infrastructure, and water systems; and promoting social development. These changes must be integrated into civil society, the government, and, above all, the private sector.

The tone of the presentations at the workshop of the FAPESP Research Program on Global Climate Change (RPGCC) was consistent with this theme. The workshop was held on September 11 and 12 at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). It was broadcast online and can be viewed in its entirety on the event page.

“Brazil has already presented its new NDC [Nationally Determined Contribution] at COP29, a commitment for 2035, and has suggested reducing its net emissions by between 59% and 67% compared to 2005 levels by 2035. This would result in a significant reduction in emissions, which would be at a level of 1 billion tons of CO2 [equivalent]. Interestingly, this figure is very close to what we emit from deforestation alone in the country [in one year],” said Luiz Aragão, a member of the program’s coordination team and researcher at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), during the event’s opening.

For the researcher, the problem is also a solution, since “changing the climate system takes time, but to change the way we behave and use the land only requires laws, intensified enforcement, and awareness, which would greatly reduce emissions by tackling just one problem, that of deforestation,” he added.

Ending deforestation would address another problem related to climate change. “The United Nations considers that the best weapon we have to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change is biodiversity conservation,” said Patricia Morellato, a professor at the Institute of Biosciences of São Paulo State University (IB-UNESP) in Rio Claro and coordinator of the Center for Research on Biodiversity Dynamics and Climate Change (CBioClima), a Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Center (RIDC) supported by FAPESP.

“This has been discussed for a long time during biodiversity conventions. More recently, efforts have been made to establish this link, and I think we have a lot of work to do in this area. In Brazil, the largest emissions come from deforestation, which is one of the most dramatic forms of biodiversity destruction,” she recalled.

Biodiversity and blue carbon

Morellato delivered her speech at the opening of the plenary session, “Biodiversity and Ecosystems,” which featured, among others, researchers Simone Vieira, from the Center for Environmental Studies and Research (NEPAM) at UNICAMP, and Tânia Marcia Costa, a professor at the Institute of Biosciences of the Experimental Coastal Campus (IB-CLP) of UNESP in São Vicente.

Both speakers discussed the synergies between climate change and biodiversity. Costa presented on the impact of climate change and biodiversity loss on the strength of trophic interactions in coastal ecosystems.

André Oliveira Sawakuchi, a professor at the Institute of Geosciences at the University of São Paulo (IGc-USP), spoke about the project “The Fate of Holocene Blue Carbon in the Floodplains of the Yangtze and Amazon Rivers in Response to Changes in Precipitation and Sea Level”, which is supported by the RPGCC in an agreement between FAPESP and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

According to experts in the field, blue carbon is carbon that remains buried underground, unlike the carbon that is released into the atmosphere and contributes to global warming. “We want to understand the carbon balance on a millennial scale. Measurements of methane and carbon dioxide were taken in the floodplain areas and tidal channels of the Amazon River [in Brazil] and the Yangtze River [in China]. The first part of the project is to establish the chronology of sediment deposition,” he said.

The researcher noted that the cores, or cylindrical sediment samples, were collected from depths of up to 60 meters in the Yangtze, which corresponds to about 9,000 years. “Almost the entire Holocene is recorded there. In the Amazon, we collected from depths of up to five meters, which records the last millennium,” he said.

Climate models

Pedro da Silva Peixoto, a professor at the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics (IME) at USP, gave a lecture on the computational infrastructure for climate modeling and numerical methods for a new generation of weather and climate prediction models. Peixoto is the coordinator of the project “Numerical Methods for a New Generation of Weather and Climate Models”, which is supported by FAPESP. He presented the mathematical problems involved in predicting weather and climate, as well as the solutions proposed by the scientific community.

Luiz Augusto Toledo Machado, a researcher at USP’s Physics Institute, spoke about the synergistic effects of climate change and land use on carbon sources and sinks in the Amazon. This topic is the focus of a project supported by FAPESP.

To overcome the limitations of models and the lack of data, Gabriel Martins Perez uses artificial intelligence in weather and climate modeling at his company, MeteoIA. His work is supported by FAPESP’s Innovative Research in Small Businesses Program (PIPE).

Health

On the second day of the event, Simone Miraglia, a professor at the Institute of Environmental, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Federal University of São Paulo (ICAQF-UNIFESP), and Paulo Saldiva, a professor at the USP Medical School, spoke about the relationship between climate change and health, as well as its economic impacts.

“There’s a very interesting study that shows that for every degree above 20 °C, there’s a loss of productivity of about 2%. If we think about a temperature of 40 °C, that’s a loss of almost half of that worker’s productivity,” said Miraglia.

The researcher concluded her speech by reminding us that climate action is related not only to the economy but also to addressing a public health emergency. Reducing extreme events would save lives and avoid billions of dollars in healthcare costs. With fewer heat-related deaths, there would be fewer respiratory diseases caused by pollution and fewer infectious disease outbreaks.

Additionally, the researcher cited estimates indicating that 175 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty by 2050 through integrated climate and development policies. These policies would also lead to better health outcomes.

The lectures can be viewed on the event website: fapesp.br/17698.

COP30 and Science

In partnership with the Conrado Wessel Foundation, FAPESP launched the COP30 and Science website, bringing together research and projects supported by both foundations that expand knowledge about the climate and can help address the challenges of global warming and climate change.

The website can be accessed at cop30.fapesp.br/.

 

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