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Tropical secondary forests sequester carbon up to 20 times faster than old-growth forests. This rate does not capture spatial regrowth patterns due to environmental and disturbance drivers. Here we quantify the influence of such drivers on the rate and spatial patterns of regrowth in the Brazilian Amazon using satellite data. Carbon sequestration rates of young secondary forests (, This study uses regional and global remote sensing data to assess the regrowth of secondary forests in the Brazilian Amazon biome. The authors find differences of regrowth rates due to climate, forest fires and deforestation actions and further quantify their carbon capture potential.

Background: Brazil, one of the largest greenhouse gas emitting countries in the world, emitted approximately 2 billion gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2018. This data is practically the same recorded in the previous year, suggesting that the country&rsquo, s trajectory of CO2 emissions is stabilized. Methods: This study presents an overview of environmental protection and climate change mitigation policies adopted in Brazil, as well as makes use the multilevel regression modeling technique to investigate the relationship between economic activities variables in relation to CO2 emissions over the years of 1970 to 2018 in all Brazilian states. Results: The results show that the CO2 emissions in the states have the same behavior as the timeline of the change in land use. Conclusions: The public policies and actions by society and the private sector were fundamental to the reduction verified from the year of 2004 that followed until 2010, both in CO2 emissions and in the change in land use and forests. As of this year, there has been a trend towards stability in CO2 emissions. Another important characteristic is that even with a drop in the number of deforestation, the production variables continued to grow, which shows that there may be an increase in production activities, while there is a reduction in deforestation and in CO2 emissions.

This article proposes an innovative theoretical framework that combines institutional and policy network approaches to study multi-level governance. The framework is used to derive a number of propositions on how cross-level power imbalances shape communication and collaboration across multiple levels of governance. The framework is then applied to examine the nature of cross-level interactions in climate change mitigation and adaptation policy processes in the land use sectors of Brazil and Indonesia. The paper identifies major barriers to cross-level communication and collaboration between national and sub-national levels. These are due to power imbalances across governance levels that reflect broader institutional differences between federal and decentralized systems of government. In addition, powerful communities operating predominantly at the national level hamper cross-level interactions. The analysis also reveals that engagement of national level actors is more extensive in the mitigation and that of local actors in the adaptation policy domain, and specialisation in one of the climate change responses at the national level hampers effective climate policy integration in the land use sector.

Fire plays an increasingly significant role in tropical forest and savanna ecosystems, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and impacting on biodiversity. Emerging research shows the potential role of Indigenous land-use practices for controlling deforestation and reducing CO 2 emissions. Analysis of satellite imagery suggests that Indigenous lands have the lowest incidence of wildfires, significantly contributing to maintaining carbon stocks and enhancing biodiversity. Yet acknowledgement of Indigenous peoples' role in fire management and control is limited, and in many cases dismissed, especially in policy-making circles. In this paper, we review existing data on Indigenous fire management and impact, focusing on examples from tropical forest and savanna ecosystems in Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana. We highlight how the complexities of community owned solutions for fire management are being lost as well as undermined by continued efforts on fire suppression and firefighting, and emerging approaches to incorporate Indigenous fire management into market- and incentive-based mechanisms for climate change mitigation. Our aim is to build a case for supporting Indigenous fire practices within all scales of decision-making by strengthening Indigenous knowledge systems to ensure more effective and sustainable fire management. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’.

This paper performs a multi-model comparison to assess strategies for adaptation to climate change impacts in hydropower generation in Brazil under two Representative Concentration Pathways. The approach used allows for evaluating the interactions between climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies under low and high impact scenarios through 2050. Climate change impact projections of sixteen General Circulation Models indicate that a global high emissions trajectory scenario would likely yield more severe impacts on hydropower generation than a mitigation scenario. Adaptation modeling suggests that climate change impacts can be compensated by a wide range of alternatives, whose optimality will depend on the level of mitigation effort pursued. Our results show that climate change impacts would lead to even higher emissions in the absence of climate change mitigation policies. On the other hand, mitigation strategies to pursue lower emissions are maintained under climate change impacts, meaning that mitigation strategies are robust when faced with adaptation challenges. Mitigation efforts could yield a more diverse and less carbon intensive mix of technological options for adaptation. When analyzing investment costs to adapt to climate change impacts, in some cases mitigation can lead to a lower total investment level.