International Update Volume 43, Issue 32
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<p>A Brazilian call for a climate equity metric faces significant opposition from the U.S. and the European Union. At the Warsaw Climate Change Conference—which began on November 11th and will last for two weeks—Brazil proposed a program whereby nations would calculate their total output of greenhouse gases since 1850 in order to determine their responsibility for climate change.

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<p>Last Thursday, the Brazilian government released figures showing that deforestation in the Amazon increased by 28 percent between August 2012 and last July. Over the past decade, the country has made progress against the destruction of the rainforest, and in 2009 the government committed to reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 80 percent by 2020. Last year, Brazil saw the lowest rate of deforestation since monitoring began, but the newly released figures cause activists to fear that that trend might have reversed.

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<p>In a move that could hinder efforts to reach an agreement at the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, Japan has significantly dialed back its greenhouse gas emissions goals. On Friday, the Cabinet approved a target emission reduction of 3.8 percent from the 2005 level by 2020—as opposed to the earlier goal of a 25 percent reduction from the 1990 level. Japan has faced significant energy challenges since the 2011 Fukushima disaster resulted in the shutdown of all the country’s nuclear plants, which had previously provided about 30 percent of Japan's electricity.

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