Environmental cost of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest: Controlling biocapacity deficit and renewable wastes for conserving forest resources

Abstract

The environmental cost of deforestation increases greenhouse gas emissions, which hinders achieving the global environmental sustainability agenda. The greater annual deforestation rate in Brazil's Amazon rainforest negatively impacted global climate change, which opened a call for conservation debates of the country's rainforest. The study evaluated some critical economic issues related to deforestation in Brazils' rainforest, covering more than four decades of data. The asymmetry arises in the forest rents and the nation's biocapacity deficit at the forefront of sustainability matters. The results show that positive and negative shocks of forest rents reduce carbon emissions in the short- and long run. On the other hand, the negative shocks of the nation's biocapacity deficit, fossil fuel combustion, and continued economic growth increase carbon emissions in the long run. The initial value of renewable waste increases carbon emissions in the short run; however, it decreases in the long run. The innovation accounting estimates suggest that fossil fuel combustion will exert a more significant change in carbon emissions, followed by the economic growth, forest rents, the nation's biocapacity deficit, and renewable waste for the next ten years' time period. The study concludes that the rate of ecological footprints surpassed the nation's biocapacity indicator, causing an increase in the total carbon emissions level. The policy derives that the country should have to minimize ecological footprints and fossil fuel combustions and raise forest rents that help reduce deforestation of Amazon's rainforest, which eventually absorb GHG emissions to tackle climate change issues.