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We do not yet know what impact climate change will have on the Amazon, but there is no question that preventative action is urgently needed.

Climate change is perhaps the most serious problem faced by the world today. For two decades now, the planet has been registering very high average temperatures.

This higher temperature, better known as global warming, is caused by the emission of polluting carbon gases, above all by industrialized countries, causing the greenhouse effect. Because of this phenomenon, more damage will be done to the poor countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, which ironically are the ones which least contaminate the atmosphere via the burning of fossil fuels.

A study on climate change in the region by the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) based on estimated temperature increases of one to six degrees predicts serious negative effects, such as water shortages in Peru, Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua and Honduras.

Andean glaciers are currently experiencing the impact of climate change through the reduction of their frozen mass (some 20 to 30 meters a year), leading to the disappearance of water sources for human consumption, agriculture and electricity generation.

A comparative study by the Peruvian National Institute of Natural Resources, taken into consideration by the Andean Community of Nations, states that between 1989 and 1997, the glacial surface of Peruvian mountain ranges had undergone noticeable reduction, from 2,541 square km to 1,595 square km, representing a loss of 946 square km.

Seventy percent of the Peruvian population is concentrated along its desert coast, and Lima is the second largest desert city in the world desert after Cairo, according to a study by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Thus, maintaining its potable water supply sources is essential.

Cairoâ?Ös advantage over Lima is that while the Egyptian city is on the banks of the Nile River, which carries 2,800 cubic meters of water per second, the Peruvian capital lies on the banks of the Rimac, whose flow does not even reach one percent that of the Nileâ?Ös.

Impact on the rainforest

The Amazon rainforest, regarded the as the largest source of biodiversity on the planet and the largest global reserve of fresh water (25 percent), may hold one of the solutions for mitigating the negative impact of climate change.

That possibility exists even though thermometers are hitting figures never seen before, which will change rainforests and could endanger the survival of various species of flora and fauna, as well the presence of humanity and its culture in the region.

The Amazonian plain is the setting in which forests develop in harmony with huge wetlands, covered by floating plants, in an intricate geography criss-crossed by deep rivers of the Amazonian basin.

It is home to millions of interdependent species of flora and fauna, as well as human beings.

Amazonia is under diverse types of pressure and change due to the development of activity related to energy, extraction and infrastructure in the Amazonian rainforest. The Peruvian government, like many of its Amazonian counterparts, chooses to promote investment in the Amazon without considering the environmental and social impact, posing a serious threat to the environment and the escalation of social-environmental conflicts.

Some scientists believe that before 2100, the heat in the jungle could rise by three to seven degrees, and conversely, there would be a significant reduction of rainfall, threatening the existence of Amazonian bio-diversity and eliminating the way of life and cultures of a large part of the population which depends on the jungle.

"Climate change is a major threat to the Amazon rainforest, home to a significant part of the world's biodiversity. Threats in these areas are translated into general threats to biodiversity," Lara Hansen, the WWF's scientific director for climate change, asserted.

"The world urgently needs to evaluate vulnerable aspects of climate change and integrate them into biodiversity conservation efforts," she added.

If measures are not taken, global warming and deforestation could transform 30 to 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest into a dry savannah, according to a study sponsored by Brazil's National Institute of Space Research.

"If warming increases by just a few degrees Celsius, the process of savannah formation could become irreversible," said Carlos Nobre, a scientist with that agency.

Forecasts begin to come true

Last summer, an intense heat wave hit the Peruvian rainforest, especially the regions of San Martín and Ucayali, with temperatures of up to 43 degrees Celsius, according to the National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology.

Engineer Raúl Aranda, a member of the state climate agency in Huanuco, says that the excessive heat is caused by climate change and global warming.

He said peaks of up to 38 degrees Celsius indoors and 43 degrees outdoors have been recorded; that heat causes farmland to dry up, hurting local producers.

The population is also feeling the effects of hotter temperatures with symptoms such as rapid physical exhaustion and breathing trouble, especially among children and the elderly, who must be kept appropriately hydrated.

A WWF report said that "If the deforestation tendency continues altering the weather in the Peruvian Amazon, forests in key areas such as the south-eastern woods will retreat in face of growing - and until recently unprecedented - forest fires."

More than 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Peru come from the burning and deforestation of the jungle and other changes in land use.

Local, regional and national authorities have appealed to the population to end the practice of burning forests for expanding agricultural boundaries and clearing farmland, because that harmful practice, combined with higher temperatures, could unleash uncontrollable forest fires.

Solutions and changes

Concerned about this situation, civil society and authorities are planning preventive measures aimed at mitigating the disastrous effects of climate change, such as drastically reducing greenhouse gases. In Peruâ?Ös case, those gases represent a very small fraction of what is produced by developed countries.

On May 9, 1992, the United Nations (UN) approved a framework agreement on climate change aimed at "stabilizing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a level that would impede dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".

In this framework agreement, forests, including the Amazon, are regarded as drains (any process, activity or mechanism that absorbs greenhouse gases, aerosol or precursors to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, according to the official definition of the UN agreement) and deposits for greenhouse effect gases. Therefore, their sustainable management, conservation and enforcement is encouraged

Meeting in Lima in 2008, heads of state from Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union committed to taking action for adapting to and mitigating climate change.

Unfortunately, the last world summit in Copenhagen was a lost opportunity for following policies and measures aimed at reducing the effects of climate change after industrialized countries failed to adopt concrete agreements for reducing the greenhouse gases they generate. Another meeting of this kind was planned by yearâ?Ös end.

One space where there was progress was the World Conference of the Peoples on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, held last April in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, under the encouraging slogan, "Mother Earth can live without us, but we cannot live without her."

At that forum, Andean and Amazonian indigenous peoples demanded their right to participate in discussing and deciding on this urgent issue, and on introducing their ancestral knowledge and expertise for building a new way of life, an alternative to the current system of development, as a way of confronting climate change.

In face of slow government action on this situation, civil society organizations at the forum demanded changes to forestry and environmental laws, as well as "the application of relevant international instruments for the effective protection of forests and jungles, as well as biological and cultural diversity, while safeguarding the rights of indigenous peoples, including their participation and their previous, free and informed consent."

They also demanded that within the framework of actions for mitigating and adapting to climate change, their ancestral knowledge should be taken into account "for sustained management of the biological diversity of our forests and jungles; and, furthermore, it should be state policy for natural protected areas to be directly managed, handled and controlled by indigenous peoples."

The Peruvian government has obtained $40 million in financing from Japan and another 9 million euros from Germany for implementing a forest conservation program as a palliative to climate change and as part of the process of adapting to it.

Environmental Minister Antonio Brack affirms that "the idea to reach 2021 with a rate of zero felling of primary forests."

For achieving that, he added, the government will be strict about authorizing land use changes for agriculture, which has caused so many social and economic problems, although there is also concern about the need of standardizing and supervising, in accordance with those policies, the development of extraction industries in the Amazon, such as mining, hydrocarbon and timber exploitation.