Bad newsAmazon Is a Net Carbon Source Even After Clearing Hit a Record Low
A Nature study using 15 years of airborne data finds the Amazon releases more carbon than it absorbs, with 2024 the worst year. Brazil’s clearing fell 42% to 3,335 square kilometres, but fire and drought still drive the losses.
Read the good side of this story
Amazon Clearing Falls 42% to the Lowest Level Since Records Began
The Amazon rainforest releases more carbon than it absorbs, according to a study published in Nature on 28 October. Researchers led by Luciana Gatti of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research used 15 years of airborne measurements over the forest. They found a net carbon source, with 2024 the year of the highest emissions in the whole record, the University of Kansas reports.
Even the best years were not good enough. In wet years with little clearing or fire, the Amazon was still a small net source of carbon, and only the wettest came closer to neutral. Years that were climatically mild but had high clearing and fire saw net emissions jump dramatically. Severe-drought years with high clearing and burning came out nearly as bad. The year 2024 sat in that last group.
Why clearing is not the whole story
The study’s authors conclude that human land-use change is the dominant control on the balance, with climate acting as a modulating factor. Direct human activity, not the climate alone, is therefore the main cause, and the answer they point to is less clearing and burning. They also note limits: satellites often cannot see the tropics clearly because of persistent cloud, and ground monitoring networks are sparse. A tipping point, where drying feeds on itself, is a long-standing concern, but this study does not confirm one.
Brazil has just reported its lowest clearing on record. The country’s PRODES satellite programme counted 3,335 square kilometres cleared in the 12 months to July 2026, about 42% below the previous year and the lowest since monitoring began in 1988, AFP reported. The previous low was 4,571 square kilometres in 2011 to 2012. Clearing has fallen every year since 2022 and is down 71.2% over four years. Under Jair Bolsonaro, from 2019 to 2022, the Amazon lost about 11,600 square kilometres a year.
Chart: GoodBad. Data from INPE’s PRODES monitoring, as reported by AFP and Al Jazeera, 17 October 2026. The 2019 to 2022 figure is an average.
A record low is not a clean balance
The two sets of figures measure different things. PRODES counts forest area cleared in a year, measured from August to July. The Nature paper tracks the carbon leaving and entering the forest over 15 years, including fire and drought effects that the clearing count does not capture. A forest can be cleared less and still burn.
AFP attributes the fall in clearing to greater monitoring and stiffer penalties for illegal logging. Environment Minister Joao Paulo Capobianco called the result “absolutely stratospheric”. President Lula has set a goal of zero illegal deforestation by 2030, and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, his opponent in the 25 October run-off, pledged to end it by 2029. A related cost sits next door: the Cerrado savanna lost 5,517 square kilometres, down about 24% and its lowest since 2001, but that is still a large area.
What would change the outcome? On the study’s own evidence, less clearing and less burning move the balance, and 2024 shows what drought plus fire plus clearing does together. The paper gives no date by which the Amazon might become a net absorber again, and the sources reviewed give no total for how much carbon it now releases.
