Plans to pave the Trans-Amazonian highway in Brazil could accelerate deforestation Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images
Deforestation has pushed the Amazon to the very edge of a tipping point that would see it become a net source of CO2 and accelerate climate change, according to research using new technologies to map carbon emissions in the rainforest from 2013 to 2022.
Although it is historically a carbon sink, the Amazon biome released more carbon than it absorbed during 2015-16 and 2017-18, the report by Planet Labs, a company that provides satellite imaging, and the non-profit organisation Amazon Conservation found.
