science.org SCIENCEPHOTO: WANG JIANG/VCG/GETTY IMAGESNEWS
Asia eyes switch to renewables
CLIMATE POLICY |The Asian Development
Bank last week announced a program to
substantially cut carbon emissions from
Southeast Asia by helping retire coal-fired
power plants and replacing the gener-
ating capacity with renewable energy.
Unveiled during the COP26 climate change
conference in Glasgow, U.K., the Energy
Transition Mechanism will be financed
by pooling several billion dollars from
public, private, and philanthropic sources.
Renewable electricity generation is now
cheaper than coal, and investors can
earn profits by financing the switch.
The program aims to cut coal plant gener-
ating capacity by 50% in the Philippines,
Indonesia, and Vietnam within 10 to
15 years, which could reduce carbon
dioxide emissions by 200 million tons per
year. The bank expects to extend the pro-
gram to other countries.Brazil scientists snub top award
POLITICS|Twenty-one scientists in Brazil
who last week received the country’s highestscientific honor renounced it days later
after President Jair Bolsonaro took back
the same award from two fellow research-
ers whose work is at odds with his policy
views. A screening committee had selected
32 scientists to receive the National Order
of Scientific Merit, including Marcus
Lacerda, lead author of a clinical study
that showed the antimalarial drug chlo-
roquine was ineffective against COVID-
infections, and Adele Benzaken, who was
fired from the Ministry of Health in early
2019 after editing a booklet on prevention
of sexually transmitted diseases amongIN BRIEF
Edited byJeffrey BrainardA
new report finds that carbon emissions from de-
forestation and other land use changes have de-
creased over the past decade, partly compensating
for increases from burning fossil fuels. Based on
updated estimates from satellite data, the report
f r o m t h e G l o b a l C a r b o n P r o j e c t f i n d s t h a temissions from sources such as fires, logging,
and forest clearing, offset by some reforestation
and regrowth of forests and abandoned farm
lands, have been decreasing by about 4% a year
over the past decade. But current emissions
remain too high to appreciably curb warming; at current
rates, warming would likely surpass the 1.5∞C threshold
set in the 2015 Paris agreement within 11 years, the re-
port says. (See p. 801 for updated warming projections
based on nations’ new greenhouse gas commitments at
the global climate summit.) Land use change
contributes 10% of global emissions, the report
says. It adds that a dip in carbon emissions in
2020 caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was
mostly reversed this year as transportation and
other activities restarted.CLIMATE SCIENCELess deforestation flattens still-alarming carbon emissions curve
People prepare to plant
trees in the Badain
Jaran Desert of north-
central China to help
offset the country’s
growing fuel emissions.“
The world became one ... to fight this pandemic.
This is how I want to see the fight against climate change.
”
Climate scientist Nana Ama Browne Klutseof the University of Ghana,
quoted by BBC, about this week’s COP26 climate summit.796 12 NOVEMBER 2021 • VOL 374 ISSUE 6569