Climate change certainly is one of the major challenges that all countries have to overcome, especially developing countries. The implementation of the agenda 2030 with the sustainable development goals (SDG) will be impossible if we do not have a stable climate. The need to reduce emissions and adapt to the new climate, that is already with us, is a task that will require global and regional governance. Recent increases in the magnitude and frequency of climate extremes show that the most vulnerable in our society are the ones who will suffer most. Climate change has a strong potential to affect food production, and today about 27% of emissions are associated with feeding 7.7 billion people. It will be hard to get net-zero by 2050 with the need to sequester 27% of our greenhouse gas emissions today.
Amazonia is a key region on our planet since it stores about 120 billion tons of carbon in the ecosystem. Amazonia also exports significant amounts of water vapor to the global climate system, affecting the hydrological cycle for regions far from South America through teleconnections. In addition to deforestation, climate change is bringing forest degradation to some regions, where parts of the Amazonian Forest recently started to act as a carbon source. The issue of deforestation is an important one since Brazil is deforesting about 13,400 Km² annually in 2021. There is no cheap, easy and fast way to reduce emissions as getting zero deforestation, with many co-benefits of preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services.
We will discuss the several issues associated with mitigation of emissions, as well as adapting to the new climate in South America. The region has several opportunities and vulnerabilities, with difficult choices for society. We have to build a more resilient and sustainable economy, aiming to reduce inequalities and bring a better life for our population and to humanity.
Prof. Paulo Artaxo
Universidade de São Paulo
Sao Paulo,, Brazil
Prof. Paulo Eduardo Artaxo Neto is graduated in Physics by the Universidade São Paulo (USP) in 1977, MSc in Nuclear Physics by USP (1980) and PhD in Atmospheric Physics by USP (1985). He worked at NASA (United States), Universities of Antwerp (Belgium), Lund (Sweden) and Harvard (United States). Currently, he is currently Professor at the Department of Applied Physics at the Institute of Physics at USP. He works with physics applied to environmental problems, working mainly on issues of global climate change, environment in the Amazon, physics of atmospheric aerosols, urban air pollution and other topics. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and Academy of Sciences of the State of São Paulo (ACIESP). He has published 456 scientific papers and presented more than 1020 papers at international scientific conferences. He has 33740 citations of his works in the ISI Web of Science with an H index of 88, and he has published 27 works in the journals of the Science and Nature groups. He has 58477 citations on Google Scholar, with an H index in Google Scholar of 114. He coordinated two CNPq Millennium Institutes, and was a representative of the scientific community at CONAMA from 2015 to 2019 and member of the Board of Environmental Sciences of CNPq from 2016 to 2019. He is member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and of several other international scientific panels. He is the Coordinator of the FAPESP Global Climate Change Program and member of the INCT Climate Changes. He is vice-president of SBPC, vice- president of ACIESP and member of the SBF Council. He is also a member of the National Council of Science and Technology (CTC). He is Researcher Emeritus at CNPq. In 2004, he received a vote of applause from the Brazilian Senate for his scientific work on the environment in the Amazon. In 2006, he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. He is member of the IPCC team awarded with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2007 he received the TWAS Earth Sciences Prize and the 2007 Dorothy Stang Prize for Science and Humanities. In 2009 he was awarded the title of Doctor in Philosophy Honoris Causa from Stockholm University, Sweden. In 2010, he received the Fissan-Pui-TSI award from the International Aerosol Research Associations. He also received in 2010 the National Scientific Merit Order, as a commander, and in 2018 as a Grão Cruz. In 2016, he received the Almirante Álvaro Alberto Award granted by CNPq, Marinha, MCTI and Fundação Conrad Wessel. In 2017, he received the Globo Faz a Diferença Award. Received the "Most Influential Researcher" from Clarivate Analytics in 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Received the CONFAP Science and Technology award in 2021.
Today’s societies face huge challenges regarding their energy needs. Energy is required for economic development and for human comfort, but climate changes are harming the planet and raising health issues and must be mitigated by sustainable energy production and use. Energy communities and active citizens participation are emerging in the scope of the huge sustainability challenges faced by the power and energy sector and should act as important factors for ensuring sustainable development.
This talk addresses concepts and models to enable the efficient operation of sustainable energy communities ensuring the efficient use of energy resources and the intensive use of renewable energy. Relevant business models and technologic solutions will be presented, including models for energy transactions and service provision based on for distributed intelligence, aggregation, and local electricity markets. The proposed models will be illustrated with case studies based on real data and pilots.
Prof. Zita Vale
Engineering School of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto
Porto, Portugal
Zita Vale is Full Professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the of the Institute of Engineering – Polytechnic of Porto (ISEP). She received her diploma in Electrical Engineering in 1986, her PhD in 1993, and her Habilitation in 2003, from University of Porto. She works in the area of Power and Energy Systems, with special interest in the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques. She has been involved in more than 60 funded projects related to the development and use of Knowledge-Based systems, Multi-Agent systems, Neural networks, Particle Swarm Intelligence, and Data Mining. The main application fields of these projects comprise: - Smart Grids, accommodating an intensive use of Renewable Energy Sources, Distributed Energy Resources (DER), namely Distributed Generation (DG), storage, electrical vehicles, including the ones with gridable capability (V2G), and demand flexibility. Real-time management and simulation of energy resources, considering electrical networks, buildings, and diverse Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M) approaches are relevant aspects of her work in this field; - Electricity markets, addressing decision-support for market participants, prices and tariffs, ancillary services, energy transactions, service provision, and market simulation in the scope of wholesale and local markets. The integration of DER, demand response, and EVs in electricity markets, Transactive Energy (TE), and Peer-to-Peer approaches are important aspects of her work. Her work also focuses on the conception, development and test of new business models for market participants and aggregation models for energy resources and the respective management and operation methods. The results of her research are published in more than 200 journal papers. Professor Zita Vale actively participates in several technical working groups and committees, namely from IEEE. Zita Vale is co-Editor-in-Chief of Applied Energy and has editing responsibilities in several other journals. She also has regular activity as reviewer and evaluator for papers and for project proposals and monitoring, from different funding agencies around the world.
Carbon targets to mitigate climate changes aim at modulating the transition time to a low carbon economy. The energy industry holds the top carbon intensity position and is thus the workhorse of the process. National and global decisions on energy planning propagate to other sectors proportionally to their energy intensity. Ambitious Net-Zero Emissions (NZE) to occur in a couple of decades requires a coordinated innovation effort utilizing multiple energy sources, large-scale carbon management technologies, and electrification. Often neglected is the resilience of infrastructure – the technology environment, which reacts at a different timescale, impacting policy outcomes, technology disruptions, and capital intensity. Long-living built facilities add resilience to industrial installations proportionally to their capital intensity. Last and most importantly, geopolitics distinct social and political perceptions amongst nations, folded by resource availability and opportunities to overtake the scene. Specific challenges and opportunities exist for both the demand and supply-side of industries, governments, regions, and individuals. Alternatives for decarbonization and electrification are driven and repelled by the complex force balance. Although these forces are mostly known, and predictions of outcomes are beyond uncertainty, gains and losses are sizable and must drive policy objectives to shape the future. Decarbonization has several realization paths and impacts, and electrification is a potential ally rather than an alternative. Complexity defines the nature of the problem, and resilience is its utmost objective in setting realistic and achievable climate goals.
Prof. Ofelia Araujo
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1981), MSc and PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (1984 and 1987, respectively). Worked for OXITENO S.A. from 1989 to 1993, in process modeling and control. In 1993, joined the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where she develops research in process systems engineering, Her interest focuses are Natural Gas Monetization, CO2 Management Technologies and Sustainability Analysis.
