BRUSSELS

As Brazil prepares to host the 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in the Amazonian city of Belem, scientists have issued renewed warnings that the world's largest tropical rainforest is moving dangerously close to an irreversible tipping point.

The Amazon plays a central role in regulating the global climate and preserving biodiversity, but growing pressures from deforestation, global warming, and intensified droughts are pushing parts of the rainforest toward permanent ecological transformation.

"This is already happening in the southern Amazon Basin," Jhan-Carlo Espinoza, a Franco-Peruvian researcher at France's Institute of Research for Development (IRD), told Vatican News on Tuesday.

He said regions such as Bolivia's Amazon are experiencing "increasingly severe and prolonged droughts" and beginning to resemble Brazil's Cerrado savanna. Record droughts were registered in both 2023 and 2024.

Meanwhile, northern parts of the basin have seen an intensification of the hydrological cycle, marked by extreme floods and major inundations.  

Deforestation approaching critical threshold

Although scientists cannot determine the exact moment the Amazon will reach the so-called "point of no return," they agree on critical limits that must not be exceeded, according to the report.

"Between 17 and 20% of the Amazon forest has already been cleared, equivalent to the combined area of France and Germany," Espinoza said, adding that another 17% has been degraded by human activity.

Over the past two decades, global temperatures have also hit their highest levels since modern records began.

This combination has sharply reduced the forest's capacity to absorb carbon and has disrupted the region's water cycle. According to Espinoza, about half of Amazon rainfall is recycled by trees through evapotranspiration.

Current trends, the researcher said, threaten water availability and food security in countries such as Bolivia and Peru.

The UN COP30 climate change summit, set for Nov. 10-21 in Brazil, will focus on turning previous pledges into concrete action and boosting financial support for vulnerable countries, as geopolitical strains and trade disputes continue to test global cooperation to fight the climate crisis.