Quit fossil fuels to stem deadly floods in Brazil’s coffee heartland, say scientists

The record floods that have brought death and destruction to the heartland of Brazil’s coffee industry are expected to intensify if people continue to burn fossil fuels, analysis has shown.

Dozens of residents in the state of Minas Gerais have been buried alive in landslides or swept away as roads turned into rivers over the past month. Thousands more have been forced to evacuate their homes, while the wider, longer-term effects are likely to include higher prices for coffee across the world.

The city of Juiz de Fora was among the hardest hit, experiencing its wettest February on record, with more than 750mm of rainfall – three times the expected amount for that period and 65% more than the previous record of 456mm set in 1988, according to the latest study by the World Weather Attribution group.

The international team of scientists said a primary cause of the deaths was inequality and inadequate urban planning, which created landslide vulnerabilities for poor communities dwelling on steep, deforested and poorly drained hill slopes. Juiz de Fora is one of the 10 riskiest cities in Brazil in terms of the proportion of residents living in such danger zones.