The Amazon is teetering on the edge of a climate tipping point

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.