Global warming: the view from Sao Paulo
Updated on 30 November 2009
Next week's climate change conference in Copenhagen could decide the future of our planet - but expectations range between the unreal and the hopeless. Jon Snow reports from Sao Paulo.
Brazil's economy is soon to become the fifth largest in the world. But there is a darker side to this rapid growth: the destruction of the Amazon rainforest has rendered Brazil the fourth biggest carbon emitter on earth.
Copenhagen will not work if Brazil does not work. That is why the programme has come here, looking north to an event whose success or failure could affect the lives of everyone, for generations to come.
Jon Snow's journey began in the skies, 1,500 feet above Amazon rainforest near the city of Manaus.
In a single engined plane Jon Snow and his team flew along the Amazon, and then looped back up to Manaus.
From there they travelled to the heartland of the country's sugar cane production in Sao Paulo state, and then drove into the dense urban sprawl of Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo.
