BUENOS AIRES, December 8. /TASS/. The Amazon rainforest may turn into a dry grassy savannah as a result of climate change, Brazilian scientist Carlos Nobre said in an interview with the Lusa news agency.

"We are very close to the point of no return. In the southern Amazon, the dry season has become much longer. It used to be three to four months. Today it's four or five months," he said. The scientist said the rainforest "has already become a source of emissions" because the planet's main "lungs" in the Brazilian states of Para and Mato Grosso have emitted more carbon dioxide than they have absorbed.

On December 7, Chairman of Petroleo Brasileiro SA in Brazil Pietro Sampaio Mendes, said on the sidelines of the COP-28 that the drought in the Amazon’s equatorial rainforest region was one of the worst in recent memory.

According to a report by the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch released in late June, the area of rainforests lost worldwide in 2022 was about 4.1 million hectares, which is about 10% of all the world's rainforests.

According to the Institute, tropical forests shrank by an area equal to 11 soccer fields every minute last year. The institute estimated that the countries with the largest number of rainforests include Brazil (320 million hectares), the Democratic Republic of Congo (100.2 million hectares), Indonesia (84.7 million hectares), Peru (67.3 million hectares) and Colombia (53.4 million hectares).