Porto Alegre flood survivors brace for new El Niño
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- May 2024 floods killed 183 people in Rio Grande do Sul and displaced more than 600,000, with the Sarandi neighborhood among the hardest-hit and water levels reaching up to 5 metres above normal.
- El Niño is expected to peak in December through February per WMO climate prediction chief Wilfran Moufouma-Okia; first storms last month left 1,800 people homeless across more than 200 municipalities.
- Mayor Sebastião Melo says Porto Alegre's flood defenses are much improved, but the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) counters that protections remain incomplete and no shelters have been prepared in areas like Ilha Grande dos Marinheiros.
- Porto Alegre is being sued for 50m reais (£7.3m) after the state court of auditors held Melo and former mayor Nelson Marchezan Júnior responsible for "serious disregard for the duty of care" in 2024.
- State government spent less than 0.5% of its climate budget on mitigating future disasters, according to a recent study by the Celso Furtado International Centre for Development Policy and the Climate and Society Institute.
- Climate justice researchers at the Metropolis Observatory frame the disaster as a crisis because the poorest residents — about two-thirds of affected families earning at or below 5,000 reais (£730) a month — bear the worst impacts despite contributing least to emissions.
- Federal housing programs like Assisted Purchase (200,000 reais per property, 5,800 approved in Porto Alegre) are criticized as tools of displacement, with more than 50% of recipients buying homes elsewhere and old homes demolished in their wake.
Why it matters: Nearly 4,500 of 7,000 affected families in one quilombo alone have not recovered from the 2024 floods, while auditors already found the city administration showed "serious disregard for the duty of care." With El Niño due to peak in December and flood defenses still incomplete, the government's own relocation programs risk finishing the displacement the floods began.
Ask SkimNews
