A capybara in Porto Jofre, Pantanal, Mato Grosso state, Brazil. The Amazon basin has, until recently, absorbed large amounts of humankind’s ballooning carbon emissions, helping stave off the nightmare of unchecked climate change. But studies indicate the rainforest is hurtling toward a tipping point, at which it will dry up and turn to savannah, its 390bn trees dying off en masse.
Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty