How Brazil can decarbonize itself to fight the climate crisis

You may have heard the word “decarbonization”, which is often associated with economic issues. But what does this mean exactly and how can the next Brazilian government go deeper into it?

Talanoa, an organization that seeks to discuss climate policy, along with more than a hundred experts, has made ten recommendations for the next president and the next governors to put the country on the decarbonization path.

Decarbonization can be summarized as the process of transitioning to zero carbon, that is, when greenhouse gas emissions (plus carbon sequestration) reach zero sum — the neutralization of carbon emissions. This process is important to be able to contain the climate crisis.

According to Natalie Unterstell, president of Talanoa, there has been dialogue with almost every presidential campaign. The exception was the campaign of current President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

“We interacted with some government figures. But we did not actively search for his campaign because it seems to us that, more than words, reality tells us that he does not have a commitment to decarbonization”, says Unterstell.

During the Bolsonaro government, deforestation exploded in the Amazon, the country’s main source of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, the president downplayed the importance of both felling and burning. This is just one example.

Several of the measures pointed out by Talanoa concern resuming or rebuilding abandoned, reduced or redone policies under the current government.

For example, some of the points cited by the document are the need for the climate issue to go beyond the Ministry of the Environment (which lost some lines of action under Bolsonaro) and the presentation of a new NDC (acronym for nationally determined contribution and which can be, more simply, translated as climate target) more ambitious. This is because Brazil took a “climate pedal” in its goals.

Currently, the national goals are carbon neutrality by 2050, a 37% reduction in greenhouse gases in 2025, compared to 2005 emissions, and a 50% reduction in greenhouse gases in 2030, also in compared to 2005.

However, the emissions data from the baseline (2005) were recently updated, without the reduction target being made more ambitious, as expected.

Unterstell says we need to focus on an implementation package for climate targets as early as 2025 and that this cuts across the measures cited by Talanoa.

The entity’s document also mentions the need to restructure the country’s environmental governance and points to the need for “institutional de-pinion”. The expression comes from Minister Cármen Lúcia, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), who said, during the trial, that Brazil has suffered a situation of “institutional termite”, an internal and invisible corrosion of institutions, especially those dealing with the environment. .

In this way, the document points out the need to strengthen environmental inspection bodies and a new deforestation control plan, with the need to bring it to zero, seeking to avoid the point of no return in the Amazon — in which, due to deforestation, the forest will undergo a savannization process, in which its biodiversity and ecosystem services will be lost.

“This process will go through a certain remoralization of the people who work in environmental agencies. It’s not just going there and saying that now they matter. This also means competitions, hiring manpower”, says Unterstell.

According to Unterstell, there has been an evolution among the current candidates on the essential issue of the climate crisis. “They were still varnishing themselves with green, but without real commitments. I saw a maturation. We started to see some evolution.

The president of Talanoa also cites the energy issue as an important point among the ten measures, including the future of Petrobras.

“We think it’s quite foolhardy to say that natural gas is a transitional fuel in Brazil. This is certainly a reality in countries like Germany, but for us, who have a very renewable electricity matrix, putting gas in this matrix is ​​moving towards back. It’s carbonizing. We realized that the Lula-Alckmin plate includes gas as part of the energy transition.”

Regarding Petrobras, according to Unterstell, it is not a case of simply stopping oil exploration, but discussing what will become of the company in the coming years and initiating an internal transition, which includes workers in the area, but also the municipalities that receive royalties from Petroleum.

“This aspect of the just transition we are not seeing in any of the candidates’ proposals”, says the expert. “Is Petrobras going to be an agent of this just energy transition? In the current trend, according to recent managements, it is going to explore every last drop of the last oil well that it can, including sensitive areas such as the mouth of the Amazon.”