Brazil announces a goal to reduce 50% of emissions by 2030, without increasing ambition in cuts

The Minister of the Environment, Joaquim Leite, announced during COP26, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, this Monday morning (1st), a new Brazilian climate target to reduce by 50% the emission of polluting gases by 2030 and neutralize carbon emissions by 2050.

Previously, the country had the goal of reducing, by 2030, 43% of national emissions.

However, the announcement was laconic in not pointing out the basis for the cut. If the reduction follows the same basis as the previous update (from December 2020), the country would still emit more gases than indicated in the target made in 2015, in the Paris Agreement. If the country follows the most updated base available (the fourth national emissions inventory), the emission reduction would be the same as promised in 2015.

In other words, in any of the scenarios, Brazil does not increase its climate ambition in the new target (called NDC, acronym for nationally determined contribution) presented to the world. More ambitious goals were expected from signatory nations of the Paris Agreement.

Brazil and Mexico are the only G20 countries that, so far, had climate targets that, compared to Paris Agreement commitments, increased emissions rather than reduced.

The goal was announced by the minister in Brasília, but broadcast in the Brazilian pavilion set up at COP26 — his trip to Glasgow should only take place in the next few days. In the statement, he called it “more ambitious”.

Before the announcement, a video-recorded speech by President Jair Bolsonaro (non-party) was presented. The president is in Padua, Italy, and is not going to the climate conference. In his speech, he stated that Brazil “has always been part of the solution, not the problem” in the fight against climate change.

The goal for Brazil to become neutral in terms of emissions by 2050 (for this, the level of greenhouse gas emissions and absorption by forests, for example, must remain equivalent) is not new either. Bolsonaro, during the Climate Summit, of the American President, Joe Biden, had already committed to this idea. However, since then, the formalization of the commitment has been lacking.

Among the goals presented, is also to reduce deforestation by 15% per year by 2024, and to zero the illegal felling of native forest by 2028, according to the National Plan for Control of Illegal Deforestation and Recovery of Native Vegetation 2020-2023.

Reducing deforestation in the Amazon, in particular, is one of the central points for the country to be able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation is the main source of emissions in Brazil. Then comes farming — which also ends up linked to the destruction of forests, converted into pasture after the felling of native vegetation.

In energy management, the Ministry of the Environment announced the country’s participation in 45% to 50% of renewable energies in the composition of the energy matrix by 2030.

In a statement, the Climate Observatory criticized the announcement and stated that “if it wanted to present a commitment compatible with the Paris Agreement, the target should be at least 80% of a cut.”

“The country has failed to increase its climate ambitions, contrary to what Bolsonaro and Leite claimed in their speeches,” said the organization, which brings together dozens of environmental entities.

For Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the observatory, the new goal is a race to tie with the past — while, with the data presented at COP26 itself and by climate scientists, the rest of the world is moving towards the future, he says.

According to Astrini, Brazil tried to package and sell as new something that the country had already presented in the Paris Agreement. “In the last six years, the climate agenda, the need to improve performance, has changed, there is a greater demand.”

According to researcher Paulo Artaxo, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the new 50% target only means reducing emissions from deforestation in the Amazon. “It really is very close to the previous goal and does not represent a carbon neutrality effort”, says Artaxo. “It only means stopping illegal activities in the Amazon.”

According to Artaxo, even the commitment to climate neutrality by 2050 is insufficient for the context of the gravity of the current climate crisis, clearly pointed out by the most recent report of the IPCC.

The ideal — and that some countries are already following — is for developed nations to commit to neutrality of emissions by 2030 and developing ones, by 2040, says the IPCC member.

“It’s no use putting a figure for 30 years from now, without making it very clear and explicit, formally in the law, which legal instruments Brazil will use to achieve this goal,” says Artaxo.

Natalie Unterstell, a specialist in public policy and climate change and coordinator of the Policy for Whole project at the Talanoa Institute, has a similar view. For her, the new goal “is a result from zero to zero”. “And for the planet, it’s a negative, negative-sum game,” he adds.

The destruction of biomes has increased in recent years, with strong intensification since the beginning of the Bolsonaro government. The country has shown levels of destruction in the Amazon in excess of 10,000 km² per year, more than 50% higher than the deforestation in 2015, when the Paris Agreement was signed — at that moment, the country already had signs of increasing devastation.

Recent data from Seeg (System for Estimating Emissions and Removals of Greenhouse Gases) show that, in 2020, the country increased by 9.5% the greenhouse gases emitted compared to the previous year and reached the highest value of emissions since 2006.

“We are one of the few countries that are able to vastly reduce their emissions without relying on any disruptive technology,” says Unterstell. “We have studies showing that, with a radical reduction in deforestation and domestic carbon pricing, we can calmly reach 80% of the reduction by the end of this decade.”

cheers out

At the same time, the new Brazilian target gained international recognition.

COP26 President Alok Sharma said: “It is great to see Brazil confirm its climate neutrality target by 2050, increase its NDC to 50% and strengthen its targets to reduce deforestation. It is real progress and will help build momentum for [manter o aquecimento global em até] 1,5°C”.

The US government’s special envoy for the climate, John Kerry, congratulated, through social networks, the Brazilian announcement.

“We welcome Brazil’s new commitments to end illegal deforestation by 2028, achieve a significant 50% GHG reduction by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. This adds a crucial boost to the global movement to combat the climate crisis. to work together!” Kerry said.

Finally, the British ambassador to Brazil, Peter Wilson, said he was “very pleased to receive Brazil’s ambitious announcement at COP26”.

The calculation of the Brazilian target

The initial Brazilian NDC, presented for the Paris Agreement in 2015, stipulated a 43% reduction in emissions by 2030 based on the year 2005. The value for that year, at that time, was 2.1 gigatonnes of CO₂e (leia CO₂ equivalent, basically, a measure that sums all the greenhouse gases).

Thus, a 43% reduction would make the country reach 2030 emitting about 1.2 gigatonnes of CO₂e.

Over the years and the development of methodologies to estimate the greenhouse gases emitted, the measures for the year 2005 ended up being updated in the Brazilian emission inventories.

The update of the Brazilian NDC, presented by the Bolsonaro government in December 2020, for example, was based on the third inventory, in which the emission values ​​for 2005 were 2.8 gigatonnes of CO₂and. Brazil’s target, however, did not update the cut percentage at that time.

With that, the country would reach 2030 emitting about 1.6 gigatonledas of CO₂and, that is, more than the commitment made initially in the Paris Agreement. Hence the term “climate riding” or “carbon riding”.

Brazil now has a fourth emissions inventory. In it, the greenhouse gases launched in 2005 were around 2.4 gigatonnes of CO₂e.

Taking into account that the goal presented now for COP26 takes this inventory as a reference, the country will reach 2030, once again emitting about 1.2 gigatonnes of CO₂and, the same amount as the initial commitment in the Paris Agreement.