The National Climate Change Plan, or Plano Clima, launched by the federal government on Monday 16, has the potential to reorganize the national economy and represents an opportunity for the country to rethink its development model with social justice. This is the position of IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute) in a press release.
“The Climate Plan is the consequence of Brazil’s international commitment to adapting to and mitigating climate change, reaffirming its leadership in the socio-environmental agenda and bringing credibility to the country. The document has the potential to reorganize our economy, as it reflects the opportunity to position Brazil as a global supplier of low carbon services and products. It is an invitation for the country to rethink its development model, strengthening the domestic market, the bioeconomy and creating jobs from a just transition,” says André Guimarães, IPAM’s executive director.
The publication of the Climate Plan, on National Climate Change Awareness Day, is the result of three years of inter-ministerial coordination between state and municipal governments and civil society. The Climate Plan is an instrument of the National Policy on Climate Change, established in 2009.
The 2024-2035 Climate Plan is organized into three main axes: adaptation to climate change, mitigation of greenhouse gases and cross-cutting strategies for climate action.
The National Adaptation Strategy has 13 guidelines, 9 objectives, 12 national targets and 16 sectoral plans, made up of 312 sectoral targets to be achieved through 810 actions. The National Mitigation Strategy has 10 guidelines, 12 objectives and a national target (the reduction of emissions by between 59% and 67% by 2035, compared to 2005, which is included in Brazil’s Nationally Determined Contribution); as well as 8 sectoral plans, with more than 50 sectoral targets and more than 240 actions.
Implementation
“The Climate Plan gives implementation logic to the actions that will make us fulfill our Nationally Determined Contribution. Once again, the question hangs over funding and public policies to subsidize the actions outlined,” says Guimarães.
One of the cross-cutting strategies presented in the document deals specifically with means of implementation and will seek to pool resources from public and private sources to make the measures viable.
Brakes on deforestation
IPAM’s executive director adds: “The Climate Plan is expected to deliver greater speed in the recovery of natural assets by agribusiness and an end to deforestation.”
According to the SEEG (System of Estimates of Emissions and Removals of Greenhouse Gases), 42% of gross national emissions in 2024 were due to changes in land use, such as deforestation. Of the deforested area, more than 90% corresponds to illegal activity, according to the MapBiomas Network’s Annual Deforestation Report.
The measures announced in the Climate Plan focus precisely on controlling illegal deforestation and reducing legal deforestation by 2035. The mention of possible curbs on deforestation within private rural properties was left as a trend for 2050.
“The Cerrado, for example, is a biome that has more than half of its surplus native vegetation inside private properties. As the Forest Code allows 80% of this vegetation to be cleared, we need financial mechanisms that invert the current logic, in which it is still economically advantageous and easier to deforest. We need to provide incentives and facilities to show, in practice and in our pockets, that it pays to keep vegetation standing rather than deforesting,” says Guimarães.
Since 2021, IPAM has been developing the CONSERV project, which pays rural properties for maintaining native vegetation beyond what is required by law. By 2024, more than 20,000 hectares had been protected, mostly in the Brazilian Cerrado.
National elections
“Updating the Climate Plan is a milestone in the recent history of Brazilian politics,” says the director. “In a year of general elections, the choice of conscientious representatives is even more crucial for our survival, after all, we have less than a decade to fulfill our commitment to reduce the effects of global climate change.”
Cover photo: Saltos do Rio Preto, in Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park (André Dib / ISPN Collection)
