Brazil's choice of president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has built expectations that the country will develop a more ambitious, transparent and socially inclusive nationally determined contribution (NDC) for 2030, delegates heard at the Cop 27 UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.
"If the government [of current president Jair Bolsonaro] would have been elected, [the target of] 1.5°C would have been lost," Fernanda Carvalho, international global policy lead for climate and energy practice at WWF International, said today.
Brazil updated its NDC in April this year, in which it commits to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 37pc in 2025 by 50pc by 2030, both compared with a 2005 baseline.
The most updated document is an amendment from a previous NDC submitted in 2021, which received criticism as the country had revised its baseline emissions scenario, meaning the target would have had little effect.
Despite the amendment, the new NDC does not provide much information in key elements to make it credible, Carvalho said, adding that components such as adaptation are "floating in the air" as well as mitigation.
There are also issues to be solved in the financing segment. The current NDC is unconditional — meaning that its targets will be reached using the country's own resources — but there is no clarity on how much of the budget will go to climate-reduction efforts, she added.
"We hope the new government has the will to correct [the current NDC]," said Natalia Unterstell, president of Brazilian climate think-tank the Talanoa Institute. "We are not going to repeat the big mistakes of the current NDC."
Apart from mitigation and adaptation, Unterstell hopes that climate loss and damage are also considered in the new NDC.
The country also should build guidelines for the development of NDCs into its policies, said Caroline Prolo, executive director at LaClima, a network of legal experts dedicated to the development of climate change law in Latin America.
"We also need civil society to participate […] an NDC is like a local law," she added.
Another important issue that needs to be solved is related to the preservation of the Amazon forest, a goal that is not included in the current NDC, Carvalho said.
According to a report from LaClima, Brasil could reduce up to 66pc of GHG emissions by 2030 with "a just transition to climate neutrality" and by reducing deforestation, improving reforestation and decreasing emissions from industries.
If the country sets a goal of zero deforestation, GHG emission could drop by 82pc, the report says.
Promising outlook
The incoming administration will face challenges after a 12pc jump in emissions in 2021, the biggest annual increase in 19 years, according to Brazilian climate think-tank Observatorio do Clima.
The upcoming administration has proposed significant changes to environmental policy as part of a broader plan to reduce emissions. Lula has promised to replicate the Plan to Prevent and Control Deforestation in the Amazon (PPCDAm), which contributed to a 67pc decline in deforestation while he was last in office (2003-10). He has also pledged to reach zero deforestation, including the Amazon, Atlantic rainforest, the Pantanal grassland and Cerrado tropical savanna biomes, which would require increased recovery and replanting of degraded and deforested areas.
Lula is expected to attend the climate summit next week.
