Members of the Brazil, Climate, Forests and Agriculture Coalition met this Tuesday, 24/09, during the Climate Week in New York. The director of Technical Development at CEBDS, Ana Carolina Szklo, is one of the leaders of the Coalition's Public Policy and Economic Instruments Dialogue Forum.
“Public policies and economic instruments are enablers to reduce deforestation and encourage more sustainable agricultural practices, which are the main pillars of the Coalition”, began Ana Carolina, highlighting the purposes of public policies and economic instruments of the Brazil Climate, Forest and Agriculture Coalition. “We work for the implementation of the Forest Code, we support the advancement of the Payment for Environmental Services agenda via advocacy, having recently been approved by the Chamber of Deputies, and we have advanced with the carbon market issue. We have just organized a positioning of the Brazilian business sector on Article 6 developed in Climate Week of Salvador”, he explained.
Ana Carolina also emphasizes that advancing the topic does not mean exploration. “We need to work with alternative economic instruments such as green bonds and PSA to translate environmental assets and economic assets. It doesn't mean exploring more. It means understanding its economic value, accounting in a different way and encouraging innovation and a more sustainable economy, not just green, as it is important that it is also socially inclusive”, he concluded.
Carbon Market
The Brazilian business sector sent to the federal government, on August 22, a formal document in defense of the creation of the carbon market as a necessary tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and complying with the Paris Agreement. Containing eight guiding principles for the creation of financial carbon trading mechanisms (listed at the end of this text), the document was presented by business leaders from different sectors at a breakfast that brought together government authorities from Brazil and Argentina, during Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week, a UN initiative, which took place in August in Salvador (BA).
Furthermore, the document was sent by the CEBDS (Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development) – main spokesperson for the Brazilian business sector for the sustainability agenda –, for the ministers of Economy (Paulo Guedes), Agriculture (Tereza Cristina), Environment (Ricardo Salles) and Energy (Bento Albuquerque).
“Brazil stands out in the generation of renewable energy and has a strategic role in carbon sequestration in the economy. And we are committed to the energy transition”, said André Araújo, CEO of Shell. “There are no good businesses without sustainability and CEBDS plays a fundamental role in the nation's sustainability agenda”, stated Rogério Zampronha, CEO of Vestas América do Sul. The two CEOs make up the CEBDS Leaders Council, which held the event with the support of WRI Brasil and the initiative TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures), captained by Michael Bloomberg.
Guiding principles for the regulation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement:
- Maximize national and international private investments to comply with the Brazilian NDC.
- Establish clear and objective rules that do not create unnecessary transaction costs for expanding the emission reduction offer.
- Promote acceptance and demand for reduction credits generated by the country in all country markets that are aligned with the ambition of the Paris Agreement goals.
- Develop a transparent, simple and efficient accounting structure that avoids double counting and increases the valuation of emissions to be traded in purchasing markets.
- Establish non-discriminatory national rules on all Article 6 market instruments.
- Guarantee the participation of the productive sector in the development of actions in all market mechanisms.
- Allow the transition and legal security of the current reductions that Brazil has already made during the Kyoto Protocol period.
- Comply with the measurement and disclosure recommendations of the TCFD – Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure, of the Financial Stability Board – FSB.
