By defining priority sectors and clear targets, the National Mitigation Strategy positions the private sector as a central agent in the decarbonization of the Brazilian economy and assists companies in their long-term climate planning.

By Marina Grossi*

As host of COP30, Brazil was one of the first countries to announce its climate targets for 2035, updating its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in 2024 during COP29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan. The country committed to reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by between 59% and 67%, compared to the baseline year of 2005, across all sectors of the economy. Brazil defined this target through the Climate Plan, which is in the final stages of public consultation and drafting, with a launch expected in the second half of the year.

A fundamental instrument for Brazil to fulfill its commitments under the Paris Agreement, the Climate Plan, composed of pillars for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change, took shape through the National Mitigation Strategy and its Sectoral Plans, essential components of the policy and already released. With defined targets for different sectors, the Plan becomes the main guide for Brazilian decarbonization, combining priorities, execution, and monitoring. The construction process involved government, academia, companies, and society, mobilizing more than 20 ministries under the coordination of the Interministerial Committee on Climate Change (CIM).

The seven sectoral mitigation plans that make up the Climate Plan involve the main sectors of the Brazilian economy: agriculture and livestock; land use and forests; cities and urban mobility; energy; industry and mining; waste and transport. Each sector must prepare emissions inventories, project scenarios, list relevant public policies and make decarbonization commitments by 2035, in addition to structuring governance, financing and monitoring mechanisms. Like the absolute targets contained in Brazil's NDC, the sectoral targets are banded – that is, they foresee a range of reductions.

The seven sectoral mitigation plans that make up the Climate Plan involve the main sectors of the Brazilian economy: agriculture and livestock; land use and forests; cities and urban mobility; energy; industry and mining; waste and transport. Each sector must prepare emissions inventories, project scenarios, list relevant public policies and make decarbonization commitments by 2035, in addition to structuring governance, financing and monitoring mechanisms. Like the absolute targets contained in Brazil's NDC, the sectoral targets are banded – that is, they foresee a range of reductions.

In 2024, during the process of drafting Brazil's NDC, CEBDS, in partnership with the We Mean Business Coalition (WMBC), launched a movement in favor of more ambitious and implementable NDCs, signed by more than 55 companies. This call to action provided companies with a more strategic vision of how corporate transition plans can contribute to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. In March of this year, an important outcome of this mobilization was the delivery of the document "How Brazil's New NDC can boost private sector investment in climate action," also produced in partnership with the WMBC, to the Presidency of COP30.

In the final stage of public consultation on sectoral plans, more than 180 contributions were submitted by companies associated with CEBDS. Additionally, we brought together more than 200 entities in four sectoral coalitions organized at the request of the COP30 Presidency: Transportation, Electricity, Agriculture, and Essential Minerals, in a collaborative and pre-competitive effort that brings together companies, governments, and civil society to build convergences. The first of these, the Transportation Coalition, effectively contributed to the federal government's Transportation Sector Plan; now, the other coalitions are in the final stages of development and will provide a framework of actions for the effective decarbonization of these segments, aligned with the sectoral plans.

Translating goals into concrete actions is a fundamental step for Brazil to fulfill its NDC, providing predictability for the private sector to invest and prioritize innovation based on the climate agenda. Further detailing and in-depth discussion of financing channels are still necessary, as this remains a bottleneck that will also be a topic of debate in Belém. COP30 definitively seals the role of companies as accelerators of implementation, making tangible one of the main legacies of the first decade of the Paris Agreement.

* Marina Grossi is president of CEBDS (Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development), an organization with 28 years of experience and 120 large associated companies, Special Envoy of the COP30 Presidency for the Business Sector