Brazil shouldn't rush to set sectoral emission reduction policies, a consultant to Brazil at UN climate talks said.

Marcelo Rocha, who chairs the discussions on land-use change and forestry within the Kyoto protocol working group (AWG-KP), said election pressures were driving domestic policy decisions on sectoral policies.

Premature domestic policies may be incompatible with international rules that will be developed, he said. 

Rocha made the comments to Point Carbon News at a meeting in São Paulo to discuss the role of the Brazilian agricultural sector in meeting the government’s emission reduction targets. 

By decree

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has promised to issue five presidential decrees by August, detailing climate action measures on reducing deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado (savanna), agriculture, energy and the steel industry.

They will give regulatory force to the target announced by Brazil at the Copenhagen climate conference to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 36.1 and 38.9 per cent below projected emissions by 2020.

Rocha said the government was under pressure to demonstrate concrete climate action before October’s presidential elections, especially with the participation of former Environment Minister Marina Silva, the Green Party’s candidate. 

“It could be that at the end of the year, the Brazilian legislation will have a specific reduction or project that will not necessarily be consistent with what will be decided in the international climate regime,” Rocha said.

Don’t rush

Rocha is a private sector consultant but is also part of the official Brazilian delegation at the UN talks.

“My concern is that we need to make sure that everything works together. If we rush to build something up here, we may not have all the necessary information from the international side, to decide for example on the size of the measures and who is going to pay for it.”

Rocha cited in particular the question of what kind of actions will qualify as nationally appropriate mitigation actions (Namas).

That term is being used in the UN talks to describe emission reductions by developing countries that do not have mandatory targets under the Kyoto protocol.

In land use and agriculture, which account for most of Brazil’s promised cuts, measures could include increasing the productivity of cattle ranching, reducing methane emissions from livestock and recuperating degraded land for crops. 

“All of these things are technically possible to do in Brazil. But if you want to use these as Namas, then you have to wait until you see what will be Namas in the international regime,” he said.

Number uncertainty

Rocha’s comments were echoed by Rodrigo Lima, general manager of the International Institute for Trade Negotiations, the agricultural think tank organising the São Paulo meeting.

Lima said the basis of the target promised by the Brazilian government was still not clear, since it had not published details of the projected emissions to 2020, which will be the basis of the promised reductions.

“The danger is that the Brazilian regulation is based on some numbers, but we still don’t have clarity about those numbers,” Lima told Point Carbon News.

He complained that only one meeting had been scheduled to discuss the proposed decrees with the private sector, due to take place later this month in Brasilia. 

He also felt the election was driving ministers to move too fast.

“When I see the schedule of the government to adopt these five sectoral decrees by August, it seems very fast,” Lima said.

“I don’t feel comfortable with that, considering that if we really want to discuss the decrees in depth, in terms of being really ambitious, we need to have time to discuss with the different sectors and different ministries in the government, and not just in one meeting.”

Clearer signals needed

Lima pointed out that if agricultural practices such as no-till farming and recovery of degraded land were included in the targets it was important to know what financial incentives would be available, since agriculture in developed countries had no emissions targets and issues of competitiveness were involved. 

He also called on the government to give clearer signals on the possibility of a domestic carbon trading market in Brazil, floated by the finance ministry last week.

“You have the finance ministry saying it is working on this plan, and the science and technology ministry saying we don’t even know what they are talking about – so this is crazy,” said Lima.

By Tim Hirsch – news@pointcarbon.com