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Brazil is the world's leading nation in both committing to and achieving greenhouse gas reductions. In Copenhagen, Brazil announced its official goal of reducing GHG emissions 36 to 39% by 2020 as it reported a 64% reduction in Amazon deforestation its major source of emissions. There is now an important opportunity for consolidating the policies, market trends, and deforestation reductions that have been achieved over the last few years.
Over the past few decades, the conversion of forests to agriculture and ranching in the Amazon has been the most important national source of GHG. Around half of the gross emissions of GHG come from the incorporation of new areas into ranching, the large majority in the Amazon. Since the 1970s, the Amazon region has been quickly integrated into the national economy. Successive waves of migration have driven expansion of the agricultural and ranching frontier, and attracted migrants and capital from other regions. This economic integration, however, has followed a logic based on the extraction of raw materials and extensive ranching, resulting in natural resource depletion, social inequalities and poverty.
This dynamic of continuous frontier expansion must be substituted by a new logic of natural resource and land use. This would include the creation of positive incentives to reduce pressure on standing forests, and support those responsible for the conservation of remaining forest stocks. It is also necessary to add knowledge to the production processes and induce economic and social agents to change their behaviour in a direction that promotes education, innovation and criativity. This new development model should be grounded on a low carbon emissions production matrix. These possibilities require significant investments in infrastructure, research, and technological innovation. A REDD policy (compensations for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is one important mechanism for financing this new development model for the Amazon.
The Secretariat for Strategic Affairs of the Presidency of Brazil (SAE/PR) has been following the national mobilization for mitigating and adapting to climate change since its inception. In 2009, SAE/PR actively participated in discussions on compensation for deforestation reduction taking place under the auspices of the Amazon Governors' Task Force. Th e partnership of SAE/PR, the Center for Strategic Studies and Management (CGEE), and the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) is making an important contribution to the debate over REDD in Brazil. The selection of IPAM to conduct the research was especially appropriate, given that it not only has a long history of research into issues related to sustainable development in the Amazon, but has also been engaged in international discussions on REDD since they began in the 1990s.
SAE/PR has investigated two basic questions: Who has carbon in the Amazon? How would a compensatory carbon market function in the region, especially considering the differences in the historical profile of forest use by states as diverse as Amapá (with almost all of its forest still intact) and Rondônia (which has already lost more than 40% of its original forest cover)?
The answers to such questions went far beyond the limited scope of most publications on REDD. More than simply situating the matter in terms of regulatory parameters that exist today, the present work proposes a structure around which the debate on alternatives open to Amazonia can result in better choices for current and future generations.
Mariano Francisco Laplane
President of CGEE
W. Moreira Franco
Minister of SAE/PR
O Brasil tem exercido inquestionável liderança nas discussões internacionais sobre mitigação das causas e adaptação às consequências das mudanças climáticas. A crise econômica mundial, iniciada em 2008, esfriou o compromisso dos países desenvolvidos com metas mais ambiciosas de redução de emissões e com o apoio tecnológico e financeiro aos países pobres. No vácuo de liderança dos países ricos, responsáveis históricos pelo acúmulo de gases de efeito estufa (GEE), o Brasil se comprometeu com metas extremamente ambiciosas de redução de emissões e com apoio aos países mais pobres da América Latina e da África.
Nas últimas décadas, a conversão de floresta para a produção agropecuária na Amazônia tem sido a mais importante fonte nacional de GEE. Cerca de metade das emissões brutas de GEE advém da incorporação de novas áreas à pecuária, a grande maioria na Amazônia. Nos últimos anos, a taxa bruta de desmatamento vem caindo, o que permite que o Brasil se adiante mesmo em relação às metas que voluntariamente assumiu em Copenhague. No entanto, a continuidade da trajetória de redução do desmatamento depende de uma delicada redefinição do próprio modelo de desenvolvimento.
A SAE/PR definiu a linha da reflexão em torno de duas perguntas fundamentais: quem tem carbono na Amazônia? e como funcionaria um mercado compensatório de carbono na região, especialmente considerando a diferença no perfil histórico de uso da floresta entre estados tão diversos como Amapá, com praticamente toda a floresta ainda intocada, e Rondônia, que já perdeu mais de 40% de sua cobertura original?
A resposta a tais questões transcendeu em muito o escopo limitado da maior parte das publicações sobre REDD. Mais do que meramente situar a questão em termos dos parâmetros regulatórios hoje existentes, o trabalho propõe uma estrutura em torno da qual o debate sobre as alternativas abertas à Amazônia possa resultar nas melhores escolhas para as atuais e as futuras gerações.
Lucia Carvalho Pinto de Melo
Presidenta do CGEE
W. Moreira Franco
Ministro SAE/PR
