Who Drives Climate-relevant Policies in Brazil?

In this report, the central question of our research is who drives/obstructs climate-relevant policies in Brazil, paying special attention to renewable energy policies, climate policies and politics. We aim to identify the actors (in government, the private sector and civil society) who drive, or obstruct, efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of Brazil’s energy mix. The hypothesis here is that the actors who drive climate policies in Brazil are not specifically concerned with global climate change itself, but with economic, social or even political issues, such as energy security, job creation, competitiveness, promoting national industries, and gaining political power domestically or internationally. In that sense, climate change mitigation can be regarded as a co-benefit of other policies (energy policies included) that may have very different objectives. To answer the above-mentioned question, this research assesses renewable energy policies in Brazil, identifying key actors from government, business and civil society and their explicit, or implicit, motivations.UK Department for International Developmen

Energy Technology Roll-Out for Climate Change Mitigation: A Multi-Model Study for Latin America

AbstractIn this paper we investigate opportunities for energy technology deployment under climate change mitigation efforts in Latin America. Through several carbon tax and CO2 abatement scenarios until 2050 we analyze what resources and technologies, notably for electricity generation, could be cost-optimal in the energy sector to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the region. By way of sensitivity test we perform a cross-model comparison study and inspect whether robust conclusions can be drawn across results from different models as well as different types of models (general versus partial equilibrium). Given the abundance of biomass resources in Latin America, they play a large role in energy supply in all scenarios we inspect. This is especially true for stringent climate policy scenarios, for instance because the use of biomass in power plants in combination with CCS can yield negative CO2 emissions. We find that hydropower, which today contributes about 800 TWh to overall power production in Latin America, could be significantly expanded to meet the climate policies we investigate, typically by about 50%, but potentially by as much as 75%. According to all models, electricity generation increases exponentially with a two- to three-fold expansion between 2010 and 2050. We find that in our climate policy scenarios renewable energy overall expands typically at double-digit growth rates annually, but there is substantial spread in model results for specific options such as wind and solar power: the climate policies that we simulate raise wind power in 2050 on average to half the production level that hydropower provides today, while they raise solar power to either a substantially higher or a much lower level than hydropower supplies at present, depending on which model is used. Also for CCS we observe large diversity in model outcomes, which reflects the uncertainties with regard to its future implementation potential as a result of the challenges this CO2 abatement technology experiences. The extent to which different mitigation options can be used in practice varies greatly between countries within Latin America, depending on factors such as resource potentials, economic performance, environmental impacts, and availability of technical expertise. We provide concise assessments of possible deployment opportunities for some low-carbon energy options, for the region at large and with occasional country-level detail in specific cases

Interactions between climate change mitigation and adaptation: The case of hydropower in Brazil

This paper performs a multi-model comparison to assess strategies for adaptation to climate change impacts in hydropower generation in Brazil under two Representative Concentration Pathways. The approach used allows for evaluating the interactions between climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies under low and high impact scenarios through 2050. Climate change impact projections of sixteen General Circulation Models indicate that a global high emissions trajectory scenario would likely yield more severe impacts on hydropower generation than a mitigation scenario. Adaptation modeling suggests that climate change impacts can be compensated by a wide range of alternatives, whose optimality will depend on the level of mitigation effort pursued. Our results show that climate change impacts would lead to even higher emissions in the absence of climate change mitigation policies. On the other hand, mitigation strategies to pursue lower emissions are maintained under climate change impacts, meaning that mitigation strategies are robust when faced with adaptation challenges. Mitigation efforts could yield a more diverse and less carbon intensive mix of technological options for adaptation. When analyzing investment costs to adapt to climate change impacts, in some cases mitigation can lead to a lower total investment level