Bridging the Gap Between Energy and Climate Policies in Brazil: Policy Options to Reduce Energy-Related GHG Emissions

Brazil is facing a series of important policy decisions that will determine its energy future over the next several decades, with important implications for the country's economic competitiveness, the well-being of its citizens, and the global climate. The decisions concern the direction of approximately 0.5 trillion U.S. dollars of anticipated investment in energy infrastructure over the next decade -- which can either lock in carbon-intensive infrastructure, or advance Brazil's position as a leader in the low-carbon economy. This report examines Brazil's key energy-related GHG emitting sectors through a climate lens in order to offer recommendations for a more integrated approach that can more effectively reconcile energy and climate needs. It begins with an overview of Brazil's past energy and GHG emissions profiles, current pledges and future trends, and a discussion of the implications for a possible allocation of the remaining global carbon budget. Next, it reviews available scenarios for Brazil's energy-related GHG emissions in order to identify key drivers and results and compare them to a given allocation of the global carbon budget. It then focuses on the top emitting subsectors -- transport, industry, and power generation -- to identify key abatement opportunities. The report concludes with recommendations regarding a portfolio of policies and measures that could achieve both climate and energy objectives

Decarbonizing the Energy Sector: Assessing Policy, Innovation, and Investment Pathways Under Paris Agreement Pledges

Investment in low-carbon energy must more than double by 2030 to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, or 1.5°C. To help drive this transformation, 1 the Agreement establishes a “pledge-and-review” system under which countries make commitments (“nationally determined contributions,” or NDCs), report on progress, and undergo international review.2 Around 70% of NDCs contain economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets, and many also contain energy-focused pledges.3 As such, the NDCs have been characterized as “clean energy investment plans” that will help drive energy decarbonization.4 Yet while the literature is rich with modeling studies showing how the energy sector would need to change to achieve the NDCs5, the role of the NDCs in driving that change - via domestic policy, innovation, and investment, for example - has not been empirically tested

Are the G20 economies making enough progress to meet their NDC targets?

Under the Paris Agreement, countries committed to a variety of climate actions, including post-2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets. This study compares projected GHG emissions in the G20 economies under current climate policies to those under the GHG targets outlined in the nationally determined contributions (NDCs). It is based on an assessment of official governmental estimates and independent national and global studies. The study concludes that six G20 members (China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia and Turkey) are projected to meet their unconditional NDC targets with current policies. Eight members (Argentina, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Republic of Korea, South Africa and the United States) require further action to achieve their targets. Insufficient information is available for Saudi Arabia, and emission projections for Brazil and Mexico are subject to considerable uncertainty. The study also presents high-level decarbonisation indicators to better understand the current progress towards meeting the NDCs – Saudi Arabia and South Africa were found to continue increasing both emission intensity per unit GDP and emissions per capita under current policies by 2030 from 2015 levels.</p

Better to aim high? How climate targets shape politics and drive action

The tendency to set targets—for reducing emissions, expanding clean energy, phasing out fossil fuels, and more—has come to characterize climate policy. Yet targets are useful only to the extent that they help drive action. This dissertation explores the role of targets in climate policy and politics. Leveraging data from sectoral emissions models as well as qualitative analysis, I examine the relationship between countries’ target-setting behaviors and the techno-economic constraints they face in target implementation, surface the objectives that policymakers seek to advance when setting targets, and identify the pathways through which targets might—under favorable conditions—catalyze action.Chapter 1 explores the relationship between the availability of cost-effective opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, on the one hand, and the long-term targets that countries set to reduce their net emissions to zero, on the other. I present a novel dataset of projected mid-century emissions and removals at the country level under four scenarios that provide insight into the relative cost and technical feasibility for different countries to reach net zero. These projections reveal substantial variation across countries, both in their net emissions quantities at mid-century and in their main sources of remaining (residual) emissions. I find a tenuous relationship between countries’ projected emissions characteristics and the targets they set, suggesting that target-setting is not merely a techno-economic exercise, but one with normative and strategic dimensions as well. Chapter 2 delves into the factors that inform countries’ climate pledges, here with a focus on the near-term pledges in nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Through elite and expert interviews, I identify the objectives that countries seek to advance through their NDCs, consider which objectives reflect versus shape policy preferences, and suggest which factors might explain cross-country variation in objectives. I confirm that states employ NDCs strategically to catalyze climate finance, bolster their status and credibility, extract deeper commitments from others, and construct domestic policy preferences.Chapter 3 explores the potential for strategic pledging and other factors to engender an “implementation gap”—i.e., a gap between projected future emissions if countries were to deliver fully on their targets and the emissions that will result from the policies they adopt and implement in practice. Illustrating how the implementation gap varies across countries, I argue that it consists of two parts—a policy adoption gap and a policy outcome gap—and that its contributing factors include not only strategic pledging, but also domestic institutions, interest group politics, policy design, and innovation.Chapter 4 identifies six key pathways linking climate targets with climate action, explores the implications of these pathways for effective target-setting, and puts forward priorities for empirical research to verify and refine our understanding of the roles these pathways play in climate policy

Determining Impacts of NDC Enhancement on Country-Level Emissions

This technical note describes a method for determining whether and to what extent Parties to the Paris Agreement have enhanced their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) with respect to greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation. We estimate each Party’s target-year GHG emissions under its previous NDC (typically First NDC) and under its subsequent NDC (typically Updated First NDC or Second NDC). On this basis, we determine whether the subsequent NDC reduces emissions relative to the previous NDC and—where possible—by how much. We outline approaches for NDCs with GHG reduction targets and with non-GHG targets and policies.</jats:p