Agro tries to reduce climate adaptation obligations – 03/02/2024 – Market

The ruralist group is working to reduce agribusiness obligations in yet another bill being processed in Congress. This time, in a proposal that establishes guidelines to be followed by public authorities when preparing plans to adapt the country to climate change.

The text, reported by senator Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE), was approved by the CMA (Environment Committee) of the Senate last Wednesday (28).

The initiative is now ready to go to the House plenary, but the ruralist bench presented a request for the project to first be considered by the Agriculture Committee (CRA), in which the group has a large majority.

In the environmental committee, which also has a large part of its parliamentarians linked to the sector, the bench has already managed to implement an amendment to reduce agricultural responsibilities.

The original project required the adaptation of the agricultural sector through a plan to reduce carbon emissions. After a request from senator Zequinha Marinho (PL-PA), the wording was changed.

The requirement was removed and the text began to provide, generally, that there will be a “stimulus” (linked to investments in research and development, for example) for the sector to cut its emissions. The new version does not specify whether the stimulus includes public resources.

Under reservation, parliamentarians see a movement similar to what happened in the carbon credit project, when agribusiness managed to get rid of obligations to reduce emissions after pressure from the ruralist group.

Marinho also wanted the climate change adaptation project to create a provision for “payment for environmental and ecosystem services” for agribusiness, but this section was not accepted by the rapporteur.

Vieira considers that the changes made to the text so far have made progress possible in the Environment Committee without prejudice to the merits, and that the processing by the Agriculture Committee makes sense if the senators understand that the project needs to be more widely debated.

“A possible request for referral from the plenary to the Agriculture Committee seems reasonable to me if we are unable to clarify to the plenary what the project is about. It is a proposal that takes care of adaptation, the protection of cities and people, and the environment What we ask is that any possible procedure has a deadline, a reasonable duration”, he says.

“We have to understand that these are changes that are being implemented, an awareness that is growing in society and in particular in the economic sectors most linked to agriculture”, he adds, regarding the sector’s resistance to the agenda.

A Sheet He contacted Senator Zequinha Marinho, but had no response until the publication of this text.

Alexandre Prado, leader of the climate change area at the environmental organization WWF, recalls that one of the country’s main challenges is to reduce emissions linked to land use, and that climate change is already impacting even agribusiness itself.

Still, he assesses that the changes do not invalidate the core of the project, which he sees as fundamentally important for combating the effects of global warming. “I wouldn’t make this a workhorse. This project, if it goes to vote, is a good size”, he analyzes.

He says that Brazil is among the ten countries most potentially impacted by the effects of global warming and sees the proposal as creating the necessary conditions so that, after its approval, each of the economic sectors can regulate their specific actions to adapt to changes. climate.

The proposal under discussion establishes guidelines for adaptation plans to climate change provided for by the National Policy on Climate Change —created by a 2009 law. According to the text, the documents must go through Sisnama (the National Environmental System) , which includes bodies such as Ibama and ICMBio.

The proposal is that the plans cover the national, state and municipal spheres. The text under discussion also provides that they can be financed with resources from the National Fund on Climate Change, created in 2009 and administered by BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development).