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This paper assesses the effects of public policies on the occurrence of natural disasters related to extreme rainfall. By using a unique and geolocated database on natural disasters in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I test whether variables related to public policies - e.g. forest cover and urban infrastructure - affect the occurrence of natural disasters, conditional on the existence of extreme rainfall. Results point to a significant role for public policies in order to mitigate effects of extreme weather events. More specifically, results point to an important role for urban infrastructure, as proper sewage and waste collection, and forest cover in reducing the impacts of extreme rainfall. Moreover, I discuss how these heterogeneous effects have distributional consequences and can be linked to the Environmental Justice literature. Finally, this paper reinforces the idea that adaptation policies to disasters are essential in reducing local vulnerabilities and can yield distributional and fiscal benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical forest conservation is considered a low-cost option for climate change mitigation. But mitigation cost assessments have featured opportunity costs, neglecting policy implementation costs. Here we use official data to identify the Brazilian federal government's operational and institutional budgets related to forest conservation policies implemented from 2000 to 2014. We distinguish the allocated and executed budgets of these policies, and provide scenario-based estimates of their cost-effectiveness. On average, Brazil spent US$ 1 billion/year on forest conservation policies at the federal level. Brazil's substantial reduction in annual forest loss after 2004 was accompanied by a higher operational budget execution of disincentive-based policy instruments, and an absolute increase in both allocated and executed institutional budgets. The post-2004 successful mitigation effort represented additional implementation costs to the Brazilian federal government of US$ 308–923/ha of avoided deforestation, or US$ 0.87–2.60/tCO 2 of avoided emissions. Factoring in also approximate municipal and state expenditures, these costs increase to US$ 385–1153/ha or US$ 1.09–3.25/tCO 2 . We conclude that implementations costs are non-trivial in size, including compared to estimates of land users' opportunity costs. This has important implications for REDD + policy design, in the sense that implementation costs need to be adequately considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Bolsonaro emitted intentions to legalize mining inside Amazonian indigenous lands. • There was a considerable increase of fire in the Amazon compared to last year. • Amazonia conservation is crucial to mitigate global effects of climate change. • This must be the focus of the government, rather than resource exploitation. The newly published article by Pereira et al. (2019) analyzed the threaten of Brazilian political perspectives to the conservation of Amazonian forest. We highlighted some recent events that has leading Brazilian scientists and environmentalists worried. Mining activities and uncontrolled fire are usually associated to negative impacts on local biodiversity and on ecosystem services supporting traditional populations, such as indigenous people and riverine populations, besides generates tons of toxic wastes. Brazil's president intentions regarding resource exploitation in the Amazon, mostly inside indigenous lands, may lead to catastrophic consequences not only for Amazon biodiversity and traditional populations, but also for the achievement of Brazilian and world´s targets of reducing global carbon emissions and to decrease current global warming rates. The active management of these areas is thus essential to preserve their role on climate change mitigation and must be the focus of the Brazilian government, rather than one considering exploring local mining and agrobusiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]