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While the work of waste pickers advances urban sustainability, there has been little focus on how climate change impacts affect them. This paper reports on a pilot study with 61 waste pickers in Minas Gerais, Brazil to understand their perspectives on climate change impacts and actions. It explores how waste pickers experience climate change impacts at home and at work, their adaptive strategies and the specific actions and actors needed to address these impacts. Waste pickers have practical knowledge and experience of climate events. But due to precarious employment and lack of access to services, infrastructure and social support, their responses are improvised and inefficient. They require better institutional support and their proposals must be incorporated into a negotiated approach to urban resilience. Proposals such as the climate bonus – similar to the existing recycling bonus – may help address the structural drivers of vulnerability for waste pickers in Minas Gerais. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the extent to which imaginaries of climate and ecological breakdown attend to the memories, knowledges, and experiences of communities already impacted by histories of racism, colonialism, and poverty. Drawing on insights from Black studies and decolonial thinking, the article reflects on how the causes and effects of anthropogenic climate change can be mapped onto geographies of racialised violence and social dispossession. Specific emphasis is given to Rio de Janeiro, notably its port area, a geographical space where future-oriented narratives remain oblivious to the city's history of anti-Black violence and Indigenous genocide. In parallel, the paper looks at the recently built Museum of Tomorrow and its public representations of the Anthropocene. Overall, the article contends that pluralising accounts of the Anthropocene might offer alternative epistemic entry points for understanding and interrupting the mounting ecological catastrophe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Devastating forest fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, one of the most important biomes for Earth's climate balance, have captured the world's attention in 2019 and 2020. Foreign governments, non-governmental organizations and institutional investors pressured Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to act and control the situation. Within this context, institutional investors threatened to divest from companies potentially linked to the wildfires and to sell government bonds, creating a divestment movement. Against this background, this article shows that Bolsonaro's responses varied for each of the groups criticizing the handling of the environmental situation. It is argued that the Brazilian government adopted a more conciliatory tone and took more concrete actions when responding to institutional investors' demands, compared to the responses for foreign governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Based on fifteen in-depth interviews conducted in 2021 with professionals involved in this divestment case, the paper concludes that institutional investors played a key role in Bolsonaro's winning coalition and electoral aspirations. Moreover, the shortage of financial capital due to the COVID-19 pandemic created further incentives for Bolsonaro to avoid conflicts with institutional investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a thorough analysis of the scientific production in climate change and adaptation in Brazil. We conducted a bibliometric and bibliographic review to reveal and discuss how climate change research has been carried out. We compared a broader climate change research dataset with a more specific climate adaptation research dataset, to understand the main differences and convergence points, and how science conducted from a mitigation and adaptation perspective demonstrates potential to confront the climate change challenges and drivers in Brazil. Four main clusters of investigation within climate change were detected: (1) impacts on forest and plant development, (2) land use and ecology, (3) adaptation/governance, and (4) climate/atmospheric studies. Only about 5% of the total studies on climate change address adaptation, for which three main clusters of research were identified: (1) adaptation actions and policies; (2) urban environment, vulnerability, and health and (3) food and coastal impacts. Although there are strong research trends in climate change for the Amazon Forest, there was less evidence of studies concerning climate adaptation for this and other Brazilian biomes, smaller cities, rural and traditional communities, and poorer regions. Our results shed a light on the more commonly chosen research topics, their strongest points and potential gaps and trends. This can contribute to the scientific communication and implementation of climate actions in Brazil, and a better understanding of the climate science knowledge from the perspective of a middle-income country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to find probabilities of extreme values of the air temperature for the Cerrado, Pantanal and Atlantic Forest biomes in Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil. In this case a maximum likelihood estimation was employed for the probability distributions fitting the extreme monthly air temperatures for 2007–2018. Using the Extreme Value Theory approach this work estimates three probability distributions: the Generalized Distribution of Extreme Values (GEV), the Gumbel (GUM) and the Log-Normal (LN). The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, the corrected Akaike criterion AICc, the Bayesian information criterion BIC, the root of the mean square error RMSE and the determination coefficient R2 were applied to measure the goodness-of-fit. The estimated distributions were used to calculate the probabilities of occurrence of maximum monthly air temperatures over 28–32 °C. Temperature predictions were done for the 2-, 5-, 10-, 30-, 50- and 100-year return periods. The GEV and GUM distributions are recommended to be used in the warmer months. In the coldest months, the LN distribution gave a better fit to a series of extreme air temperatures. Deforestation, combustion and extensive fires, and the related aerosol emissions contribute, alongside climate change, to the generation of extreme air temperatures in the studied biomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the role of the BASIC countries — Brazil, South Africa, India, and China — in UN climate change negotiations. The paper explores the formation and evolution of the group, and focuses on how the four major developing countries of China, India, Brazil, and South Africa have coordinated their positions and acted jointly to achieve an agreed outcome with other players in the recent UN Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, based on an analysis of their country profiles and negotiation positions on a wide range of climate issues. The paper argues that the emergence of the BASIC Group is a reflection of the ongoing power shift from EU–US agreement to BASIC–US compromise in UN climate negotiations since the early 1990s. The rise of BASIC also has its roots in recent global market dynamics and further reflects the power transformation in the economic dimension of the international system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the impact of COVID-19 on the rights of indigenous peoples, particularly in Brazil. It deals with the current situation of the Brazilian indigenous peoples, the impacts of the pandemic, the rights created on the adoption of protective sanitary measures for indigenous people and land rights in Brazil. Does the Brazilian government comply with international law, with constitutional rights of indigenous peoples in the current COVID-19 crisis, particularly with the Brazilian Supreme Court decision on the adoption of protective sanitary measures for indigenous people? With a focus on the 2020 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, this paper will identify and examine the gaps in protection of the indigenous peoples rights by reason of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. This paper argues that the crisis is misused as an occasion for land invasions, deforestation, forest fires and the denial of basic indigenous rights. Especially in Brazil, a transformative change, an emergency support for indigenous peoples, and a still stand agreement on logging and extractive industries operating next to indigenous communities are needed. Brazilian NGO statements give guidelines as to how to manage the threats of the present pandemic on indigenous peoples of Brazil. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations and the International Labour Organisation all offer further relevant suggestions as to how to address the serious impacts in the response to and the aftermath of this crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper aims to reconstruct the evolution of this dynamic by tracing the interpretations and reinterpretations of the norm done by Brazilian state actors through the process of localization of the norm in the domestic discourse on climate change in Brazil from 2005 to 2010. The theoretical perspective is based on the literature about norms internalization that attempts to specify the conditions under which international norms find salience in particular domestic contexts. Two main interpretations coexist within the Brazilian political arena in the period within the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol until the signature of the Paris agreement that influenced the climate politics in Brazil in that period. The first stand around the norm was a traditional interpretation of the principle defending a position of historical responsibilities that implies that Brazil did not have to take greenhouse gas reduction measures. The second position is a more progressive interpretation of the norm that argues that Brazil, as an emergent country, can and must adopt emissions reductions. The tie between both positions allows us to understand the alleged ups and downs in climate policy in the time frame studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the economic impacts of climate change over the Brazilian regions until the end of the century. We estimate the direct and indirect impact of the projected changes in climate on the yield of the country's main crops. The results point to a broad spatial heterogeneity of impacts across the country. Using the extreme scenarios created by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (RCP 2.6 and 8.5), our predictions indicate that the average annual losses due to climate change range from 0.4% to 1.8% of Brazilian gross domestic product until the end of the century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Geosul is the property of Geosul and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contexto Internacional is the property of Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto de Relacoes Internacionais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Effective mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the buildings sector requires a full understanding of the factors influencing emissions over the life-cycle of buildings, particularly in places where large additions to the building stock are expected. Currently, little is known about what affects the GHG emissions of buildings located in warmer climates, a typical situation for many emerging economies. This paper presents a study of emissions from Brazilian office buildings using building archetypes. A sensitivity analysis explores possible parameter ranges, various contributions to life-cycle impacts and their key drivers. For each of the 1000 building variations in the sample, the emissions were calculated using a life-cycle assessment. Multivariate regression analysis enabled the study of the results' sensitivity to 10 parameters, influencing building operation, design and others. The emissions ranged from 20 to 106 kg CO2-eq/m² gross floor area and year. Electricity mix, climate and cooling efficiency were the most impactful parameters, but building component service time was also significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the anticipated consequences of climate change suggest that among all economic sectors, agriculture would be the most affected. In Brazil, this issue is particularly relevant, since the agricultural sector and its related activities account for a significant share of the country's GDP and employment. Using a fixed effects panel model and data from 1990 through 2012, this paper empirically analyzes the vulnerability of agriculture to climate variables in Brazil's ten main agricultural states and the possible resulting loss of agricultural value in the face of future climate change. Our work is differentiated from prior studies in that it employs state level annual data series, which allows the aggregation of a great deal of relevant current information to the analysis. The results indicate that climate variables have a significant impact on most of these states' agricultural production, especially air temperature, whose effects showed higher estimated magnitude than those from rainfall. Considering the estimated elasticities and climatic projections, the most severe damage to agriculture is expected in Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, and Rio Grande do Sul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All over the world, there is a pressing need to better understand how climate change has been incorporated into governmental agendas, and evaluate the status of adaptation planning and interventions at the local level. In this paper, we seek to contribute towards bridging this gap by identifying local practices connected to climate adaptation in six large Brazilian cities, and presenting a framework, based on the existing literature, for assessing constraints to adaptation across the municipal level. Although local governments are not the only actors who can take the lead through their actions, the employed framework considers that effective adaptation planning in urban areas is highly dependent on municipal efforts. Our findings indicate that six aspects have the highest levels of impact on adaptation in the Brazilian cities studied: administrative practices, political will, level of commitment, mismatch between the scale of urban issues and the extent of local government authority, pressures from private sectors, and inspection. Although these barriers are not specific only to climate issues and can be identified in other environmental arenas, when combined, they cause and worsen constraints to advancing urban adaptation at the local level. Specifically concerning the local dynamics of urban planning, the combination of pressures from private sectors and insufficient inspection negatively affects the ability of these cities to consolidate adaptation interventions. Our results are helpful in the context of large cities, particularly in Global South, where, as in Brazil, competitive urbanism and specific interest groups confront municipal efforts, and make achieving adaptation more difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the economic impacts of Brazil's climate mitigation strategies contained in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). To do so, we employ the computable general equilibrium MIT Economic Projection and Policy Analysis model and simulate alternative carbon pricing scenarios (sectoral versus economy-wide carbon markets), set to achieve the country's overall emissions targets announced under the Paris Agreement. The results show relatively cheap emissions reductions from land-use changes and agriculture in the short run: the cost of the Brazilian NDC is predicted to be only 0.7 per cent of GDP in 2030. Further efforts to reduce carbon emissions beyond 2030 would require policy changes, since all the potential emissions reductions from deforestation would be finished and the capacity to expand renewable energy sources would be constrained. In this case, an economy-wide carbon pricing system would help substantially to avoid higher compliance costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a 50% possibility that global temperatures will have risen by more than 5 °C by the year 2100. As demands on Earth's systems grow more unsustainable, human security is clearly at stake. This narrative review provides an overview and synthesis of findings in relation to climate change, air pollution, and human health within the Global South context, focusing on case study geographic locations in South Africa and Brazil. Two case study regions—the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere region of South Africa and the Amazon region of Brazil—were the subjects of PubMed literature searches. Technical reports, policy briefs, and grey literature were also narratively synthesized. The burning of wood for fuel, as witnessed in Agincourt, and forest fires, such as those seen in the Amazon rainforest, release air pollutants such as methane and black carbon, which are strong short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) which fuel climate change and adversely affect human health. SLCPs have a brief lifetime in the atmosphere, but they frequently have a far larger potential for global warming than carbon dioxide (CO2). Most air pollution in geographic case study areas, that are home to human settlements, is due to the burning of wood and other biomasses that are pollutants. These areas are seen to be important for climate and health responses, and if constructive action is taken to switch to other modes of electricity generation (such as solar power) and the prevention of deforestation, the worst of the impacts may still be mitigated in these regions. Authorities should also establish a monitoring strategy for air quality, as well as enforce air quality regulations that safeguard public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of public policies have emerged worldwide as a response from governments facing climate change effects, drawing the attention of the scientific community to the outcomes and actual effects/benefits these policies have brought so far. One of the challenging aspects related to this context is the integration of the objectives set by climate change policies within the sectoral and regional planning. In this respect, the literature recognizes the relevance of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) as an instrument to deal with climate change issues in the planning process and to support the development of alternatives to respond to climate change policies. The influence of climate change policies on the plans and programs supported by SEA in emerging economies is yet to be verified. The paper relies on the case of Brazil, recognized by its relevance in terms of biodiversity, water resources and climate regulation. In 2009, Brazil introduced the National Policy of Climate Change (NPCC), which established guidelines to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) by 2020. The present paper is based on the analysis of the current SEA practice and the corresponding level of integration of climate change issues, considering the objectives of the NPCC. A set of 29 statements, delivered by the literature, was applied, combined to the content analysis techniques to review the quality of 35 SEA reports produced in Brazil between 1997 and 2014 (out of 40-odd cases). The outcomes indicate the performance is similar to what was found in other contexts, i.e., SEA areas barely address climate change issues. This thus reveals an important gap between the objectives of NPCC and sectoral/regional planning. SEA can contribute to reducing this gap, but it needs more strength to influence the development of sectoral and regional policies and plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses gender differences in vulnerability and resilience to shocks, including climate change and climate variability, for Peru, Brazil and Mexico, which together account for more than half the population in Latin America. Vulnerability and resilience indicators are measured by a combination of the level of household incomes per capita and the degree of diversification of these incomes. Thus, households which simultaneously have incomes which are below the national poverty line and which are poorly diversified (Diversification Index below 0.5) are classified as highly vulnerable, whereas households which have highly diversified incomes above the poverty line are classified as highly resilient. The analysis shows that female headed households in all three countries tend to be less vulnerable and more resilient than male headed households, despite the fact that the former usually have lower education levels. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective policies for adaptation to climate change require understanding how impacts are related to exposures and vulnerability, the dimensions of the climate system that will change most and where human impacts will be most draconian, and the institutions best suited to respond. Here, we propose a simple method for more credibly pairing empirical statistical damage estimates derived from recent weather and outcome observations with projected future climate changes and proposed responses. We first analyze agricultural production and loan repayment data from Brazil to understand vulnerability to historical variation in the more predictable components of temperature and rainfall (trend and seasonality) as well as to shocks (both local and over larger spatial scales). This decomposed weather variation over the past two decades explains over 50% of the yield variation in major Brazilian crops and, critically, can be constructed in the same way for future climate projections. Combining our estimates with bias-corrected downscaled climate simulations for Brazil, we find increased variation in yields and revenues (including more bad years and worse outcomes) and higher agricultural loan default at midcentury. Results in this context point to two particularly acute dimensions of vulnerability: Intensified seasonality and local idiosyncratic shocks both contribute to worsening outcomes, along with a reduced capacity for spatially correlated ("covariate") shocks to ameliorate these effects through prices. These findings suggest that resilience strategies should focus on institutions such as water storage, financial services, and reinsurance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the legal and ecological problems facing the Guarani Aquifer System. Because the majority of the Guarani Aquifer System underlies Brazil, the Brazilian legal regime forms the paper's principal focus. The importance of the region makes the need for accurate information crucial. Yet relying on such information to manage a complex resource presents risks. Too often, the role of uncertainty in regulating is underplayed. Increasing knowledge over the resource demands categorizing 'hard' and 'soft' uncertainties, especially those presented by climate change. In addition, regulators must acknowledge the unitary nature of the aquifer while remaining sensitive to differing national priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in Brazil's climate have aggravated drought conditions, yet the government continues to favor populist policies over ensuring sustainable energy and water resources. This paper analyses the underlying environmental and policy conditions that have led to Brazil's current power and water crisis and argues in favor of an overhaul of the federal energy infrastructure to reduce political influence in a regulated market and to improve initiatives of reforestation to mitigate the effects of climate change. The effects of poor climate and energy policies so clearly manifested in the Brazilian crisis should serve as a warning to other countries that sustainability is a choice, not a causal eventuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evidence for climate change and its associated consequences, such as severe droughts, floods, and storms, exposed the need to investigate the ways that countries can cope with them, especially Brazil, which is a continental nation. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the urgency to consider global uncertainties. To audit it, the Pondělíček method, an indicator of the general quality of urban greenery (IOKZM), was employed. This approach considers four factors to indicate if one city is sustainable: city altitude [m], average annual temperature [°C], average annual precipitation [mm], and the total greenery area [km²] per inhabitant per year. The outcomes demonstrate that, regardless independently of the Brazilian region, geographic localization, estimated altitude range, or precipitation range may not strongly influence the BIOKZM. The impact measured in the indicator is significantly influenced by the greenery areas in Brazil. Those estimated areas are much smaller than European Union ones. Teresina's Fkes demonstrates that if the greenery area is more than 5 (i.e., more than 50 percent), the IOKZM will be a positive outcome. The IOKZM calculated for Brazilian cities is interesting precisely because of their location in the southern hemisphere, as all the evidence of climate change subtly suggests that the climate in the southern hemisphere changes in a different way. Hence, this article can be used as an initial tool to assess whether the chosen Brazilian cities (Belém, São Luís, Guarulhos, Campinas, Porto Alegre, Teresina, and João Pessoa) can be considered "smart cities". It is a step towards guiding mayors and other public figures in charge to create and maintain smart cities in Brazil. In addition, further studies should be conducted to contribute to this collaborative effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sustainability in Debate / Sustentabilidade em Debate is the property of University of Brasilia, Center for Sustainable Development and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Agricultural trade and climate change have altered land cover and land use worldwide. For example, the recent growth of international soybean demand has been associated with 1.3 Mha primary Amazon forest loss and up to 13-fold increase in double-cropping areas in Brazil. Many studies have tried to understand which and how global and local drivers affect deforestation and agricultural intensification processes at the landscape level, yet few have incorporated the direct perspectives of actual land users. Under the influence of a variety of social, economic, and cultural factors, producers are the ones who make decisions that will cause a significant impact on the environment. In this paper, we adopted Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs), a semi-quantitative modeling approach to represent complex decision-making systems, and we modeled land use and agricultural management perceptions of 27 crop producers from the three states - Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Tocantins - important soybean production and export areas in Brazil. We analyzed individual models and integrated them into aggregated regional models to compare individual and regional differences among the producers. In addition, we simulated how producers from the three states will make land-use decisions under more trade and extreme climatic events scenarios using the FCMs. Our results indicate that extreme climatic events are among the most important factors producers consider when it comes to the sustainability of their operations. Climate change scenarios have a stronger overall impact than trade scenarios on local land-use changes, causing a 12% reduction in total agricultural production. The improvement of technology packages can effectively mitigate climate change risks and has an overall positive impact on land-use intensification than expansion. On the other hand, sharing accurate climate information and socio-economic improvements such as credits have larger impacts on agricultural expansion than productivity itself. Moreover, the model complexity shows differences among the three states. Soybean trade has more weight in the perception of producers in Goiás and Tocantins than Mato Grosso. Based on the results, we discuss the importance of co-designing place-based, alternative policies and mitigation options for both agricultural intensification and environmental conservation, taken into consideration through the intertwined global and local forces. • Mapping perceptions of soybean producers across Brazil reveals heterogeneous characters, concepts, and relationships. • Climate change has vast and more severe impacts to land-use change decisions than trade. • Producers acknowledge the contribution of international trade to local production, social, and infrastructure development. • Land actors' varied perceptions demand place-based policies, balancing environmental and agricultural sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amazonia is one of the world's most vulnerable regions to climate change but few studies pinpointing priority areas for local adaptation programmes exist. This paper aims to identify socio-climatic hotspots among the 515 municipalities that compose the Brazilian Amazon by using a three-step process. First, we identified the regional social hotspots, that is, municipalities that have currently low adaptive capacity, by calculating a composite infrastructure index based on the assessment of both current green and socioeconomic infrastructures. Second, we used a Regional Climate Change Index to identify the climate change hotspots, that is, those municipalities that have a high likelihood to experience future climate change risks. Third, we evaluated the geographic coincidence of social and climate change hotspots to identify the socio-climatic hotspots. We found that 117 municipalities are regional social hotspots and that 60 municipalities are regional climate change hotspots. Forty-six municipalities are considered as socio-climatic hotspots because they have very low to low composite infrastructure indices and very high climate risk indices. Local institutional capacity to integrate and execute national-level policies that enhance local adaptive capacity is a major constraint across the region. To face the challenges associated with climate change, municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon should embrace a more sustainable development model. Sustainable development, in the context of the Brazilian Amazon, implies conservation of the existing green infrastructure through the expansion of protected areas and indigenous lands, restoration of green infrastructure in areas of deficit, and substantial investments in urban socioeconomic infrastructures to foster a knowledge-based economy. Although local sustainable development and adaptation plans are essential across the entire region, the 46 municipalities identified in this study as regional socio-climatic hotspots could be prioritized for action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract Highlights • Specialisation at national level hampers mitigation-adaptation integration. • Local actors prioritize climate adaptation but lack of influence hinders action. • Decentralisation affects cross-level power differentials in land and climate domains. • Dominant national level communities exclude localities from policy decisions. Abstract This article proposes an innovative theoretical framework that combines institutional and policy network approaches to study multi-level governance. The framework is used to derive a number of propositions on how cross-level power imbalances shape communication and collaboration across multiple levels of governance. The framework is then applied to examine the nature of cross-level interactions in climate change mitigation and adaptation policy processes in the land use sectors of Brazil and Indonesia. The paper identifies major barriers to cross-level communication and collaboration between national and sub-national levels. These are due to power imbalances across governance levels that reflect broader institutional differences between federal and decentralized systems of government. In addition, powerful communities operating predominantly at the national level hamper cross-level interactions. The analysis also reveals that engagement of national level actors is more extensive in the mitigation and that of local actors in the adaptation policy domain, and specialisation in one of the climate change responses at the national level hampers effective climate policy integration in the land use sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Climate change is one of the main challenges faced by mankind in this century. Although developing countries have little historical responsibility for climate change, they are likely to be most affected by it since they lack resources to cope with or to adapt to its effects. Studies show that the semi-arid northeast region of Brazil – where the country''s poorest populations are concentrated – is one of the most vulnerable to climate change and thus likely to suffer its impacts more severely. The present paper addresses these problems by presenting a concrete initiative for strengthening adaptive capacity in the rural community of Pintadas as a first step in the development of a comprehensive methodology to help smallholder farmers in the region adapt to climate change. Based on the project results this paper highlights the integration of development, adaptive capacity and adaptation strategies. Furthermore, the necessity of vulnerability studies and concrete local experiences is highlighted in order to develop adaptation strategies that can alleviate poverty and minimize climate change impacts for the poor. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The vulnerabilities of fishing communities to climate and environmental change represent major issues for the governance of fisheries resources which have a direct effect on human security, livelihoods and rights. This paper explores the dynamics of social-ecological systems in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon in southern Brazil. The paper identifies key factors that increase and/or minimize the vulnerabilities of the fishing communities in this lagoon with the objective of understanding: (a) the degree to which fishing communities are able to build adaptive and learning capacities to minimize/reduce vulnerabilities and maintain their livelihoods; and (b) how and under what circumstances external and internal factors may influence and disrupt the social-ecological resilience in this lagoon system. Results show that fishing communities with a higher degree of self-organization are able to create ways to minimize their vulnerability to adverse climatic conditions. However, only a few communities have developed adaptive mechanisms to cope with the influence of climate on resource abundance and availability. Little external institutional support for small-scale fishing communities, erosion of their traditional resource use systems and decreasing fish stocks in recent decades have all led to a gradual increase in the vulnerability of fishing livelihoods in this lagoon. The uncertainties associated with climate are related to increasing vulnerability and influence the degree of resource conservation and exploitation. The lack of public policies to deal with the impact of climate variability on the livelihoods of fishing communities and the presence of weak institutions in resource governance represent major threats to the social security of fishers in this region. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Brazil was the first country to submit a reference level (RL) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aiming to claim results-based payments for reduced emissions from deforestation in the REDD+ mechanism. This voluntary RL submission has passed an official technical assessment process by the UNFCCC on the accordance of the data and method applied, which was finalised in December 2014. After years of international negotiations this has become possible by the REDD+ framework finally agreed. Although never formally adopted, the rules of procedure of the UNFCCC foresee consensus among the 196 parties to the convention. Due to the wide heterogeneity in national circumstances and capacities between these parties, the decided REDD+ framework represents a compromise, and in some points space for interpretation remains due to a lack of clear definitions. E.g., no internationally standardised method exists for the design of RLs under UNFCCC; rather each country has the possibility to apply its own approach within a given range of requirements. We argue that these nationally designed RLs involve the danger of raising a ‘cherry-picking’ mentality, which would reduce cost-efficiency of the payments. Especially in the light of the ongoing pressure to fight anthropogenic global climate change, the overall objective of REDD+ should be climate effectiveness. Therefore, apparently contradictory objectives—of integrating as many developing countries as possible, by keeping the barriers low, and of effective emission reductions by persisting on strict rules for national carbon accounting—had to be balanced. According to the technical assessment by the UNFCCC, the submitted Brazilian RL fulfils all formal requirements. However, as implication of the negotiated framework, there remain some questions on the climate effectiveness and the cost-efficiency of the submitted approach, which this viewpoint paper aims to critically reflect. Brazil chose for its present RL design the eligible options of a subnational coverage, with consideration of the activity of deforestation only. But only comprehensive accounting of all activities on national scale can ensure that all potential emissions are accounted for. By the present accounting gap, doubts on climate effectiveness arise. Furthermore, Brazil chose a fixed starting year for historic emissions and did not consider national circumstances, which results in reference emissions of about 1100 Mt CO 2 /a between 2006 and 2010. This potentially profitable RL setting for Brazil raises doubt on the cost-efficiency of the implied REDD+ payment. Whether these problems arising from the four eligible but critical RL options applied by Brazil emerge in other RLs as well, was checked for further five RL proposals submitted up to now. None of these country submissions has passed the technical assessment yet. The submitted approaches for RL design differ among the considered countries but one can see a tendency towards profitable individual RL definitions, similar to the Brazilian RL. From our findings we conclude that individually determined RLs without standardised methods bear the risk of national ‘cherry-picking’ which can compromise climate effectiveness and cost-efficiency of the whole REDD+ mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we analyse the effects of climate change on the recharge and the groundwater flow of the Urucuia Aquifer System in western Bahia State, Brazil (UAS‐BA) in the period 2041–2060. We assessed possible changes and impacts on groundwater recharge with four climate models from the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6): ACCESS‐ESM1‐5, CanESM5, EC‐Earth3 and MIROC6, under scenarios SSP1‐2.6 and SSP5‐8.5 (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways—SSP). Visual Balan 2.0 aquifer recharge assessment code, and the MODFLOW hydrogeological model were used to analyse the impact of future climate changes on the recharge. The projections of relative change in precipitation, under the SSP1‐2.6 scenario, show a precipitation reduction between 5% and 20%, using ACCESS‐ESM1‐5, CanESM5 and EC‐Earth3 models. Using SSP5‐8.5 scenario, these models behave differently, while the CanESM5 and EC‐Earth3 models indicate an even greater decrease in precipitation, with values up to 35%, the ACCESS‐ESM1‐5 projects an increase in precipitation of up to 25%. Using MIROC6, though, an increase of up to 10% in precipitation in the UAS‐BA is expected, under both scenarios. Regarding temperature, all the models agree with a warming in the future varying from 2 to 3°C. Recharge projections calculated using the Visual Balan 2.0 indicated in general a reduction between 8% and 43%. Using the MODFLOW model, the results show a reduction of recharge to the aquifer varying from 3% to 45% using CanESM5, EC‐Earth3 and MIROC6. The ACCESS‐ESM1‐5 has a 26% reduction (5% increase) under SSP1‐2.6 (SSP5‐8.5). Furthermore, projections indicate a downward trend in the water table in the northern portion of UAS‐BA, reaching a maximum drop of up to 12 m with the CanESM5, under SSP5‐8.5 scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent past, China has expanded its grain production to achieve high food security and increased its partial dependence on imported agricultural commodities, of which soybean supply is highly import-dependent. This study systematically reviews the past trends in China's soybean demand, Brazil's soybean production and export, factors contributing to the soybean trade between China and Brazil, and future uncertainty in China's demand and Brazil's supply under climate change. We find that recently China imported ~64% of soybean from Brazil, while ~73% of Brazil's soybean exports were destined for China, making them key stakeholders in their international soybean trade. China's accession to the World Trade Organization, China–Brazil trade cooperation, and diversion from trade with the USA have played a pivotal role in China's increasing soybean imports from Brazil. China's soybean import has brought increasing virtual land to China (from 3.57 million hectares (Mha) in 2005 to 19.63 mha in 2020). This growing virtual land import could be one of the reasons behind Brazil's soybean harvested area, which increased from 22.95 Mha in 2005 to 37.19 Mha in 2020. In the future, climate change impacts on soybean production in Brazil can seriously affect China's soybean imports from Brazil and its domestic food security. We analyze these effects using a climate-crop–economic modeling approach, where yield changes from the crop model are incorporated into the economic model as lower land productivity. Our results show that Brazil's future soybean production and gross exports can drop up to 13.1% and 15.2% under the highest emissions scenario (RCP8.5). Consequently, China would face a decrease in its soybean imports from Brazil (−9.94 Mt). Due to these import reductions, China's domestic soybean supply will be reduced (−9.94 Mt). There would also be some reduction in China's meat supply and a drop in China's consumer welfare. Our results can contribute to devising policies to ensure China's food security and promote global sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sustainability in Debate / Sustentabilidade em Debate is the property of University of Brasilia, Center for Sustainable Development and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the main problems faced by the Belém Metropolitan Region (BMR) inhabitants is flash floods caused by precarious infrastructure and extreme rainfall events. The objective of this article is to investigate whether and how the local urban characteristics may influence the development of thunderstorms. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model was used with three distinct configurations of land use/cover to represent urbanization scenarios in 2017 and 1986 and the forest-only scenario. The WRF model simulated reasonably well the event. The results showed that the urban characteristics of the BMR may have an impact on storm systems in the urban areas close to the Northern Coast of South America. In particular, for the urban characteristics in the BMR in 2017, the intensification of the storm may be linked to a higher value of energy available for convection (over 1000 J kg−1) and favorable wind convergence and vertical shear in the urban area (where the wind speed at the surface was more than 3 m s−1 slower than in the forest-only scenario). Meanwhile, the other land cover scenarios could not produce a similar storm due to lack of moisture, wind convergence/shear, or convective energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Politics in Latin America is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study addresses the problem of defining the scope and substance of the climate adaptation policy, which operates with comprehensive objectives and engages with multiple meanings, policy tools, and sectors to allow societies to cope with the effects of climate change. Analyzing the design of Brazil's National Adaptation Plan sheds light on the main goals and tools of the country's adaptation strategy for the rural sector and its divergent policy approaches at distinct subnational levels. This study shows that the government's ambition for promoting change drove the design process by mainstreaming climate adaptation goals into well-established development agendas, but it resulted in the layering of existing sector-based instruments. The Plan became a mix of loosely coordinated and inconsistent strategies, lacking a common implementation approach. Thereby, this analysis provides insight into the politics of adaptation policies and the challenges of promoting policy integration in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with visual impairments (PwVI) represent a heterogeneous social group who often experience significant disabling barriers in exercising their rights throughout their life course. Understanding dimensions of vulnerability of PwVI to disasters and climate change is an important issue to reduce the culture of neglected disasters. To date, few studies have analyzed visual impairment and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. This exploratory qualitative research project analyzed how to include PwVI in the DRR policies of Brazil. The research question is: how can we include PwVI in the discussion of DRR and climate change? The response to this question is part of a joint effort that involved a university, a hazard monitoring agency, and three institutions that work with PwVI. The three main results of the project are: (1) a mapping method to identify the exposure of PwVI to landslides and floods, and to create tactile risk maps tailored to them; (2) incorporating the voices of PwVI regarding their vulnerabilities and capacities with respect to disasters and climate change, achieved through shared interaction during 15 face to face interviews and one workshop attended by 100 people; and (3) an initiative of inclusive education to reduce some of the disabling barriers that intensify vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazilian museum operations and maintenance practices, as well as collections and educational activities, can be important actors in communicating the risks of climate change and can be examples of best practice in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Documentary research for this article was conducted with museum institutions that promote operations and maintenance best practices applicable to the sector in Brazil. As a result, Brazilian cases were assessed for greenhouse gas emission and sustainable practice metrics focusing on energy efficiency. The results still show a low Brazilian commitment by the museum sector in the combat against climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Native Studies is the property of Brandon University, CJNS, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: This paper evaluates the contribution of 75 Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects for technology transfer initiatives and for promotion of adoption of cleaner technologies. A documentary content analysis model was developed to acquire secondary data from the 75 Project Design Documents. Technology transfer as a benefit has only 28% share and not more than 21% of the projects led to implementation of cleaner technologies. In conclusion, CDM projects in Brazil have not encouraged a cleaner model of development through cooperation among industrialized and developing countries, as they were expected to do. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: During fieldwork carried out in January 2009 at Aurora do Tocantins (Tocantins State, northern Brazil), we recovered a fragmentary right maxilla (UNIRIO-PM 1006) of Catagonus stenocephalus from a sedimentary deposit of presumed late Pleistocene age in a karstic cave. This paper aims to: (1) provide the first record of C. stenocephalus in the northern region of Brazil (and consequently, also the northernmost one); (2) update the geographic distribution of C. stenocephalus; (3) present a date for the specimen; and (4) discuss the palaeoenvironmental and palaeobiogeographical implications of the finding. The species C. stenocephalus (Lund) is known from the Bonaerian (middle Pleistocene) and Lujanian (late Pleistocene to earliest Holocene) ages in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia. The new record presented here extends the geographical distribution of C. stenocephalus more than 1000km north from the former northernmost record (caves of Lagoa Santa region). Peccaries of the genus Catagonus have several morphological features associated with cursorial habits in relatively open and dry environments. The new distributional range of C. stenocephalus is coincident with the Chacoan subregion, characterized by dry climates and open areas. As the studied material comes from the top of the carbonate layer, this may suggest that the deposition of the C. stenocephalus remains described here is synchronous with the onset of a wetter climate phase. This argument is also in accordance with the datation results, around 20ky BP, just after the last glacial maximum. This increasingly wet climate, which may also be related to the climatic changes that occurred during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene, could be a factor in the extinction of C. stenocephalus in South America. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Carbon management has gradually gained attention within the overall environmental management and corporate social responsibility agendas. The clean development mechanism, from Kyoto Protocol, was envisioned as connecting carbon market and sustainable development objectives in developing countries. Previous research has shown that this potential is rarely being achieved. The paper explores how the incorporation of the human side into carbon management reinforces its contribution to generate human development in local communities and to improve the company's image. A case study of a Brazilian company is presented, with the results of the application of an analytical model that incorporates the human side and human development. The selected project is an 'efficient stoves' programme. 'Efficient stoves' are recognised in Brazil as social technologies. Results suggest that the fact that social technologies value the human side of the technology plays a key role when it comes to analysing the co-benefits of the project implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a worldwide increase in disasters, the effects of climate change are already being felt, and it is the urban poor in developing countries who are most at risk. There is an urgent need to better understand the factors that determine people's capacity to cope with and adapt to adverse climate conditions. This paper examines the influence of formal education in determining the adaptive capacity of the residents of two low-income settlements: Los Manantiales in San Salvador (El Salvador) and Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), where climate-related disasters are recurrent. In both case study areas, it was found that the average levels of education were lower for households living at high risk, as opposed to residents of lower risk areas. In this context, the influence of people's level of education was identified to be twofold due to (a) its direct effect on aspects that reduce risk, and (b) its mitigating effect on aspects that increase risk. The results further suggest that education plays a more determinant role for women than for men in relation to their capacity to adapt. In light of these results, the limited effectiveness of institutional support identified by this study might also relate to the fact that the role of formal education has so far not been sufficiently explored. Promoting (improved access to and quality of) formal education as a way to increase people's adaptive capacity is further supported with respect to the negative effects of disasters on people's level of education, which in turn reduce their adaptive capacity, resulting in a vicious circle of increasing risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper combines hydrological observations and modelling results of a semi arid catchment in Brazil that could lead to a better understanding of the hydrology of similar catchments in semi-arid regions. The Tapacurá catchment (area 470.5km2) in the Northeast of Brazil was selected for this study. The Distributed Catchment Scale Model, DiCaSM, was calibrated and validated for the stream flows of the Tapacurá catchment. The model performance was further tested by comparing simulated and observed scaled soil moisture. The results showed the ability of the model to simulate the stream flow and the scaled soil moisture. The simulated impacts of climate change of low emission (B1) scenarios, on the worst perspective, indicated the possibility of reduction in surface water availability by −13.90%, −22.63% and −32.91% in groundwater recharge and by −4.98%, −14.28% and −20.58% in surface flows for the time spans 2010–2039, 2040–2069, 2070–2099, respectively. This would cause severe impacts on water supply in the region. Changing the land use, for example by reforestation of part of the catchment area which is currently arable land, would lead to a decrease in both groundwater recharge by −4.2% and stream flow by −2.7%. Changing land use from vegetables to sugar cane would result in decreasing groundwater recharge by almost −11%, and increasing stream flow by almost 5%. The combination of possible impacts of climate change and land use requires a proper plan for water resources management and mitigation strategies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper criticizes the progress of the Brazilian government in preventing greenhouse gas emissions originating in urban areas. In 2009, Brazil approved its “National Policy on Climate Change”, complementing the 2008s National Plan on Climate Change (NPCC). In these documents, the federal government established measures to be undertaken in order to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, focusing on deforestation. However, the federal government should have regulated urban emissions, since the present Brazilian urbanization context, with big metropolises and the gradual migration of the population to the suburbs, represents a burden on climate change. With this new reality, transport and electricity use tend to grow, with the consequent increase in emissions. On the other hand, the municipalities are responsible for most city planning and transportation policies in Brazil. Pressed by their daily needs, they show little concern towards climate change and do not include the regulation of major sources of emissions among their priorities. Consequently, the municipalities are inefficient in preventing climate change. There are two main explanations for that: they do not have the know-how to prevent emissions; and they do not share this political agenda, since the impact of climate change is seldom acknowledged in the city where the emissions occur. Therefore, the central government has a role to play in regulating urban emissions. The study concludes that the National Plan and the National Policy, being federal documents, should have addressed urban emissions throughout the nation. Ultimately, they should be revised to guide city planners into planning greener cities. In order to succeed in this task, this legislation should not only require the reduction of emissions, but it should also indicate to the municipalities how they might achieve the reduction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]