Brazil calculated its climate target based on a model developed at Coppe
Planeta COPPE / Energy / Energy Planning / Low Carbon / News
Date: 08/01/2025
In november, the Brazilian government announced its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for 2035, which establishes a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 59% to 67% by 2035, compared to 2005 levels. This commitment, essential for compliance with the Paris Agreement and the fight against climate change, was formulated with the help of a fundamental tool developed by Coppe/UFRJ: the Blues model (Brazilian Land-Use and Energy System).
Blues is an integrated assessment model (IAM) created by the Center for Energy and Environmental Economics (Cenergia), a laboratory linked to Coppe’s Energy Planning Program, which allows for the calculation of the impacts of mitigation and adaptation policies in a detailed and precise manner. With this model, Coppe researchers were able to provide realistic scenarios for reducing emissions in Brazil, considering the country’s specificities, such as legal and illegal deforestation, different biofuel routes and other factors that can be overlooked by international models. Coppe thus ensures that the formulation of the climate target is based on a robust analysis, using national tools that capture local realities.
The Brazilian NDC is one of the most ambitious in the world and proposes an absolute cut in emissions, rather than a hypothetical reduction. This means that the country is committed to cutting between 850 million and 1.05 billion tons of CO₂ equivalent by 2035. The work developed by Coppe was essential to enable this commitment, ensuring an emission trajectory that is both realistic and aligned with the objective of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC, as recommended by the Paris Agreement.
Professor André Lucena, one of the coordinators at Cenergia, highlights the importance of a transparent process involved in the NDC formulation, which included more than 600 hours of meetings with stakeholders from various sectors of the economy, such as government, industry, agribusiness and energy. This process ensured that the climate target was constructed in a solid manner and with the involved parties’ support. This process ensured that the climate target was built in a solid manner and with the support of the parties involved. He also emphasizes that Coppe, through its advanced models, has a unique planning and simulation capacity that other countries do not have, which places Brazil in a strategic position in the fight against climate change.
The climate target also places Brazil before a significant challenge: the necessity to reduce emissions of gas such as methane and nitrous oxide, which represent between 30% and 40% of Brazilian emissions. Eliminating these emissions requires innovative technologies and practices, such as agroforestry systems, sustainable livestock farming practices, and offsetting through carbon capture and storage (CDR), such as forest restoration and biomass CO2 capture and storage (BECCS). In this scenario, Coppe plays a crucial role by offering science-based and innovation-based solutions to mitigate these emissions.
In addition, the creation of an efficient carbon market will be essential to make the climate target viable. Coppe, with its expertise, is also contributing to the development of an emissions pricing system in Brazil, such as the Brazilian Emissions Trading System (SBCE). This system will allow Brazil to monetize its emissions reductions and create a domestic carbon market, which is essential to achieve the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.
Through Coppe’s work and its advanced modeling tools, Brazil has the opportunity to become a global leader in the fight against climate change, demonstrating that it is possible to reconcile economic growth with environmental sustainability.
- Climate Change
- Deforestation
