Even after intensifying flooding in Brazil, little change to climate policies

In the first days of May, Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, faced its worst climate event in recorded history. Over 180 people died and at least a million were affected as disastrous flooding in Brazil resulted in 85% of the state’s territory being under water, causing an estimated US$ 2.45 billion in loss and damage.

On May 5th, the Guariba River, whose flood level is 3 meters, reached 5.3 m, breaking the record of the historical 1941 flood (4.7 m). While naturally occurring climate variations may have influenced its severity, a study conducted by ClimaMeter found that it was human-driven climate change that was the main factor in exacerbating the event.

“When comparing the periods between 1979-2001 with 2001-today, we can see that, while weather patterns such as atmospheric pressure remained similar, the present period had up to 15% increase in rainfall. That difference can be traced to a rise in temperatures as a consequence of human action,” Tommaso Alberti, a researcher at the National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome, and co-founder of ClimaMeter, told Gas Outlook.

Given that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the main source of climate change and that, globally, the burning of fossil fuels accounts for over 75% of GHG emissions, Brazil plays a relevant role: the country is the world’s sixth largest emitter and the eighth largest oil producer.

While the current government has given centrality to the climate agenda, advancing especially on reducing deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest, the country continues to invest on expanding areas to produce more fossil fuels. This contradiction, acknowledged by president Lula da Silva, led the national media to question the inconsistency of lamenting the disaster in Rio Grande do Sul, whilst investing in a commodity linked to the climate changes that aggravated it. 

Oil and gas production

In 2023, Brazil broke its own record on oil and gas production, reaching an average of 4.4 million barrels a day. That same year, the National Petroleum Agency sold 192 of the 602 plots auctioned for oil and gas exploration.

The year before, a new law stipulated that Eletrobras, the country’s main electricity company, would have to produce a compulsory 8 GW of electricity from thermal power plants, including in areas lacking gas pipelines. Currently, Brazil has 319 operating thermal power plants, of which five of the most polluting are located in the south.

Meanwhile, state-owned Petrobras plans to invest US$ 3 billion in exploiting oil and gas in the Amazon River basin, driving the country closer to the goal of becoming the world’s fourth largest oil producer.

It will however take at least a decade before new facilities become operative, which means they won’t be productive until after 2030, when fossil fuel consumption worldwide is set to peak, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The Ministry of Mines and Energy told Gas Outlook that oil and gas are expected to be part of the global and national energy matrix at least until 2050, and that without exploring new reserves, Brazil might go back to being an oil importer by 2040. “Therefore, increasing exploration efforts now is important to allow the country enough time to make discoveries and begin production in 10 years,” it said by email.   

“However, investments in exploring new frontiers are not aimed at supplying the national demand, but rather at exporting for international markets,” Felipe Barcellos, a project analyst at the Institute of Energy and Environment (IEMA), told Gas Outlook.

For Suely Araújo, a public policy coordinator at the Observatório do Clima, a Brazilian coalition of civil society organisations concerned about the climate crisis, this is a bad deal. “Although oil and gas may still be necessary, if someone is to survive in this market, it is countries where production conditions are simple. Brazilian oil, extracted from deep waters offshore, is much more expensive,” she told Gas Outlook.

But fossil fuels are not the only challenge faced by Brazil’s climate agenda. The country’s majority right-wing parliament has been mobilising to approve an ever-growing number of anti-environment laws and policies. Even after the climate tragedy, the so-called “destruction package”, a backward collection of 25 laws and three constitutional amendments, which include amnesty for deforesters, reduction of the Amazon legal reserve, weakening of environmental monitoring, facilitation of land grabbing and self-declaratory environmental licensing, keeps advancing in Congress.

Meanwhile, over the past few years, Rio Grande do Sul’s government has changed and rescinded over 400 environmental state laws, thus dismantling an Environmental Code that took nine years to be forged.

Adding to the severe consequences of the flooding in Brazil, the national government and Rio Grande do Sul’s regional government have been negligent in taking action in adaptation, in spite of available data. The state, which had already faced similar events in 2023, created a mitigation plan that never materialised, even as studies already indicated the most climate-vulnerable areas, particularly in the capital Porto Alegre. 

Meanwhile, “Brazil 2040”, a national multi-sector study requested in 2015 by Dilma Rousseff’s administration, which predicted both the extreme droughts in the Amazon and floods in the South, ended up shelved. “We have lost at least eight years during which we could have taken adaptation action,” Sergio Margulis, former Secretary of Sustainable Development and proponent of the study, told Gas Outlook.

He argues the tardiness in the adaptation debate is a global issue. “As long as each country doesn’t face a disaster, this reality won’t change. In Brazil, the floods sparked the debate but, a couple of months later, it has already fizzled out,” Margulis said. To that, Barcellos adds that “there hasn’t been much political change, either locally or nationally,” since the tragedy. 

For Araújo, however, if the floods brought anything positive, it was an alert to the necessity of rebuilding from a different perspective — one that incorporates not only mitigation — but also adaptation efforts. “Yet, I have serious doubts whether local politicians understand that,” she said.