Brazil's economists predict 'huge' growth of carbon markets

Jessica Shankleman in Business Green: Brazil's new carbon market could experience "huge" growth in the next eight years, as the government seeks to curb emissions from deforestation and industry. That is the bullish prediction of some of Brazil’s leading economists, who are also looking to the UK for advice in developing a successful emissions trading scheme.

Speaking to reporters at Sao Paulo's FGV school of economics, Mario Monzoni, founder and director of sustainability studies, predicted a cap-and-trade scheme would be the most important mechanism to cut emissions from deforestation.

"We spend most of our days talking about cap and trade in Brazil," he said. "We need some conditions to do it, such as carbon inventories, which help to create the demand for credits. Nobody wants to be on the demand side. Everybody wants to sell. If there's no demand there'll be no market. But I believe in the next eight years in Brazil, we're going to develop a huge cap-and-trade market for carbon."

Deforestation currently accounts for around 80 per cent of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions, driven by the growth of agri-businesses including cattle farming, soya bean and sugar cane. Brazil's first government-backed carbon trading scheme, Bolsa Verde do Rio de Janeiro (BVRio), was launched in December last year. Last week it opened pre-registrations for a new forestry credit market, which can be used by farmers to comply with the country's Forestry Code....

Atlantic Forest in 1976, “Pico do Paraná”, “Serra do Mar”, coast of the Parana State, Brazil, shot by Ângelo Antônio Leithold, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license