REDD+ and Brazil’s Nationally Determined Contribution

Click here to download Brazil's Nationally Determined Contribution.

In compliance with the guidance from decisions 1/CP.19 and 1/CP.20, Brazil submitted its intended Nationally Determined Contribution (iNDC) to the UNFCCC in September 2015. This binding legal commitment features Brazil’s mitigation related actions and targets, the national adaptation plan and means of implementation to deliver the contribution presented.

Brazil adopted the Paris Agreement on September 12^th 2016. Brazil’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 37% below 2005 levels by 2025 and 43% below 2005 levels by 2030.

All policies, measures and actions to implement Brazil’s NDC derive from the National Policy on Climate Change (Law No. 12,187/2009), the Forest Code (Law No. 12,651/2012), the National System of Conservation Units Law (Law No. 9,985/2000) and the relevant regulation, programs and planning instruments.

REDD+ as a means of implementation of Brazil’s NDC

Brazil’s NDC stresses that the policies, measures and actions implemented to achieve such contribution do not preclude the use of support from the financial mechanism under the Convention or any other modality of international cooperation and support, which shall be deployed to enhance effectiveness and/or promote swifter implementation.

Particularly with regard to the forest sector, the implementation of REDD+ activities and resulting permanence in REDD+ require the provision, on a continuous basis, of adequate and predictable results-based payments, as stated in the relevant COP decisions. Therefore, the inflow of resources in the form of REDD+ results-based payments will be very important for the implementation of Brazil’s NDC.

The forest component of this ambitious commitment includes:

• Strengthening and enforcing the implementation of the Forest Code, at federal, state and municipal levels;
• Strengthening policies and measures with a view to achieve, in the Brazilian Amazon, zero illegal deforestation by 2030 and compensate for greenhouse gas emissions from legal suppression of vegetation by 2030;
• Restoring and reforesting 12 million hectares of forests by 2030, for multiple purposes;
• Enhancing sustainable native forest management systems, through georeferencing and tracking systems applicable to native forest management, with a view to curb illegal and unsustainable practices.

In addition to that, Brazil’s NDC provides for measures in the agriculture sector which should also generate positive impacts for reducing deforestation:

• Strengthen the Low Carbon Emission Agriculture Program (ABC) as the main strategy for sustainable agriculture development, including by restoring an additional 15 million hectares of degraded pasturelands by 2030 and enhancing 5 million hectares of integrated cropland-livestock-forestry systems (ICLFS) by 2030;

The National REDD+ Strategy is a key instrument for meeting the commitments made under the UNFCCC.