Brazil Just Energy Transition Law has been released recently. This law will allow Brazil to use and subsidize coal as an energy source until 2040. Experts claim that this is against the climate and consumers as it’s moving away from promoting climate-friendly fuel usage. This law will benefit the coal producers in Southern Santa Catarina state. Under previous policies, Brazilian subsidies for thermal coal-powered plants are available till 2027. Whereas the three large plants in Santa Catarina are expected to end by 2025. Richard Baitelo, project coordinator at the Institute Of Energy and Environment says “this is bad news for consumers and the environment”. Coal produces about 3% of all power in Brazil. Whereas almost 50% of electricity comes from renewable sources like wind and hydro energy.
Just Energy Transition Details:
Just Energy Transition law is crafted to provide benefits to polluting forms of power generation. As to obey this law Brazil will build up new fossil fuel power plants which will increase the carbon emission of the country by 25%. In addition, a bill was passed last year to promote the purchase of natural gas power plants for next 15 years. Baitelo says this law will create a big hindrance in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% till 2030. The aim which Brazil has pledged under the U.N. process is to tackle the climate sector. Brazil also aims to be carbon neutral by 2050.
Along with establishing a “just energy transition council” that plans to work on shifting the Santa Catarina region away from coal. The council includes all Pro-coal people from government agencies, companies, and unions as stated by Nelson Karam, DIEESE project coordinator. According to him if coal-related activities are banned then 40,000 jobs will be gone. This can affect Santa Catarina as it’s a big employer in coal. The council is also planning to shift the Santa Catarina region away from coal.
Abrace , an industry group of big energy users in Brazil, says that will be expensive for people as coal is an expensive source of power. In Brazil, clean energy like solar, wind, and hydro energy is cheaper.
CONCLUSION :
Under this law, Brazil will extend the use of coal as fuel by 2040. The aim is to boost market demand for coal. As its a known fact that coal is a fossil fuel and one of the main culprits of the greenhouse effect. Thus this step will hamper achieving the carbon neutral Brazil by 2050. Not only this in the last few years deforestation is also rising in Brazil. The Cerrado tropical savanna forest deforestation is increasing since 2015. We all have to remember that we may belong to different nations but we share the same planet. So it’s the duty of all the governments across the globe to have policies that puts the environment first.
