Resumo em Inglês:

This article presents a theoretical-normative instrument for climate policymakers to address the climate issue from the social studies’ sociological perspective intersected with political ecology. Climate initiatives and policies are on the agenda of various social groups; at the same time, climate policymakers need instruments. Brazil lacks such theoretical-normative instruments. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature on climate ethics from a sociological perspective, this study developed and tested ‘PLANB Index’ in twenty-two Brazilian climate instruments formulated by the state, the private and third sectors, and academia. The index is composed of five modeled analytical categories: plurality in decision-making, energy locality, epistemic and material access, planned naturalness, and generational benefit. The results show that there is a mix of anthropocentric and ecocentric principles in the contents created by multisectoral arrangements – including private superclusters and international state investment funds. ‘PLANB Index’ proved to be an effective tool to identify the guiding principles in Brazilian climate policies; it might also contribute to future climate policymaking. ‘PLANB Index’ is an original contribution because it was not only empirically tested in the Brazilian context but also modeled from a sociological perspective, in close connection to other social science fields, with an emphasis on the ethical-political dimension.

Resumo em Inglês:

How are the subjects of energy and energy justice discussed within multilateral forums? Given the significance of this subject and the disparities among nations, examining how energy-related matters are addressed in intergovernmental arenas reveals how governments manage the implications of inequalities in basic needs, such as energy. To investigate the phenomenon, we monitored how the seven categories identified in the literature – ‘Efficiency’, ‘Access to Energy’, ‘Renewable Energies’, ‘Capacity Building’, ‘Research and Development’, ‘Technology Transfer’, and ‘Financing’ – were evoked in multilateral discussions. Specifically, we used the ‘UN General Assembly Sponsorship Dataset’ to identify, through content analysis, 59 draft resolutions that mentioned these energy themes between 2000 and 2020. We analyzed this corpus and detailed the themes, their combination, and the most involved countries. Through cluster analysis and correspondence analysis, we identified three major groups of themes, ‘Access to energy’, ‘Technology’ and ‘Energy Transition’, while ‘Capacity Building’ appeared as a cross-cutting issue. We also identified that large multilateral groups were an important factor driving engagement with the topic, as G77 members, and specially those pertaining to Central and South Asia, were among the most active players.

Resumo em Inglês:

Climate change affects individuals differently. Women are one of the social groups most vulnerable to climate change. Since the legal study of climate change is associated with the idea of correcting imbalances, the goal of this study is to assess the extent to which state laws addressing climate change take into consideration gender vulnerabilities. To achieve this, the study has been structured in three phases: initially, an examination of the concept of climate justice; next, a review of the vulnerabilities that create disadvantages for women in the context of climate change; and finally, an analysis of state laws addressing climate change. The objective is to determine how these legislative instruments consider gender-related issues and the extent of women’s involvement in shaping these laws. The study reveals that, despite being more vulnerable to climate change, women are not protected by state legislation. Out of the 27 federative entities, 23 have enacted specific legislation to address climate change, but only one of them, the State of Pará, explicitly includes the terms ‘gender’ and ‘women’ in its text. This shows that the gender perspective proposed by the Paris Agreement has not yet been fully incorporated into local legislation, possibly indicating the underrepresentation of women in positions of power.

Resumo em Inglês:

Understanding the impact of political and institutional factors on the fight against climate change has become increasingly important in the global debate on sustainability. From a political science perspective, it is crucial to research how different democratic institutions affect the development of climate policies. To contribute to this agenda, we discuss the role of participatory institutions in this policy sector. We offer a global literature review of cases where participatory mechanisms have helped improve the tools used to combat global warming. Next, we discuss the concept of climate denialism and examine the environmental policy of the Jair Bolsonaro administration in Brazil (2019-2022) and the dismantling of participatory bodies. This neoconservative government is an example of how limiting civil society's ability to oversee and regulate government policies helps to promote a climate denialist agenda. Finally, we conclude that enhancing participatory democracy is essential to improving climate change policies. However, this relationship also operates in reverse. Disrupting participatory mechanisms can be highly damaging to good environmental governance, paving the way for denialist projects.

Resumo em Inglês:

Climate governance in Brazil is necessarily connected to the interests of three sectors: deforestation and land use change, agriculture, and energy, which, combined, represent around 90 percent of the country's emissions. While there is a significant number of studies on the first sector, few studies have looked into the bottlenecks of decarbonization in the agricultural and energy sectors. Thus, this article addresses some modulations in Brazilian climate politics and policy by analyzing the interest groups associated with low-carbon transitions in these two sectors. We particularly look into corporate and industrial interests and their dynamic relations with domestic and international policies, which so far have resulted in ‘climate coordination gaps’ that hinder deep decarbonization in these sectors. The results of the study detail actors, agendas, policies, interests, and challenges for a low-carbon transition in agriculture (family farming and agribusiness) and in the energy sector. The results corroborate the relevance of interest group analysis to understand the complexity of Brazil's domestic climate politics and policy, as well as the country’s behavior in foreign policy arenas regarding climate change.

Resumo em Inglês:

Studies on the environment, public opinion, and voting have shown that, despite widespread support for the environmental cause among the population, this support does not necessarily translate into votes. This article will look into concepts including agenda setting, framing, and media effects to provide a background of how the environment became a prominent issue in public opinion. It will also test hypotheses that argue for the significance of issue decision salience, in conjunction with the issue ownership theory, to explain how the environmental issue influences vote choice. Our research focuses on the 2022 Brazilian presidential election, employing mixed methods that include both quantitative and qualitative techniques. All tests conducted confirmed that emphasizing the environment as a relevant issue and identifying a candidate as its primary advocate increased voters’ inclination to support them. This effect persisted even when including controls for other extensively studied factors in voter behavior literature, including the economy, religion, and age. The key conclusion drawn from our study is that the environment holds relevance in the electoral context. Evidence suggests that a relevant factor to understand why the environment and the environmental policy seem to have affected voting intentions (when common knowledge would suggest otherwise) is how the mainstream media and social media have set this agenda.