Brazil's finance, environment and agriculture ministries will host a second auction to recover 1mn hectares (ha) of degraded lands in all Brazilian biomes except the Amazon, the national treasury said on Monday.
The auction will be a part of Eco Invest, a currency-hedging program targeting renewable and low-carbon projects to draw foreign investment, announced in February 2024. The finance ministry and central bank developed the program with the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. The auction is part of New Brazil, a wider energy transition project within the finance ministry.
The project aims to finance conversions of degraded lands in different biomes to sustainable and productive ecosystems through private investments. The Amazon biome, the most hit by deforestation, will receive a "customized and exclusive auction" that will be announced later, the environment ministry said.
Participants must submit project proposals to the national treasury by 13 June. The government expects to raise up to R10bn ($1.76bn) in the auction.
Land-use change and deforestation
Emissions from land-use change and deforestation in Brazilreached 1.06bn metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) in 2023, down by 24pc from a year earlier, according to greenhouse gas tracking platform SEEG.
These activities have been leading Brazil's total emissions since 1990 — when historic tracking began — followed by agriculture and cattle raising and the energy sectors.
There are currently 280mn ha of farmlands, of which around 29pc are degraded. The government aims to recover up to 40mn ha of grasslands in the next 10 years, the environment and climate change ministry said. The Eco Invest auction will finance the first round of the initiative, dubbed the Green Way program, according to the agriculture ministry.
Brazil aims to reduce its total greenhouse gas emissions by 67pc by 2035 from its 2005 levels and sees reducing deforestation as one of its main ways to achieve that goal. The country will host the upcoming UN Cop 30 climate summit in Belem city, in the Amazon biome, as the administration looks to lead the global energy transition.
