Brazil forwarded a project proposal to the GEF requesting financial assistance for elaborating its first national communication for the Conference of the Parties according to Article 12 of the Convention. An inventory of greenhouse gases from 1990 will be part of the Brazilian Communication. It was made following IPCC methodology, with a general description of the measures taken or projected by to implement the Convention and other important information about policies, technologies and research related to climate change.
Brazil will use IPCC methodology, as indicated, to elaborate its inventory. The inventory will contain data related to carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (NH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), FFC and HFC emissions produced by the energy, industrial and agricultural and ranching sectors, as well as treatment of residues and changes in land and forest use. Given ’s size and the limited data available in several of these areas, the cost for this study is relatively high.
Expenses for preparing a complete final inventory are estimated to reach approximately US$ 7,000,000. This has led the Brazilian government to ask the Global Environment Fund (GEF) to finance about US$ 3 million to complement an initial study to be developed within the scope of the US Country Study Initiative. The most expensive part for elaborating this inventory, the analysis of changes in land and forest use, will be funded by the Brazilian government, which will provide LANDSAT satellite images at an annual cost of about US$ 1 million, and it will also initiate a project to update estimates of gross deforestation rates in the Amazon, based on analyses of LANDSAT images for the period from 1992 to 1994 (estimated cost at US$ 1.5 million).
The Brazilian government is willing to cover a substantial portion of the US$ 7 million estimated total needed to elaborate the Brazilian National Communication related to physical installation, equipment and project support team. This has been decided based on the fact that these activities are not only justified due to the commitment assumed by the country to produce its national communication, but also other reasons unrelated to the Convention specifically speaking. It was initially agreed that the GEF would only fund US$ 1.5 million, not even half the sum requested. This sum is the absolute minimum to be financed by the Convention, and if it is not granted, it is very improbable the Brazilian government will be able to mobilize all the necessary resources.
However, the letter we recently received from the GEF informing that according to its “Provisional Operational Strategy”, the chances for the Brazilian project to be approved were very remote took us by surprise. The letter mentioned that the main obstacle for approving the proposals was that the new “operational strategy”, still provisional because it will be submitted for approval at the next GEF Board meeting, only has a few thousand dollars for training activities in preparing greenhouse gas inventories. It also mentions that “the inventories must be based on an analysis of available economic and industrial data, using standard coefficients and the IPCC methodology, and they should not include primary data studies, censuses or economic research on specific country factors, unless the precision obtained from these activities truly influences the identification of mitigation options.”
This letter also mentions that the proposed Brazilian project has the involvement of a series of institutions for collecting and analyzing additional data. It also projects considerable resources for digitalizing and overlaying vegetation maps and research on specific emission factors in different areas. This would be quite difficult to justify before the GEF, especially considering that these activities go beyond a simple “office” inventory.
The alternative suggested by the GEF would be to maintain the project's original proposal so long as includes a mitigation analysis and an assessment of vulnerability. However, these elements are not considered in the Convention’s provisions, according to which non-Annex I Parties are not required to adopt mitigation measures or even include these mitigation policies and measures in their national communications. According to Article 12 of the Convention, national communications from these countries shall include only items (a) and (b) of paragraph 1 of this Article. This solution is obviously unacceptable to .
The Brazilian government will insist on its proposal because it believes the Brazilian National Communication project can help test and improve IPCC methodologies and guidelines, especially in relation to changes in land and forest use, which requires substantial data gathering, including the use of satellites. This initiative will certainly contribute towards reducing the degree of uncertainty in relation to the carbon cycle and emissions resulting from deforestation. Net tropical deforestation emissions are a great source of uncertainty in knowing the carbon cycle, which total around 1 billion tons of carbon per year. This project, which contributes towards reducing this uncertainty to more or less 50 million tons of carbon per year, in the case of , will affect the degree of uncertainty regarding the carbon cycle around the world. The use of Brazilian methodology in other countries can contribute towards reducing uncertainty about the global carbon cycle by about 70% of the current level. It is interesting to observe that the very issue of the efficacy of emission limitation measures at a global level in terms of stabilizing concentrations, and therefore containing climate change, greatly depends on the degree of uncertainty in knowledge of the carbon cycle. Since costs for mitigation measures in the energy sector in Annex I Parties in the Convention are viewed as relatively high, it can be argued that investments in this project, just to reduce uncertainties regarding the global carbon cycle, will already bring about a significant economic return, permitting an optimization of the scope of mitigation measures, according to efficacy.
Brazil does not believe all communication from non-Annex I Parties will be so comprehensive. Many other countries opted to elaborate their national communications in a simpler manner, based on estimates and using IPCC default factors when without precise data. However, taking into account the size of its forests and the dynamics and diversity of its economic activities, for this approach would not be appropriate. The IPCC methodology for emissions inventory, especially with regard to changes in land and forest use, is still relatively vague. Since this methodology projects the use of default values and could, in principle, be used to justify a quick "office" approach in elaborating a national inventory, it clearly is not justified on technical, scientific or political bases in ’s case. In reality, it is necessary to improve several aspects of the existing methodology in order to obtain more precise data, such as deforestation emissions. has about one-third of the world's tropical forests and a precise estimate of the gross and net deforestation rate is itself an important achievement for Brazil as well as the international community, with implications that go beyond climate change.
It is also important to underscore that according to Article 12.5, the final deadline for submitting the Brazilian National Communication shall be 3 (three) years after the Convention goes into effect for Brazil or three years after resources have been released by the financial mechanism. Due to the fact that considerable time is spent on elaborating projects according to GEF criteria so they can be accepted for consideration by this mechanism, it is more probable that the second condition shall prevail. In other words, our national communication will only be delivered three years after approval of the Brazilian project. An undesirable effect will be a possible delay in the entire Convention implementation process, possibly influencing the behavior of other non-Annex I Parties of the Convention.
