Quantifying the global socio-economic and policy drivers for Brazils contribution to climate change

The period October 2013 to March 2014 marked the end of the project. During this period there were two new journal publications and two presentations on the project material. Most work in the period focussed on finalising papers contributing to a PhD (Jon as Karstensen). Research has focussed on two papers. One paper (in review), "Attribution of temperature change to economic sectors", uses three alternative approaches for allocating emissions to countries: emission metrics (GWP vs GTP), responsibility (pr oduction vs consumption), and sectors. The other paper (in preparation), "The propagation of uncertainty from the consumption of goods and services through to climate impacts" (in preparation), tracks uncertainty through the entire cause-effect changes fr om the point of consumption to climate impacts. This paper will be submitted in May 2014. The PhD is a few months behind schedule with final submission expected in the summer of 2014. The project is now finished, with the full summary of the project in th e final project report.

Recently there has been a fundamental change of the international environment for Brazilian climate policies, producing strong incentives to leave the traditional G77 position. First, a strong international interest in Brazilian biofuels has tied exports more closely to future climate regimes. Second, the generalized success of Brazil in the present conjuncture of globalization, the leading role taken in WTO negotiations, and the stronger integration into financial and other markets is a motive to become more pro-active in climate negotiations. Third, the emergence of Amazonian deforestation as a potential asset through international compensation for avoided deforestation has removed some fear of the climate regime. And fourth, the likely impacts of clima te change on Brazilian agriculture are emerging. It is likely that international socio-economic and political drivers will play a significant role in shaping future economic activity, emissions and climate policy in Brazil. The basis of this project is to quantify these drivers using a multidisciplinary approach. The project will focus on three time-lines with models for: 1) the socio-economic drivers for Brazil?s emissions since 1900, 2) detailed sectoral socio-economic drivers for Brazil's contributio ns to climate change since 1970, and 3) detailed global sectoral socio-economic drivers for 2001 and 2004. Land-use change and deforestation will be an important part of these models. A climate model will convert the emissions into climate impacts, leadin g to a unique coupled global economic-emissions-climate model. This model will include many new components putting it at the forefront of this type of research. These models will quantify the Brazilian domestic and global socio-economic drivers linking gl obal consumption with emissions and global warming. The quantitative analysis will lay the foundation for qualitative analysis on how domestic and global factors influence policy making in Brazil.