The Brazilian Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS) held this Wednesday (20), a pre-COP26 online event, with the objective of presenting the strategy of CEBDS and business sector for the journey to Glasgow, which includes the launch of the CEO’s Guide to COP26, the Climate Neutrality Study and the TCFD Executive Summary.

Marina Grossi, president of CEBDS, stressed that this COP is one of the most important to date. The organization also launched a page on its website for the dissemination of content about COP26.

“I have been following climate conferences since 1997 and never has a COP been as important as this one, fundamentally for Brazil and specifically for the private sector. That’s because we are at the time of action and implementation of measures to reduce carbon emissions and those who implement it are the companies”.

According to the president of CEBDS, Brazil’s role is fundamental in the change to this new economy.

“We gathered the signatures of 115 businessmen who defend net zero (zero neutrality), until 2050, and presented it to the Federal Government, through the figure of the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes”, she said. “We are going through a moment of transition and planning to think about business ahead, taking into account Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which allows us to have a carbon market, evaluating what companies are already doing to be climate neutral and thinking solutions based on nature and on TCFD (climate risk analysis)”.

CEOs Guide on Climate Change

The CEOs Guide, released by CEBDS during the event and available for download, brings the history of climate change treaties, how the Climate Convention emerged, details of the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, a timeline with main events, such as the COP works and the dynamics of negotiations, the political blocs of which Brazil is part and the main themes of the negotiations: NDCs (climate target of each country), Article 6, Climate finance and Forests (Article 5 of the Paris Agreement).

“Countries revised their targets in 2020 and it will be the first COP where the MDCs will be discussed after the review. From a political point of view it is a very important moment globally, considering that the established NDCs are not enough to stop the temperature increase of 1.5ºC by 2050. If countries are more ambitious to review their MDCs. this can also influence the revision of Brazil’s target, which directly impacts the private sector and its emissions”, said Caroline Dihl Prolo, from Laclima, CEBDS partner in the elaboration of the CEOs Guide.

As active companies in the vanguard of climate neutrality, Bradesco representative, Marcelo Sarno Pasquini, and Suzano, Sarita Severien, a company that already considers itself net negative, participated in the live.

“Our forested area removes much more carbon dioxide than we emit in our entire production chain. We have already assumed that we are negative and we want to do more and offer products to society that are renewable and replace fossil energy products, we want to expand the sale of renewable electricity to the Brazilian grid and continue working to reduce our emissions,” he said.

Launches during COP26

Lauro Marins, representative of the Resultante company, presented the Executive Summary of the TCFD Journey, and Dulce Benke, representative of Proactiva, responsible for preparing the Climate Neutrality Study, made some remarks. Both documents will be released during the Climate Conference in Glasgow.

“We are bringing in this study an overview of how companies are contributing to climate neutrality, history of climate negotiations, global context, how countries are adopting and responding to these goals, initiatives that are being launched and are engaging so much government, as the business sector, leveraging the climate neutrality agenda, analysis of the Brazilian agenda, since its first commitment and today what are the challenges. In the second part of the material, we look at Brazilian companies and address the challenges and opportunities, in addition to case studies of companies engaged in the net-zero agenda”, said Dulce Benke.

Natália Renteria, live mediator, reinforced that we are living through a disruptive economic moment.

“Companies have already understood the moment we are going through and are getting organized. They are the engine of this change. From the moment that the Paris Agreement brought the private sector to the center of the discussion, changes began to be faster. It is a continuous movement and the current moment, headed by COP26, is to better structure us as a country, with a regulated carbon market and adequate public policies to support these changes that are so necessary”.