The institutional approach of climate change at the multinational level: the new paradigm of the Brazilian legislative experience

Abstract For just over 30 years (specifically, since 1988, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, was created), climate change has been an important research issue. This is a result of a series of international climate treaties and related multilateral negotiation processes that have been kept among countries. Brazil has participated in all these processes since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was drafted, in 1992, during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development; and, ultimately, became a signatory of all the main correlated treaties. This chapter investigates the domestic impact of such treaties, and how a relevant part of Brazilian laws is related to this climate-protection theme. In this context, the chapter also discusses the national powers and competences of the Federative Republic of Brazil regarding the different sectors and economic activities embedded within the climate change treaties, in general, addressed to the mitigation of this global environmental problem. The methodology used is the descriptive-analytical one, with the analysis of international treaties, official history of negotiations, and official documents of the main climate-related treaties, including the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement, developed during the 21st Conference of the Parties in Paris in 2015. The results specify the effective administrative and legislative attributions of the federated entities bringing light to the institutional roles regarding the implementation of the Brazilian commitments established by its National Determined Contribution under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The focus is on the interactions of national and subnational level spheres of power, namely, the Federal Union, states, and local governments, considering the Sustainable Development Goals and how this institutional approach based on three spheres of power is unprecedented. Therefore our contribution is a discussion on the Brazilian institutional structure for implementing climate change policies and stakeholders in the process. The findings conclude how the Brazilian experience may be of interest to other countries in the world, regardless of their form of government and stage of development.