BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s government aims to expedite the approval of a bill set to regulate the carbon market by the lower house of Congress after it gained the Senate’s green light, Institutional Relations Minister Alexandre Padilha said on Wednesday.
The bill, considered a crucial component of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s ecological transformation plan, received terminative approval from the Senate’s Environmental Committee on Wednesday morning and now heads to the lower house.
“We expect to work so that it can be voted on as soon as possible,” Padilha told reporters, without specifying a timeline.
Senator Leila Barros, the proposal’s sponsor in the Senate, incorporated some government-suggested changes into the text but excluded others in a bid to reach consensus with fellow senators, sparing farming and livestock from the new rules.
The project envisages a cap on companies emitting more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, a limit initially expected to primarily affect oil and gas firms, as well as meatpackers, and steel, cement, and aluminum producers, according to the finance ministry.
Padilha said that the exclusion of agribusiness activities does not weaken the bill, asserting that no country worldwide has imposed rules on this sector, something Brazil may consider “at a later stage.”
(Reporting by Marcela Ayres; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
