Exporting megawatts, importing injustice: just energy transition, environmental taxation and fiscal incoherence in Brazil

Lise Tupiassu

Chapter 5 in Frontiers in the Low-carbon Transition, 2026, pp 62-78 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The expansion of low-carbon energy transitions has elevated environmental taxation and climate finance as central decarbonization instruments. However, their distributive and territorial effects remain insufficiently examined. This chapter analyzes how fiscal and financial mechanisms shape the social outcomes of energy transitions, using Brazil as a critical case. Despite a highly renewable electricity matrix, Brazil continues to experience energy poverty and territorial inequality in regions central to clean energy production. The study distinguishes energy transition from just transition and develops an analytical framework based on three coherence gaps: distributive, financing, and taxation incoherence. It shows how renewable expansion can advance decarbonization while reproducing exclusion through spatial mismatches between generation and access, misaligned climate finance, and regressive fiscal structures. Peripheral territories, particularly in the Amazon and Northeast, generate clean electricity for national consumption while bearing environmental disruption and limited social benefits. The chapter argues that justice is a precondition for durable energy transitions and that fiscal design is decisive for aligning decarbonization with social inclusion.

Keywords: Just Transition; Environmental Taxation; Fiscal Justice; Energy Colonialism; Amazonia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781049412115
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