 Climate and Policy Resilience in Brazilian Renewable EnergyPedro Henrique de Christo, Travis Knoll and Otaviano Canuto No 2628, Policy briefs on Commodities & Energy from Policy Center for the New South Abstract: The Brazilian context involving a clean-electricity base, a more balanced lobbying landscape, and mounting climate and social pressure, makes it more difficult for the kind of abrupt and unrestrained energy policy swing seen in Colombia. The trend in Brazil tends to be more economically viable for renewables. However, these structural conditions by themselves will not guarantee the success of the transition. Fruition will depend on whether policymakers use this window to prepare for unavoidable climate disruption and the technological shifts of the coming decades, directing investment and infrastructure to real demand with disciplined allocation of scarce resources that can benefit communities and not just small segments of society. Getting the build-out of AI infrastructure and of other decisive technologies right, alongside the sine qua non energy transition, is instrumental to position Brazil to compete in the next phases of the global innovation race in a way that can distribute democratically possible benefits to society and that preserves already stressed natural systems. Pairing the energy transition with adaptation and resilience investment is not simply Brazil's best opportunity, it is a precondition for the country's long-term prosperity and survival. In June 2026, Latin America’s renewable energy advocates watched Colombia pivot sharply away from its ongoing fossil-fuel phaseout led by its former president Gustavo Petro. Newcomer Abelardo de la Espriella, winner of the May 31 presidential election, has pledged to aggressively expand oil and gas exploration to replace waning hydroelectric capacity, rather than to deepen the energy transition. With another major election approaching—in Brazil on October 4, in which incumbent Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva will be pitted against challenger Flávio Bolsonaro—observers are asking whether a similar reversal could happen. Even though there are considerable risks, the scenario is more complex, because of the conditions of the energy market in Brazil, which is Latin America’s largest economy, and has the cleanest electricity supply among the world’s major GDPs, differing from Colombia’s in three important ways. First, Lula enters the race as a competitive incumbent, not a departing president with a high probability of handing power to an ideological opponent. Second, compared to Colombia, the balance of power between the fossil-fuel and clean-energy lobbies is more even in Brazil. Third, Brazil’s civil society and private sector are exerting considerable pressure to sustain renewable energy policy in response to greater cost-efficiency, vis-à-vis the robust growth of solar and wind generation and the galloping expansion of the electric car market, due to extreme events related to global warming, or, as is seen by the private sector specifically, to position the country at the forefront of building equitable and sustainable global artificial-intelligence infrastructure, which would give a competitive edge in an increasingly turbulent development landscape. Together, these conditions suggest Brazil’s trajectory is not prone to swing as dramatically as Colombia’s so easily. Date: 2026-09 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ocp:pbcoen:pb53_26 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Policy briefs on Commodities & Energy from Policy Center for the New South Contact information at EDIRC. |
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