Brazil's Energy Minister Reiterates Decarbonization Priority For Authorities

HOUSTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th March, 2019) Brazilian Energy Minister Bento Costa Lima Leite de Albuquerque Junior told Sputnik that Brasilia was committed to switching to the use of low-carbon power sources.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in on January 1. During his election campaign, Bolsonaro has outlined his plans to follow the example of US President Donald Trump and pull Brazil out of the landmark Paris climate deal, seeking to cut greenhouse gas emissions. However, Bolsonaro subsequently backtracked on these pledges, saying that he would instead seek guarantees for Brazil's sovereignty over its indigenous lands and Amazon area rain forest if elected. Moreover, last November, the country decided to withdraw its candidacy for hosting the 2019 UN climate conference COP25.

"Decarbonization is one of priorities of our ministry and of Brazil, concerning environmental issues, requirements that we can't forbid to fulfill.

We are doing this using mainly bioenergy, we are developing the sector. As you know, biofuel in Brazil plays an important role. Ethanol is 27 percent of the mix of the fuel," Albuquerque said on the sidelines of the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Texas.

The minister continued by saying that Brazil had begun using biodiesel which already formed 10 percent of the country's energy mix.

"It's clean energy, we have to diversify our metrics. We don't do this because it should be done, we have plans, research centers that studied this matter and we will build some nuclear plans in the next 30 years," Albuquerque pointed out.

The Paris climate deal, created within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, aims at keeping the increase in average global temperature at below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.