Contabilizando a natureza: abrindo a caixa preta do mercado de REDD+ no Brasil

Abstract

Deforestation is one of the major cause of climate change on a global scale, given the large amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by land-use change, thus contributing to the greenhouse effect. In the world scenario, mechanisms for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD +) have been gaining a lot of space. In parallelto the UNFCCC on Climate Change negotiations, a large number of non-governmental organizations, local governments and local businesses and communities have created a voluntary market that transients credits generated by REDD + projects. The present study aims to analyze the creation of REDD + projects, the voluntary carbon market and its methodologies critically. For this, the study seeks inspiration in the Actor Network Theory to understand the multiple inscriptions, translations and alignments that allow the establishment of REDD + projects and the sale of carbon from avoided deforestation and thepurchase of carbon credits by companies that present themselves as "neutral carbon". This study also mobilizes the dramaturgical perspective proposed by Erwin Goffman to analyze how the groups that produce and sell carbon credits from a REDD + project manage contradictory self-images in which local populations are at the same time "cowboys" ready to deforest the entire forest and "Indians" struggling to preserve it. From this research, we sought to understand how the sociotechnical contradictions inherent to payment for environmental services arise and are resolved in practice, going beyond the perspectives that criticize these mechanisms for their "virtuality" or their connection with capitalism andneoliberalism. Thus, the study emphasizes the importance of studying the carbon market "in action" and, from this understanding, try to discover new forms of climate governance.