Jurisdictional approaches to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) in Brazil

Delayed climate action from central governments has often prompted the engagement of subnational jurisdictions with climate policy. Given the burden environmental policies can appear to impose on different constituencies, why do subnational jurisdictions choose to adopt climate policies? What are the advantages and limitations of subnational climate action in the context of federal systems? How effective are subnational climate initiatives in curbing greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions? These questions have been addressed by the literature in the context of developed countries, especially the United States, Canada, Australia, and European countries, but they remain under-investigated in the context of developing countries. My thesis contributes towards filling this gap by examining the pursuit of Jurisdictional Approaches (JAs) to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) by second-tier subnational jurisdictions in Brazil. Brazil is a developing country and a federation that provides a rich empirical context for studying the emergence of climate mitigation policies at the regional and local levels, and REDD+ has been a key policy tool embraced especially by states in Brazil. Understanding the limits to the authority of these second-tier jurisdictions, why and how some support certain climate policies while others do not, as well as how effective these policies are in contributing towards climate mitigation, is key to achieving the emissions reductions goals set by developing countries like Brazil. This research adopts a multi-method multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach organized around the analytical concept of the policy cycle, developed in the field of the Policy Sciences. The three empirical Chapters of the thesis (Chapters 4-6) consist of journal articles covering the stages of the policy cycles studied by each Chapter (agenda-setting, policy formulation, decision- making, implementation, and evaluation). The Chapters use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodologies (comparative law, coding and text analysis, and econometrics techniques) and methods of data collection (court decisions’ selection and analysis, semi-structured interviews, and surveys) that resulted in three datasets (59 federal courts decision from the U.S. and Brazil, 46 transcribed semi- structured interviews, and 1,128 household surveys). These data and approaches were used to examine three key themes in the literature about the pursuit of JAs by subnational jurisdictions: (1) the authority of subnational jurisdictions to enact meaningful climate policies; (2) the internal and external incentives or the value proposition that motivated Brazilian states to adopt JAs to REDD+; and (3) the potential positive and negative interactions between JA interventions and existing policy frameworks already at play at the jurisdiction, and the challenges of coordinating the implementation of JAs and related policies across levels of governance. The findings and analysis put forward by this thesis contribute to the literature on the pursuit of JAs and other climate policies by second-tier jurisdictions by linking the extensive literature on subnational climate action in the U.S. to the more incipient discussions on the topic in Brazil, and by mapping the authority or the space for permissible action for Brazilian states pursuing climate policies in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5 the contribution is based the use of a novel analytical framework that examines both transnational and domestic factors to uncover what state-level policy actors in Brazil perceived the key incentives or value proposition to be for the adoption of JAs to REDD+. Finally, Chapter 6 offers new policy analysis that closely evaluates the impacts of early JAs and REDD+ project interventions and interactions with existing policy instruments in Brazil, linking the results to potential shortcomings in policy design and implementation.

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