Climate funding in Brazil is unequal, study finds
A study by Oxfam Brasil denounces the insufficiency and inequality of climate finance in the country. Entitled Encruzilhada Climática (“Climate Crossroads”), the report shows how budget gaps deepen racial, gender, and territorial inequalities, affecting mainly the most vulnerable populations.
Oxfam Brasil is a Brazilian nonprofit created in 2014. It stated goal is to build a Brazil with more justice and less inequality.
The survey criticizes the Brazilian government’s response, which continues to be largely reactive, releasing extraordinary credits only after disasters, such as the BRL 111.6 billion allocated to floods in Rio Grande do Sul state in 2024.
In addition, the report points out that only 12 percent of the BRL 185 billion planned in the 2024–2027 plan for climate action is earmarked for adaptation, an essential step in protecting vulnerable communities.
Budget
Another piece of data from Oxfam is that, in 2023, environmental management received only 0.34 percent of the total federal budget. This means that for every BRL 300 in the federal budget, less than BRL 1 was allocated to environmental protection, as per the organization’s calculations.
Sectors with a high impact on carbon emissions, such as agriculture (BRL 90.25 billion) and transportation (BRL 43.91 billion), received larger amounts.
Another example of inequality in the distribution of resources is the Climate Fund, which received BRL 10.4 billion, much less than the BRL 400 billion allocated to the 2024–2025 Harvest Plan.
“This budgetary choice reveals a perverse priority – it favors sectors that intensify the climate crisis in detriment of the most vulnerable people and territories,” said Viviana Santiago, executive director of Oxfam Brasil.
Vulnerable populations
According to the organization’s report, the North and Northeast regions have the lowest income levels and the highest percentages of black, pardo, indigenous, and quilombola populations, precisely those most exposed to droughts, floods, and other environmental disasters.
The most vulnerable are still in the favelas and suburbs across Brazil, where 73 percent of the population is black, and the places where they live lack the infrastructure to cope with extreme weather events.
“We are facing blatant environmental racism. The climate crisis exposes and deepens historical injustices. There will be no just transition without addressing racism, gender inequality, and land concentration,” the executive director of Oxfam Brasil declared.
Measures
Oxfam proposes the following measures to promote climate and social justice in Brazil:
- incorporating race, gender, and territory into all climate policies;
- ensuring the effective participation of indigenous peoples, quilombolas, and traditional communities in decision-making;
- directing resources primarily to adaptation in the most vulnerable territories; and
- making rural credit conditional on the adoption of sustainable practices and the reduction of emissions.
