Development Pathways and the Political Economy of Maladaptation: The Case of Bioenergy as a Climate Strategy in Brazil

Abstract

Although it is well known that large-scale bioenergy expansion erodes different environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable development, in countries like Brazil, bioenergy is institutionalized as a flagship climate strategy aimed to cut down CO₂ emissions in transport. These trade-offs have serious implications for climate change governance and sustainable development; however, conventional approaches have not yet properly explained this seeming paradox. This article addresses this gap from a critical development pathways approach to bioenergy as a maladaptive strategy in Brazil. I propose an analytical framework to observe how different ideas, interests, and institutions interplay in the historical institutionalization of bioenergy as a climate strategy. The analysis shows that bioenergy institutionalization has been driven by the endemic economic crisis in the sugar sector and governmental interests associated with security and developmental imperatives. The unsustainable co-evolution of development pathways and bioenergy, marked by deforestation, land colonization, and agricultural expansion, has narrowed the adaptation space in agriculture, gearing current climate policy towards path-dependent maladaptive strategies like bioenergy. Paradoxically, framing bioenergy as a climate strategy has been useful to justify more expansive policies in favor of the sugarcane industry, and to greenwash the Brazilian climate policy in the international arena of climate governance.

Introduction

Large-scale implementation of bioenergy currently occupies a prominent position in climate policy strategies, especially in big producer regions like Brazil, the US, and the EU (IPCC 2019, 2022). The displacement of fossil with biomass-based fuels, bioenergy,¹ and removal of GHGs in the transport sector is the flagship discourse of this climate strategy. Bioenergy expansion entails serious socio-environmental impacts, however. Like food production, bioenergy requires land, water, and nutrients, which means that a large-scale bioenergy expansion might exacerbate adverse side effects of agricultural expansion, including serious socio-environmental concerns related to sustainable development goals (SGDs) (Humpenöder et al., 2018). These are related, for example, to deforestation (SDG 15), CO₂ emissions from land use change (LUC) (SDG 13), nitrogen losses to the environment (SDGs 13, 14, 15), unsustainable water withdrawals (SDG 14), and food security (SDG 2) inter alia (DeFries et al. 2004; Foley et al. 2011; Gibbs et al. 2010; Gibson et al. 2011; Gu et al. 2013; Power 2010; Sutton et al. 2013; Hunsberger et al. 2014).

Given the ecological degradation associated with bioenergy production, this work holds that it is a maladaptive climate change strategy. Although the concept is more complex, maladaptation is understood here as adaptation policies intended to address climate change, which causes, directly or indirectly, negative consequences in other ecological systems. This unavoidably entails significant trade-offs between the sustainable development agenda on the one hand and climate change governance on the other. Furthermore, this maladaptation is not new but has path-dependent features historically rooted in the political economy of food for energy. Given that current climate strategies are linked to historical drivers of bioenergy, it is critical to elucidate how patterns of institutional path dependence explain Brazil’s embrace of bioenergy as a prominent climate strategy, despite its grave adverse effects.

Although previous literature has examined the governance of bioenergy strategies (see, e.g., Honegger and Reiner, 2018), insufficient attention has been paid to the political economy of bioenergy expansion as a climate adaptation strategy and its links with historical development pathways. Furthermore, the analysis of how historical institutional legacies influence later and more current maladaptive policy strategies is marginal in the literature on maladaptation. This study contributes to the debate on how past development trajectories are associated with current maladaptive climate change strategies.

In this work, I address these gaps by tackling the political economy of maladaptation from a historical institutional approach (HI) to bioenergy governance. From this perspective, the study elucidates what structural and contingent factors conflate and explain the institutionalization of bioenergy as a climate strategy. In this line, I tackle institutional change along the historical process of structuration of bioenergy as a socio-technical regime. This represents the dominant structure of a socio-technical order formed by the conflation of particular ideas, institutions, and interests; i.e., the structural locus that frames environmental and climate governance and rationalizes adaptation strategies in the sector (Newell 2008; Fuenfschilling and Truffer 2014).

I present an illustrative case from Brazilian bioenergy to demonstrate how development pathways have narrowed the option space for present adaptation and pushed agricultural systems towards maladaptive responses to climate change. Although the sugarcane economy as well as its socio-ecological impacts has colonial origins, bioenergy has been historically based on sugarcane cultivation for the production of ethanol fuels for transport. The analysis then focuses on sugarcane ethanol, as it is the flagship climate strategy for decarbonization in transport in one of the biggest and world-historical producers — Brazil (BP 2022). Ethanol is not only the most important biofuel, on average representing 49% energy of combined gasoline and ethanol use (IEA, 2021), but it has a long-standing policy history linking strategic sectors in Brazil: agriculture, energy, and transport.

The HI addresses the political economy of bioenergy expansion as well as its interconnection with current climate change strategies in Brazil. It shows first that during the first half of the twentieth century, the structure of bioenergy increasingly developed, as sugarcane producers used this new product as a way to respond to ongoing crises within the sector. Second, between the 1970s and 1980s, bioenergy rapidly expanded in response to high oil prices and did so through a logic of national security and economic development that disregarded socio-environmental concerns. Third, in the 2000s and 2010s, another major expansion of bioenergy occurred, in which heavily indebted sugarcane producers utilized greenwashing tactics to rationalize sectoral growth and to gain political support.

The analysis reveals that sugarcane producers frequently embraced bioenergy expansion as a way to escape crisis and bankruptcy, a motivation that underlies its institutionalization as a climate strategy in Brazil. Socio-environmental and climate issues were not serious concerns for governmental intervention as they were perceived as obstacles to development and security goals. Yet, framing bioenergy as a climate strategy was a “crafty” move to boost more expansion of the sugarcane sector and greenwash Brazilian climate change policy at the international level.

Maladaptation and Development Pathways: A Summary of the Literature

From a broader perspective, “adaptation” and “maladaptation” refer to social responses to climate change (Glover and Granberg 2021). Here, maladaptation is understood as adaptation actions, plans, policies, and processes intended to address vulnerability to climate change and/or to mitigate GHGs (see, e.g., Pelling 2010; Nightingale et al. 2020), which has, or is predicted to have, negative impacts on individuals, communities, and/or systems (Barnett and O’Neill 2010; D’alisa and Kallis 2016). The concept covers adaptations that fail to achieve their intended effects and produce counter-productive effects that increase vulnerabilities or the scale/scope of actual/potential impacts with negative consequences. These negative impacts occur in other systems, locations, sectors, and realms outside of climate change impacts, including those adaptations reinforcing the status quo and failing to achieve transformative outcomes (Kates et al. 2012; Granberg et al. 2019).

Based on the natural science tradition, conventional analysis usually addresses adaptation from apolitical approaches, which generally fail to acknowledge the influence of politics on adaptation choices. These approaches overlook the fact that ideologies, institutions, political conditions and circumstances, stakeholder influences, and worldviews condition the selection of adaptation pathways and outcomes. The apolitical approaches then obscure how power relationships and economic interests are related to maladaptation (Biagini et al. 2014; Glover and Granberg 2021).

From a political economy perspective, politics interconnects with problems of maladaptation in the socio-economic circumstances where adaptations occur, providing a social and environmental reckoning of adaptation strategies (Glover and Granberg 2020). Here, it is important not only to analyze the allocation of the burdens and costs of maladaptation but also to identify groups and entities benefitting from maladaptation and environmental change. These beneficiaries are an often-overlooked dimension of maladaptation (Glover and Granberg 2021). Unlike techno-economic approaches, this allows us to observe if adaptation strategies seek to maintain the status quo, which may entail favoring vested interests and/or elites and those with influence in public policy processes. The political economy perspective serves also to analyze if the cause of a progressive sustainable development agenda is being hampered in the political process of climate governance (Juhola et al. 2016).

Maladaptive strategies can be linked to continuities in the socio-political process of environmental governance. Yet, conventional approaches to maladaptation underemphasize past development trajectories shaping adaptation policy (Ribot 2014). Given this gap, some scholars have widened the notion of maladaptation to include path dependency dimensions, lock-ins, and limited availability of subsequent adaptation strategies (Barnett and O’Neill 2010). Likewise, others capture the risk of maladaptation as a process influenced by multiple drivers across spatial and temporal scales, where adaptation entails at high risk of inducing adverse effects either on the system in which it is developed, or on another connected system (Magnan et al. 2016; Gajjar et al. 2019).

Accordingly, the development pathways literature says that the continuation of current trends represents just one of many pathways, involving different possible trajectories of development (Butler et al. 2016; Gajjar et al. 2019). With power asymmetries and particular interests, institutions and ideas are entrenched in socio-ecological systems. This approach then rejects the ahistorical and apolitical assumption that all development pathways are equally available for policy-makers and social groups (Gajjar et al. 2019). On the contrary, the historical approach is necessary to signal how past planning and development have eroded the ecological foundation on which human-managed systems are based, with past decisions narrowing the political space for adaptation (Leach et al. 2010).

A central aspect often overlooked in the analysis of maladaptation is the political condition of causal chains. This condition addresses how present-day choices and decisions are not independent of choices made in the past (Ribot 2014). From this perspective, the rationalities behind (mal)adaptation choices to tackle climate change in the present can be explained by tracing back the causal chains and social choices historically conditioned and dominated by politics. Likewise, the profound implications of the rules and rationalities that underlie path-dependent trajectories of environmental change compel us to tackle the institutional nature of maladaptation from a historical perspective (Andrews-Speed, 2016; Gajjar et al. 2019).

These developments are seen in how transition scholars correctly observe that socio-ecological impacts and policy responses evolve in line with a regime’s structuration, i.e., the institutionalization of rules and rationalities that govern a particular socio-technical system (Fuenfschilling and Truffer 2014; Geels 2011). The socio-technical regime represents the “deep structure” or the “grammar” accounting for the stability of an existing socio-technical system, i.e., the semi-coherent set of rules that orient and coordinate the activities of the social groups reproducing various elements of socio-technical systems (Geels 2011). Technology development is then influenced by the established regime structures and is also subject to landscape factors such as energy prices, which are beyond the regime’s influence (Markard, and Truffer 2008).

If maladaptation is inherent to the structuration of the bioenergy regime, transformational adaptation pathways should necessarily imply profound changes in the regime’s structures that hold up the socio-technical system. The more sedimented the “grammar” is, however, the more capacity a regime has to self-regulate and influence institutional change. This logic explains the difficulty of transformative institutional changes when a high degree of structuration exists, i.e., a high degree of institutionalization of a socio-technical system (Markard, and Truffer 2008).

Using this approach, I analyze the political condition of causal chains concerning contemporary adaptation strategies and wider factors driving the historical structuration of bioenergy as a socio-technical regime (Newell 2008; Fuenfschilling and Truffer 2014). In other words, the causal factors that explain bioenergy as a climate strategy are, therefore, situated in the structuration process, i.e., in the institutionalization of a socio-technical system where energy and agricultural sectors merge.

Methodology, Periodization, and Materials

The methodology uses historical institutional analysis as current bioenergy strategies are intermingled with institutional changes traced back to periods long before the global process of climate change governance. The historical approach to maladaptation aims to identify the political economy drivers of the bioenergy rift and to diagnose the material and institutional conditions that constrain adaptation options in both the present and future (Ribot 2014). Therefore, it is crucial to trace development pathways from their historical legacies to understand the political economy linkages among development, environmental change, and current (mal)adaptive climate strategies in Brazil.

The historical analysis uses an “Agent in Context Approach” (AIC) to HI. In AIC, deeper changes are triggered during critical junctures and incremental changes are treated as interlinked phases of institutional structuration, i.e., different but intertwined stages of (de)institutionalization of the bioenergy regime. Accordingly, I treat the questions of stability and change from an interlinked empirical perspective (Bell 2011; Bell and Feng 2021).

This method is suitable for overcoming the dichotomy between critical juncture and incremental change theories of institutional change. On the one hand, sticky approaches to HI tend to see institutional changes resulting from external shocks or critical junctures producing periods of greater contingency, high uncertainty, and unpredictability. These changes result from the undermining of structural and institutional constraints not by the accumulation of incremental changes (North, 1990; Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007; Capoccia, 2015). On the other hand, “incremental change approaches” give greater scope to agencies in gradually altering institutions over time. Yet these tend to overemphasize incremental change while downplaying institutional stickiness. From this perspective, institutional change is basically an incremental process (Mahoney and Thelen 2010; Streeck and Thelen, 2005; Thelen, 2004).

The (AIC) approach to HI overcomes this dichotomy by treating the analysis bioenergy regime’s structuration as a dynamic process. Here incremental changes are interlinked to critical junctures and vice versa. Using this approach, it becomes possible to observe how institutionally situated actors (the sugarcane agroindustry and the government) deal with more or less constraining contexts concerning bioenergy expansion and the way climate change policy is integrated as a factor of structuration in the bioenergy regime (Bell and Feng 2021; Dunning 2017).

I problematize the political economy of maladaptation using the socio-technical regime of bioenergy as an analytical unit. Therefore, the HI analysis focuses on the main factors of regime structuration and develops the analysis by linking the drivers of institutional change as a continuum along all analyzed periods. For analytical purposes, the regime here represents the historical institutional construct formed by particular ideas, interests, and institutions that rationalize bioenergy governance, as well as material continuity and change in the sector. I analyze these explanatory elements over time, considering the dialectical process of mutual shaping.

Although there are other explanatory factors behind the intricacy of sugarcane governance that should be included in more complex approaches and future research (e.g., settler colonialism, racial capitalism, patriarchy), the analysis focuses mainly on developmental policies and security goals as politico-economic drivers of bioenergy structuration and its institutionalization as a climate strategy. Within this framework, I analyze the conflation of ideas, institutions, and interests, through an empirical historical narrative that explains the structural and material changes in the sector (Bell 2011; Marsh 2009).

Figure 1 graphically illustrates the analytical approach to regime structuration. Following Newell (2008), I analyze the evolution of the regime considering the wider political economy contexts from where climate strategies unfold (white circle). Represented by the inner gold circle, the core is the nearest layer of governance determining economic transactions, prices, and output quantities at the sectoral level. Here, I address the specific conditions explaining institutional and material changes in the bioenergy sector. This approach allows us to explain how development pathways intersect with bioenergy policy and adaptation strategies to climate change, specifically how broader political economy imperatives regarding development, security, and the environment intersect with the specific concerns of the sugarcane industry. This, in turn, explains the structuration of the bioenergy regime across different periods until its institutionalization as a climate strategy.

Fig. 1

Ideas, interests, and institutions in the structuration of the bioenergy regime as a climate change strategy (sugarcane ethanol production in M3 ‘000). Source: Author’s elaboration based on Geels (2011), Kern (2011), and Fuenfschilling and Truffer (2014). Ethanol production data was obtained from Ministério da Agricultura e Pecuária (Mapa) and União da Industria de Cana de Açúcar (UNICA). CJ, critical juncture

At the periphery of the bioenergy regime are situated the marginalized ideas, institutions, and interests of vulnerable groups. These can be related to, e.g., socio-ecological transformations in the sugarcane industry, yet are subordinated to the economic and political goals of the main actors: the sugarcane agroindustry and the government. This study does not approach the historical processes of marginalization and socio-ecological colonization related to the sugarcane economy.² Instead, this work aims at explaining how historical patterns of institutional path dependence condition current responses to climate change, despite the socio-ecological impacts related to bioenergy expansion.

Periodization and Materials

The historical analysis is developed through a combination of time series analysis to periodize the structuration process and a qualitative examination of the conditions for institutional and material changes in the sector. I examine the link between development pathways and the evolution of the bioenergy regime along different historical periods. Accordingly, I analyze (i) antecedent conditions before a critical juncture, (ii) permissive and productive conditions during the critical juncture, and (iii) reproductive conditions after a critical juncture, as defined by Bell (2011) and Bell and Feng (2021). These factors are portrayed in Table 1.

Table 1 A dynamic approach for the analysis of bioenergy structuration

At every stage, I analyze the frictions and alignment among ideas, interests, and existing institutions, according to the analytical framework. I approach the drivers of institutional and material change related to sugarcane ethanol expansion by considering wider development pathways. These pathways are expressed in the contradictions among environmental, security, and economic development concerns.

The periodization involves an intervention time series analysis (ITSA). The evolution of sugarcane ethanol production is modeled using an Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) with transfer functions. Here, the past and present values of one series are related to the values of another series, in this case, the intervention (Box and Tiao, 1975). Unlike univariate models, the ITSA assumes that the dependent variable (bioenergy production) follows some regular pattern, which can be adjusted as time series intervention models to analyze the impact of exogenous or independent variables (e.g. exogenous shocks during critical junctures) that may have potentially affected the endogenous patterns of the series over time (McDowall et al. 2019). Given that its application enables a periodization of bioenergy production following the change in the trends over time, ARIMA with transfer functions fits the purpose of this research.

The periodization is based on 72 observations of ethanol production — from 1948 to 2020. Data were obtained from Ministério da Agricultura e Pecuária (Mapa) and União da Industria de Cana de Açúcar (UNICA). The results and method are attached in Appendix 2. Using these results, the historical analysis is structured around two critical junctures in which the trend of expansion increases and two periods of incremental change where the trend of expansion declines. Table 2 summarizes the results.

Table 2 Periodization according to the autoregressive model AR (1,0,0)

To grasp the link among ideas, interests, and institutions in the structuration of the bioenergy regime, I develop an analysis of documents using primary and secondary sources. On the one hand, the material studied for the bioenergy sector includes all the relevant laws, regulations, and policies enacted since 1931. These have been obtained mostly from the Brazilian Federal platform of legal information “Planalto” and are attached in Appendix 1. On the other hand, economic, agricultural, and environmental data have been obtained from different platforms such as “Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply” (MAPA), “Sugarcane Industry Union-(UNICA),” “National Association of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers” (ANFAVEA), “National Institute for Space Research” (INPE), “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removals Estimation System” (SEEG), and Forestry Institute of the State of São Paulo, inter alia.³

Finally, the analysis is complemented by secondary sources. Although there are other sources in the literature addressing different important aspects of the sugarcane history since colonial times (settler colonialism, racial capitalism, patriarchy, inter alia), this study is based on the selective use of secondary sources, which address directly or indirectly the legislative and political history of ethanol and climate governance. Hence, alternative or more complex explanations of bioenergy as a maladaptive strategy should not be castoff.

Development Pathways and Maladaptation: The Political Economy of Bioenergy as a Climate Strategy

Bioenergy is currently a central strategy in Brazilian climate change policy. The expansion of bioenergy as a climate strategy in Brazil is established in key legislative and policy instruments as part of a wider energy policy designed to increase energy security by local energy sources. Law 9478 of 2005 established that national policies must increase the use of biofuels based on their environmental, social, and economic benefits. Likewise, the Law 12,490 of 2011 was designed to guarantee the supply of biofuels over the national territory and mitigate greenhouse gases and polluters in the energy and transport sectors. According to the Brazilian Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the country will “increase the share of sustainable biofuels in the Brazilian energy mix to approximately 18% by 2030, by expanding biofuel consumption, increasing ethanol supply” (Federative Republic of Brazil 2015). Consequently, a national bioenergy program, RenovaBio, was set to increase the consumption of bioenergy in transport (Law 13,576, 2015). Figure 2 shows a forecast of bioenergy expansion after being institutionalized as a climate strategy.

Fig. 2

Forecast of ethanol expansion as a climate strategy (in ‘000,000 L). Source: Author’s elaboration with SAS. For numerical results, see Appendix 2

In the next sub-sections, I develop an HI analysis observing how development pathways intersect with the structuration of the bioenergy regime as a climate strategy.

Early Structuration of the Bioenergy Regime: Ethanol as a Response to the Economic Crisis in the Sugarcane Industry (from the Early Twentieth Century Until 1975)

This period includes a large part of the First Brazilian Republic (from the early twentieth century to the Brazilian Revolution of 1930) until the first half of the military regime (1964–1975). In this period, I analyze the early structuration of bioenergy before CJ1 observing key drivers behind institutional and socio-technical changes that bridge the sugar and energy industries through ethanol.

During the first quarter of the century, the structural environment developed from an oligarchic order inherited from Colonial times, where sugar plantations established the foundations of political power based on the monopoly of land and slavery (Ferlini 2019). In this context, the government’s policy is generally captured by powerful economic interests in the agricultural sector (Hudson 1997). Patron-client structures enabled landowners to control government structures at the state level, infusing policies with oligarchical ideas that merged private interests with public goals (Hudson 1997).

During this period, the sugar sector was going through several economic crises during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The increase in the domestic supply of sugar in the national market, added to agricultural protectionism in international markets, generated recurrent periods of overproduction and low sugar prices (Nastari 1983). The sugar sector responded to the crisis through strategic cooperation among producers adopting private agreements for the industrial development of alcohol and controlling levels of sugar overproduction, yet, their objectives were generally unfulfilled. Consequently, the sector began to request more governmental intervention to reduce the uncertainty of the sugar markets and promote the fuel ethanol market (Szmerecsányi 1979; De Castro Santos, 1985; see also Appendix 1).

From 1933 to 1946, the level of government intervention in the economy increased progressively during the authoritarian Vargas era. Vargas sought to help Brazil overcome the crisis triggered by the Great Depression, through economic dirigisme and populist policies based on economic nationalism and autarchy (Hudson 1997; Lima 1970). These ideas paved the way for national industrialization and import substitution policies established during the new “liberal period,” from 1946 to 1964 (Lima 1970; Wirth 1970).

Within this new political background, important regulatory changes to support the use of sugarcane ethanol in the emerging transport sector were set. These changes included the 1933 mandate for a minimum mixture mandate of 5% alcohol with imported gasoline, which was extended to all fuels consumed at the national level in 1938 and regulated by the National Petroleum Council (NPC). Likewise, in 1933, the Sugar and Alcohol Institute (IAA) was created as a governmental organization aimed to foster the use of ethanol in transport and regulate sugar markets (see Appendix 1 (Table 6)).

Since the liberal Constitution of 1946, a government strategy supported by an emerging industrial bourgeoisie was designed to attract foreign capital to boost local industrialization and economic growth (Maram,1992). National industrialization and import substitution became central ideas within economic policy. For example, the government of Kubitschek (1956–1961) implemented a 5-year industrial policy to develop the national automotive industry (Wirth 1970), so the national production of vehicles increased from 30,542 units in 1957 to 1,071,100 in 1979 (ANFAVEA 2023). Likewise, the inward-oriented economic policy also included the development of a local energy industry aimed to cut fuel oil imports, so the National Oil Company — “Petrobras” — was then established in 1953. The monopoly was oriented to minimize the costs of energy inputs for the national economy and to boost energy industrialization.

These structural changes sparked the growth of two key industrial sectors for bioenergy development in Brazil: oil and transport (Wirth 1970; Lima 1970; Smith 1976). However, the support to the sugarcane sector through the use of ethanol for transport was at odds with the oil-based energy policy. This led to battles for institutional changes between two nascent industries: ethanol and national oil (Chhotray and Stoker 2009). Although the sugar sector needed government support, this only occurred when ethanol prices were competitive vis a vis oil prices. However, after WWII, oil was cheap and abundant (De Castro Santos, 1985).

As a consequence, the NPC was empowered to minimize the use of ethanol in the mixture mandates (Law 2004 of 1953). Likewise, IAA’s authority to increase the use of ethanol in the fuel markets was limited by law (see, e.g., Law 4870 of 1965). For example, the IAA could still fix ethanol prices, but it could not assure the use of ethanol in fuel markets anymore, as fuel policy was the competence of the NPC. The sugar complex did not have sufficient power to enhance bioenergy use in transport. This illustrates why the sugar crisis was a necessary but not sufficient condition for bioenergy expansion before CJ1 (De Castro Santos, 1985).

Finally, although environmental concerns emerged at the international level during the Military regime (1964–1985), these did not play a role in bioenergy’s early structuration. Domestic policy was shaped by dependency theory and a strong nationalistic set of values that rationalized natural resource and security policy; therefore, the government generally overlooked environmental concerns. The official view of the Brazilian government was that environmental protection should not be an obstacle for economic development goals and control over indigenous territories. For example, after 1966, the military government established a regional development policy for the Amazon region characterized by infrastructure extension and huge subsidies and tax breaks for industries, and cattle ranching (Kasa 1995; Barbosa 2000). Under the guise of “state sovereignty” over land and natural resources, this developmental neocolonialism facilitated land-grabbing and sugarcane expansion towards indigenous lands (Hurrell 2010, Valente 2017). This reveals key dimensions of what undergirds the maladaptation process — the institutionalized ideas such as “state sovereignty” and “development” that rationalize power and control of the agrarian elites over indigenous land through state policy.

Critical Juncture 1 — Structural Acceleration and the First Great Expansion of Bioenergy amid the Brazilian Anti-environmentalism (1975–1986)

During CJ1, convergent interests of the sugarcane industry and the government accelerated the structuration of the bioenergy regime and gave rise to the first big expansion of ethanol as a fuel for Brazilian transport (de Castro Santos, 1985). In connection with incremental changes observed in the past, the situation in the energy and sugar markets during CJ1 triggered deep institutional changes aimed to increase the use of ethanol in transport.

There were two permissive conditions for institutional change and bioenergy expansion during CJ1 (Table 3). The first one was the endemic crisis of the sugar sector and the active agency of the sector in energy policy. Overproduction, low sugar prices, and alarming accumulation of stocks represented critical problems for the industry (Nunberg 1979). The use of sugarcane biomass to produce ethanol at a large scale was the best strategy for the agroindustry to address the endemic problems of sugar oversupply and trade restrictions at national and international levels (de Castro Santos, 1985).

Table 3 Key institutional changes observed during CJ1

The second was energy security, triggered by the oil crisis during the 1970s. This produced a turnaround of the energy policy towards ethanol expansion. The energy crisis led to a fourfold increase in prices in 1973 and a further doubling in 1979. With the increase in the value of energy imports, the deficit in the balance of payments increased by 320% and the inflation rate doubled from 15.5% in 1973 to 34.5% in 1974 (MME 1983). The government policy sought to minimize the economic impacts of the exogenous shock by boosting the exploitation of national energy sources like ethanol, oil, and gas (see Fig. 5).

In this context, the capacity of the sugar industry to influence energy and industrial policy for transport increased notably. With the oil crisis backgrounding energy policy, the agroindustry was able to guide government intervention and benefit from unyielding government support for sugar interests (Eaglin, 2022). Private interests deterred government officials from creating a nationalized program, as was the case for oil. In consequence, the public program for ethanol development “Pró-Álcohol” was essentially an agri-capitalistic response to the sugar and energy crisis. Cheaper financing, tax breaks, direct subsidies, and energy policy changes favored capital accumulation in the sugarcane complex while deepening social exclusion, exploitation of workers (boias-frias), and environmental impacts (Ramos and de Lima, 2006).

The national ethanol program “Pró-Álcool” was launched officially with Decree 76.593 in 1975. The program was characterized by strong interventionism aimed at enhancing energy security amid developmental and economic growth imperatives. Institutional changes reorganized and restructured the fuel market to increase ethanol consumption (see Appendix 1 (Table 6) and (Table 7)). This led to a huge expansion of bioenergy agribusiness and LUC (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

Use of sugarcane for bioenergy and planted area after critical juncture 1 (ATR, total recoverable sugar). Source: Author’s elaboration based on Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento-MAPA (2009)

Several regulatory and policy instruments were established within the “Pró-Álcool,” while incremental changes established in the previous period like the blend mandates were increased to achieve new energy substitution and macroeconomic goals. Unlike in the past, the program included industrial policy for the automotive sector, which led to the mass production of ethanol-fueled cars — Carro a álcool (ANFAVEA 2023). This reveals the socio-technical structuration of the bioenergy regime in the transport sector during the 1970s (Puerto Rico et al. 2010; IPEA, 2022; Geels 2011).

Although the energy crisis was the sufficient condition that triggered the expansion of bioenergy, the convergent interests in the public and the private sectors were the motto for institutional and material change in the sector. The Pró-Álcool as part of a wider policy of energy and import substitution evidenced this convergence. The conflation of security and developmental ideologies rationalized the structuration of the bioenergy regime. However, the Pró-Álcool not only favored political goals, but it also mobilized the “big capital,” especially the sugar and alcohol producers, as well as sugarcane planters, distillers, and industrial manufacturers like the automotive industry (de Castro Santos, 1985).

In this process, social and environmental concerns were overlooked or ignored. Bioenergy expansion occurred in the context of an open anti-environmentalist, where sustainable pathways were subordinated to national security and economic development imperatives expressed, inter alia, in the colonization of western territories inhabited by indigenous populations. Although environmental concerns arose strongly in the international political arena during the early seventies (Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972), the Brazilian State was reluctant to interventions that restrained expansion over indigenous territories and developmental priorities. Under the guise of “state sovereignty,” developmental, nationalistic, and securitized goals concealed an aggressive extractive natural resources policy and colonization of indigenous land (Pompermayer 1984).

Government discourse held that environmental protection could not be divorced from economic development, blaming developed nations for the most serious global environmental problems (Vieira 2013). The Brazilian government was reluctant to endorse international environmental policies that could restrain economic growth and development, as well as any foreign intervention that interfered with natural resources exploitation (Vieira 2013). The government assumed a defensive position in international environmental debates, opposing any foreign attempt that uses international environmental negotiations to hinder national development projects (Kasa 1995; Vieira 2013).

Dependency theory ideas were accommodated to rationalize not only national economic policy but also Brazilian foreign policy (Itamaraty) (Alden et al. 2010). These ideas were further reinforced by the strong nationalist values of the military establishment and its emphasis on material power and diplomatic pragmatism (Hurrell 2010). As a consequence, international concerns about environmental protection or human rights did not deter the developmental and security goals of the government. These policies would aggravate environmental degradation and the living conditions of indigenous and peasant communities throughout the 1970s and early 1980s (Hecht and Cockburn 1989).

Another history for bioenergy and climate adaptation in Brazil would probably be if the sugar complex was allowed to go bankrupt in moments of crisis and indebtedness or by disempowering the ethanol producers. Yet, incremental institutional changes observed in the past paved the way for the regime’s structuration during this period reflecting the path-dependent features of bioenergy policy and the capacity of the sugarcane industry to influence policy change (Eaglin, 2022, Milmanda 2023).

Furthermore, the structural context constrained the capacity of bottom-up public resistance in demanding government oversight and regulation and reorienting ethanol development pathways towards sustainability and social justice. Structural factors such as concentration of political capital and power asymmetries tip the balance in favor of sugarcane elites’ interests. Although rural workers and residents fought to assert their voices and influence Pro-álcool’s trajectory, throughout the industry’s growth, they were persistent losers in the expansion of the sugar sector (Eaglin, 2022). Hence, the Pro-álcool program reflects path-dependent trajectories of sugarcane governance characterized by environmental degradation and exploitation of rural workers (Ramos and de Lima, 2006).

The Dismantling of the Bioenergy Regime Before Critical Juncture 2 (CJ2): Environmental Framing as the Lifejacket for the Bioenergy Sector (1986–2000)

As permissive conditions observed during CJ1 faded away, a gradual stagnation of ethanol as a fuel and a dismantling of the bioenergy regime could be observed during this period. Amid the economic crisis and a liberal turn in the political ideology, government support for bioenergy declined in line with the waning of oil prices (see Appendix 1 (Table 8)). In this context, new environmental ideas and policy frames came into play to maintain certain levels of bioenergy consumption and support the sugar industry. Bioenergy started to be framed as an environmentally friendly fuel for transport, while national oil production increased notably. This framing was a lifejacket for the sugarcane industry as this served to keep alive some historical bioenergy policies like the blend mandates. Yet, this development barely reflects a genuine compromise with environmental or climate concerns as these continued to be subordinated to wider economic, developmental, and security imperatives.

With the sharp decline of oil prices since the mid-1980s, ethanol became an expensive fuel, and government support for the ethanol sector declined substantially amid a deep economic crisis and a neoliberal turn in economic policy (Barzelay 1986; Lehtonen 2007). The precariousness of Brazilian public finances unleashed a progressive dismantling of the “Pro-alcohol” program (see Appendix 1 (Table 8) for key regulatory changes). The public prices of ethanol began to be set below the average production cost of plants and distilleries. This pricing undermined the bioenergy industry complex (Borges 1992) and the industry responded by switching the use of sugarcane from energy to food markets (see MAPA, 2009).

Sugar exports, which had ceased to be a public monopoly after the extinction of the IAA, increased in line with the decline of barriers to international trade in agriculture (Baccarin, 2005; Rodríguez-Morales 2018). In consequence, bioenergy production practically stagnated between 1986 and 1990, leading to a supply crisis at the end of the decade. The shortage of ethanol and the low prices of oil plunged the sales of “alcohol-fueled vehicles” (ANFAVEA 2023).

The dismantling of the bioenergy regime was contested by the sugarcane industry through an active agency and adaptive strategies to protect the ethanol sector (Baccarin 2005). In this context, sugarcane ethanol began to be framed as an environmentally friendly fuel based on an environmental discourse of pollution control. This greenwashing of ethanol became a regulatory lifejacket for the sugarcane industry during the crisis, for example, allowing to maintain the blend mandates the regulation of fuels for transport (see Table 4 and Appendix 1 (Table 8)).

Table 4 Key incremental institutional changes during the economic liberalization process

During the period 1986–2000, the environmental and climate agenda continued to be subordinated to developmental and security goals. Brazil lacked climate policies and continued to resist the application of international environmental and climate norms (Vieira 2013). Even with the recognition of environmental preservation in the Constitution of 1988 and a more receptive milieu to climate change concerns, the government was consistently opposed to the idea that developing countries should be included in emission reduction targets (Johnson 2001).

This highly influenced Brazil’s climate change foreign policy (Hurrell 2010) and the creation of the Inter-ministerial Commission on Climate Change — “CIMGC” — did not change this traditional position (Viola 2009). On the contrary, the CIMGC subordinated the role of the Ministry of Environment to Ministries aligned with developmental and extractive economies (e.g., agriculture, energy, and industry), a devaluation found within climate negotiations (Friberg 2009).

During the Kyoto negotiations, the reticence to mitigation commitments persisted, as ecological concerns were framed as a threat to developmental goals and an unacceptable interference with “national sovereignty” (Vieira 2013). For example, Brazil consistently resisted attempts to establish international mechanisms to provide states with carbon credits or rights to emission for “avoided deforestation-AD” in forest-rich countries (Persson and Azar 2005). In contrast, security imperatives drove the colonization of indigenous lands in vulnerable regions like the Amazon (Pereira and Viola 2021b).

Furthermore, there was a regression in environmental protection and sustained ecological degradation. The rapid and negative environmental change could be seen in alarming rates of deforestation, re-carbonization of the energy mix, and an aggressive agribusiness expansion over the biomes like the “Amazon” and “Cerrado” (Margulis 2003; INPE 2022). Between 1992 and 2004, Brazil’s total GHG emissions increased by 80%, including Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF), while the forest loss reached an annual average rate of 19,200 km² (INPE, 2021). According to Fischer et al. (2008), the indirect LUC impacts of sugarcane expansion were associated with deforestation in the biome “el Cerrado” (see Fig. 4).

Fig. 4

ILUC pressures of sugarcane expansion and deforestation in the biome “Cerrado.” Source: Author’s elaboration based on (Fischer et al. 2008) and INPE — Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais/TerraBrasilis (2022)

Driven by fossil fuel use expansion in thermoelectric power plants and transport, CO₂ emissions also revealed a substantial increase in key economic sectors, reaching around 28% and 52% in energy and agriculture respectively (SEEG 2023). The antagonism between climate concerns and unsustainable development pathways was also evidenced in the growth of the national oil industry (see Fig. 5).

Fig. 5

Extractive policy and oil expansion in Brazil. Source: Author’s elaboration based on ANP (2022), IPEA (2022), MAPA (2022), and UNICA (2023)

Brazilian climate change and environmental sustainability policy were subordinated to developmental and security imperatives; these mainly related to energy security, macroeconomic stabilization, and geopolitical concerns over the western territories (Vieira 2013). In this context, the support for ethanol was justified on environmental grounds, and bioenergy was framed as a “sustainable energy source” compatible with environmental policy. This not only allowed the industry to navigate the crisis in the sector but also paved the way for institutionalizing bioenergy as a climate strategy within the context of global climate change governance.

Critical Juncture 2 — New Structuration and Second Bioenergy Expansion: Institutionalizing Bioenergy as a Climate Change Strategy (from 2000 to 2023)

Critical juncture 2 unleashed the second largest ethanol expansion after the Pró-Álcool program and led to a new stage of structuration of the bioenergy regime. Permissive conditions were similar to those observed during critical juncture – the crisis in the sugar sector and developmental ideologies and security imperatives guiding governmental economic policy. The fear of bankruptcy mobilized the sugar industry to request the intervention of the government to rescue the sector again (Baccarin, 2005). The political system facilitated the influence of the sugarcane industry on policy change. As shown by (Milmanda 2023), agrarian elites in Brazil can protect their interests not only through undemocratic means but also by organizing in the electoral arena, using representative institutions to their advantage. The power and agency of the sugarcane industry tipped the balance of energy policy in their favor, overlooking again the socio-environmental issues that make bioenergy a maladaptive strategy for climate change.

During this period, the bioenergy regime would harness the global context of climate change governance to gain more structuration and expansion. Climate change ideas started to play a strategic role in the institutional sedimentation of the bioenergy regime; they paved the way for more expansive policies in the sector. Under the guise of emission reduction in transport, bioenergy was institutionalized as a renewable energy source and promoted at international levels as a flagship strategy to address climate change, regardless of the adverse socio-environmental effects that bioenergy expansion entailed.

Side effects of bioenergy expansion were simply ignored while ethanol was framed as a sustainable fuel. However, from land cover issues and indirect LUC effects to socio-environmental impacts (like biodiversity loss, water, and associated equity concerns) and large-scale bioenergy expansion cast doubt on its sustainability as a climate strategy (Köberle et al. 2019; Hunsberger et al., 2018; Filoso et al. 2015; OCDE 2017). Indirect LUC effects of sugarcane expansion can be traced to the deforestation caused by forcing other agricultural and livestock activities to move toward unprotected biomes (Fischer et al. 2008). Evidence on environmental change in biomes like “Cerrado” and the Atlantic rainforest shows that São Paulo has been in the process of intense deforestation during the last century (SIFESP 2022). ILUC effects related to sugarcane production gained greater intensity and magnitude after the “Pro-alcohol” program was launched the mid-1970s. This trend accelerates from the 2000s when ethanol is framed as an environmentally friendly fuel (see Fig. 6).

Fig. 6

Sugarcane expansion and environmental change in the biome “Cerrado” — São Paulo. Source: Author’s elaboration based on Instituto Florestal Inventário Florestal do Estado de São Paulo, Mapeamento da Cobertura Vegetal Nativa. SIFESP (2022)

Even when bioenergy is the only climate-agriculture strategy having adverse side effects across dimensions like adaptation, food security, land degradation, and desertification (IPCC 2019, 2022), Brazil’s diplomacy sought to portray a country concerned with climate problems, using bioenergy as a bargaining strategy in climate negotiations. The strategy was emphasizing the renewable energy features of ethanol while hiding the socio-environmental impacts related to bioenergy expansion. Furthermore, this framing concealed the economic and political character of bioenergy as an escape valve for the sugar industry and how greenwashing powerful industries enables maladaptive responses to climate change.

This historical analysis reveals that framing bioenergy as a climate strategy was a “clever” move to boost more expansion of the sector and greenwash Brazilian climate change policy at international levels. This move also revealed how the political economy of development pathways could sway the adoption of maladaptive strategies affecting the integrity of the global process of climate governance.

At the structural level, historical patterns of extractive development and securitization of territories (including indigenous lands) justified the agenda and the political priorities of the government concerning energy and industrial policy (Persson and Azar, 2005; INPE, 2022). Environmental issues and climate change continued to be second-order concerns and were perceived as obstacles to achieving short-term political and economic goals. The process of climate governance in Brazil was engulfed by the dominant policy paradigm (Kuhn 1962) of extractive development and subjected to the interests of the economic elites located in the industrial, energy, and agricultural sectors (Pereira and Viola 2022).

Although there was a more receptive milieu for climate politics and advances in environmental and climate policy⁴ sustainability issues and climate change generally played a peripherical role in the political agenda of economic development in Brazil. Rigid ideas about economic development and extractive industrialism, entrenched in historical development pathways, affected climate policy progress during the twenty-first century (Viola and Franchini 2014).

This tension was evident in the energy sector during the 2000s, when there was a significant expansion of the oil industry and a huge carbonization of the power mix (Viola and Franchini 2018; Vieira and Dalgaard 2013). Furthermore, after the discovery of the pre-salt offshore oil reserves, the government of President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva (2003–2010) encouraged fossil fuel use under a nationalistic development policy, establishing a range of subsidies for oil consumption aimed at boosting economic growth (Viola and Franchini 2018). This pathway led to a substantial increase in total emissions by 13% (excluding LULUCF) between 2004 and 2010 (SEEG 2023). The resistance to any legally binding agreement with mitigation targets, as seen in the Brazilian position during the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP 15–2009) in Copenhagen, also shows the influence of developmental goals over climate policy (Hochstetler and Milkoreit 2014).

Since 2011, environmental protection and climate policy at the national and international levels declined substantially (Pereira and Viola 2022). Issues like economic growth, inflation control, public spending, unemployment, and corruption removed climate change from the political debates (Pereira, 2019). One key example is the decline of forest protection driven by the legal reforms in the Forest Code during the Dilma Rousseff government (2011–2016), which privileged economic growth based on agribusiness expansion (Castelo 2015). Furthermore, although the country pledged to reduce its overall emissions by 37% and 43% by 2025 and 2030 respectively, compared to 2005 levels (Federative Republic of Brazil 2015), the pledge was more rhetorical than real. After considering the base year (2005), the NDC represented a real-emissions decrease of only 7% (including LULUCF) below 2012 levels by 2030 (CAT 2019).

The dismantling of environmental and climate policy went even further during the government of Michel Temer (2016–2018) and Jair Bolsonaro government (2019–2022) (see, e.g., Observatório do Clima 2017; SEEG, 2021; Santos, 2016; Costa 2019; Pereira and Viola 2022). Consequently, the average annual deforestation rate in the Amazonian region increased by 25% during the period 2013–2015 and by 63% between 2016 and 2018 with the energy sector increasing by around 11% (INPE, 2021). At the international level, Brazil blocked the agreement to develop a carbon market that sought to avoid double-count emissions reductions at the Katowice COP 24 of 2018, and in 2019 backed out of hosting the COP 25 and revealed an open indifference to the global process of climate governance and climate concerns (Pereira and Viola 2021b).

As in the past, entrenched institutions and ideas about the right to development usually prevailed over climate and environmental considerations (Hochstetler and Milkoreit 2014; Hochstetler and Viola 2012). As a whole, these stances revealed that the interests of governments were not aligned with environmental protection or climate change concerns. These continued to be focused on extractive development, economic growth, and expansion of national industries, especially in the agricultural and energy sectors (Paz 2014; Goldemberg et al. 2014).

This structural environment was the context within which the second big expansion of sugarcane ethanol unfolded during the 2000s. Permissive conditions gave rise to key institutional changes in the agriculture, energy, and transport sectors, driven fundamentally by economic turmoil in the energy and sugar markets as well as in the arena of international climate governance. These gave rise to a new stage of structuration of the bioenergy regime within a nationalistic energy policy strategy, in line with incremental changes observed in the past (see Tables 4 and 5). The first one was the sharp increase in energy prices amid a liberal and market-oriented institutional context. The restrictions on oil supply by part of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), along with the upsurge in global demand driven by economic growth in China, gave rise to a new, sustained increase in fuel prices (Fan and Xu 2011). In consequence, the competitiveness and political appeal for bioenergy for transport increased. This, along with the opportunistic use of bioenergy in the international climate negotiations, facilitated the government’s support for the sugarcane industry using expansive policies for ethanol.

Table 5 Key institutional changes observed during CJ2

The second permissive condition was related to the economic problems and instability in the sugar markets. This took place within the dismantling of the “Pro-alcohol” program and a new neoliberal structure for the bioenergy regime observed around the early years of 2000s. Sugar overproduction, stock accumulation, low prices, and the collapse of hydrated ethanol markets and “ethanol-fueled cars” put the bioenergy industry in a critical situation again (Baccarin, 2005). The most critical moment for the sugar industry was in the late 1990s when the effective liberalization of ethanol prices coincided with the decline of international sugar prices (Moraes, 2020). With the accelerated upward trend in crude oil prices and the difficult situation in the sugar markets, the interests of the government and sugarcane industry concerning bioenergy converged, leading to the necessary and sufficient conditions for a second cycle of ethanol expansion (Rodriguez-Morales, 2018).

As in the past, bioenergy expansion was based on a national strategy that linked the energy, sugarcane, and, automotive industries. A package of regulatory measures was deployed to reactivate the supply and demand of ethanol for transport (see Table 5).

In 2005, bioenergy was institutionalized as a renewable energy source within the energy policy framework along with fossil fuels, revealing how energy independence was prioritized over environmental concerns. This involved a hybrid system of regulatory governance and industrial strategy that was designed to (a) assure the stability of supply in the energy markets and (b) foster sectoral expansion (see details in Laws 9478 and 12,490 of 2005). This development represented the new structural canvas providing institutional stability for the bioenergy regime.

However, important institutional changes observed during CJ2 were interlinked to incremental changes observed in the previous period of bioenergy stagnation, revealing that present decisions were not independent of those of the past (Ribot 2014). For example, the increase of ethanol proportion in the blend mandates to address environmental concerns paved the way for institutionalizing bioenergy as a climate strategy rationalizing more expansion of the sector (see Appendix 1 (Table 8) and (Table 9)).

Similar to the demand policies based on the production of ethanol-fueled cars during the Pro-alcohol program, institutional changes in this period targeted the reactivation of ethanol demand through the production of “flex-fuel” vehicles, which can run on mixed fuel (gasoline and anhydrous ethanol) or pure hydrated ethanol (Freitas and Kaneko 2011). This could be seen in the tax agreements, subsidies, and regulations established in favor of the automotive industry for the production of Flex-fuel vehicles (see Table 5 and Appendix 1 (Table 6) for specific regulatory changes). Hence, the automotive industry was key in providing stability to the socio-technical regime of bioenergy and the expansion of ethanol consumption. Consequently, the number of “Flex-fuel vehicles” increased from 39,853 to 1,336,702 in cars and from 9411 to 190,593 in light commercial vehicles (ANFAVEA, 2023) and the expansion of ethanol consumption skyrocketed since the early 2000s (UNICADATA, 2023).

However, the voracity for more industrial expansion of ethanol led to more structuration of the bioenergy regime under the guise of climate change concerns. In 2017, a new government program to support and expand bioenergy consumption, the “RenovaBio.” appealed to the relatively low carbon emission intensity of ethanol vis a vis gasoline to foster more expansion of sugarcane for energy production. The program went further than the “Pro-alcohol,” as it emphasized the strategic role of all types of biofuels (bioethanol, biodiesel, biomethane, biokerosene, second generation, etc.). One strategic goal of the program was to fulfill Brazilian commitments in the Paris Agreement, which revealed how important was to frame ethanol as a clean source of energy for the institutionalization of sugarcane interests within the energy sector. This climate change framing greenwashed the political economy of sugarcane ethanol and paved the way for more expansion of the sector.

Amid the international process of climate governance, the sugarcane industry grew momentum to gain more structuration of the bioenergy regime within the energy policy domain. As climate change resonated stronger in the political arena, ethanol became framed as a solution to overcome the historical tension between economic development, energy security, and environmental concerns. Even when environmental and climate concerns never were sufficient conditions for bioenergy expansion, this greenwashing flattened the way to get more political support. The ideas and interests in the decarbonization of transport through renewable energy sources made ethanol politically attractive again, more than for energy security reasons, as a political instrument for foreign climate policy. It was promoted at international levels as a flagship strategy to address climate change, regardless of the adverse socio-environmental effects that bioenergy expansion entailed (CAT, 2022; Federative Republic of Brazil 2015).

In this line, ethanol was used as a climate diplomacy tool and a bargaining instrument at the international level. For example, since Lula’s “ethanol diplomacy” to the “Biofuture Platform” launched during the Marrakesh COP of 2016, Brazil aimed to develop a global market for ethanol, amid global discussions about energy security, climate change, and South-South cooperation (Viola and Franchini 2018). Brazil’s diplomacy sought to portray a country concerned with climate problems, using bioenergy as a bargaining strategy in climate negotiations. In this context, many other countries have followed the “successful” Brazilian example by adopting bioenergy in their climate policy agendas (IEA 2021). However, all this concealed the economic and political character of bioenergy as an escape valve for the sugar industry.

The historical analysis of core and structural aspects of bioenergy governance revealed that framing bioenergy as a climate strategy was a crafty move to boost more expansion of the sector and greenwash Brazilian climate change policy. This move also revealed how the political economy of development pathway governance could sway the adoption and promotion of maladaptive strategies through diplomacy affecting the integrity of the global process of climate governance.

Conclusions

This study has approached maladaptation and development pathways by analyzing one of the most controversial climate strategies — bioenergy. The article aimed to shed light on how patterns of institutional path dependence explain Brazil’s embrace of bioenergy as a prominent climate strategy despite the well-known adverse socio-environmental impacts.

From a historical institutionalist perspective on sugarcane ethanol governance, this work analyzes the structuration of the bioenergy regime along development pathways in Brazil. Here, I analyzed the politics of maladaptation through the interconnections between core and wider structures of the bioenergy regime to observe the factors explaining structuration and institutionalization as a climate strategy and what becomes sidelined to the regime’s periphery and why.

First, the analysis shows the permanent tension between the predominant ideas, interests, and institutions related to unsustainable models of economic development on the one hand and socio-environmental and climate concerns on the other hand. This tension is exacerbated when these latter interfere with developmental and security goals, linked mostly to the expansion of extractive and agricultural industries. As the structural environments governing development pathways have been historically at odds with socio-environmental concerns, the process of bioenergy governance has been influenced heavily by nationalistic and developmental ideologies about economic progress, security, and industrialization.

Second, environmental and climate change concerns barely motivate institutional changes associated with bioenergy expansion. On the contrary, expansions occurred within political milieus characterized by the subordination of environmental protection to developmental goals and security concerns. In this context, the structuration of bioenergy increased in line with permissive economic and political conditions that drove a convergence of interests between the sugarcane industry and the government for bioenergy expansion. In consequence, the organization and expansion of ethanol were at the cost of serious socio-environmental impacts.

Thus, during CJ1, bioenergy represented an economic strategy of the sugarcane agroindustry to diversify risk in the sugar markets. For the government, it was an important diversification strategy to address energy security and associated macroeconomic concerns. During CJ2, the economic instability of the sugarcane sector persisted, yet, the interest of the government in bioenergy expansion was driven more by foreign policy concerns about global climate governance and its implications for national developmental goals. These latter were principally geared to expand the national fossil fuel industry as well as large-scale agribusiness. Accordingly, bioenergy became a useful political strategy to greenwash unsustainable development pathways and security goals in the international arena.

Third, this analysis also indicates that global climate concerns have sedimented the institutionalization of bioenergy, and served as a life jacket for the sugar industry when oil prices and energy security issues declined in line with government support. As permissive conditions waned, climate concerns provided fresh ideas that were used to justify the political backing of the sugarcane ethanol industry. This drove the institutionalization of bioenergy as a legitimate adaptation strategy in Brazil, which was reflected back onto the global process of climate governance.

This scenario has important implications for sustainable development and climate governance. The interface between development pathways and maladaptation not only has serious consequences at the national level, such as socio-environmental changes related to ILUC effects of bioenergy expansion but also has implications for climate governance at the global level. This is mainly because the NDCs are the mainstays upon which the global process of climate governance relies. Furthermore, maladaptive strategies legitimated through the NDCs can directly affect the integrity of the sustainable development agenda.

As this study shows, the political economy of development pathways has serious implications for the governance of climate change and sustainable development at different scales. Accordingly, more research integrating history and political economy is necessary to analyze the relationship between development pathways and climate change governance. In this regard, historical political economy approaches to environmental change have done a remarkable of theory-building work (e.g., Metabolic Rift, Treadmill of Production, or Ecological Unequal Exchange theories inter alia). This is highly valuable in analyzing complex aspects of maladaptation as well as other critical issues of climate governance. They have shown history’s role in the root causes of environmental change, a history defined by the exploitative and unsustainable nature of capitalism, marked by resource extraction, overproduction, as well as socio-ecological imbalances and the perpetuation of vulnerabilities and social injustice (Foster 1999; Schnaiberg et al., 2002; Hornborg, 1998, Moore 2017).

For example, the Metabolic Rift Theory (MRT) can be suitable to address maladaptation and climate governance issues. Rooted in historical materialism, it maintains that the disruptive impact of capitalist practices produces an irreparable tear (rift) in the socio-ecological metabolism, i.e., an irreversible modification of the previously established patterns of material exchange between society and nature (Foster 1999; Foster et al. 2011; Moore 2017; Clark and York 2005). In the case of bioenergy in Brazil, the metabolic rift is evidenced, inter alia, in the ecological degradation of biomes like “Cerrado,” which is driven by the production of sugarcane ethanol fuels in town to cover the demand of fuels for transport in the city. Drawing on history and political economy, MTR theory can be used to tackle other interrelated aspects of maladaptation in climate governance such as racism, patriarchy, settler colonialism, and capitalism.

Furthermore, historical political economy approaches can be useful in addressing critical topics of climate governance. For example, the construction of global climate governance from a bottom-up development perspective represents an important avenue for future research. Likewise, understanding the influence of global regimes on development pathways and climate strategies represents another important topic for future research. Finally, given that actions to mitigate climate change are rarely evaluated — considering their impacts on adaptation and sustainable development goals (IPCC 2019) — more research should be done to bridge gaps and address maladaptive strategies considering the role of history and political economy in shaping current responses to climate change.

Appendices

Appendix 1. Historical regulation of bioenergy in Brazil

Table 6 Main policy instruments and measures related to the bioenergy sector before critical juncture 1

Table 6

Table 7 Main policy instruments and measures related to the bioenergy sector during critical juncture 1

Table 7

Table 8 Main policy instruments and measures related to the bioenergy sector after critical juncture and before critical juncture 2

Table 8

Table 9 Main policy instruments and measures related to the bioenergy sector from critical juncture until 2022

Table 9

Appendix 2

• (I) Fitting ARIMA Models for sugarcane bioethanol production in Brazil

Here I describe the process of modeling and fitting the periodization, according to the essential control steps of fitting and adequacy developed originally by Box and Jenkins (1976) and later by McDowall, et al. 2019. As a quasi-experiment, I periodized bioenergy evolution using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average or ARIMA models with transfer functions. For this, I use bioethanol production data from the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture (Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento-MAPA) and UNICA (União da Indústria de Cana-de-Açúcar), which covers the period 1948 to 2020.

Although there is data from previous years obtained from secondary sources, I decided to fit the range of analysis only from 1948 to 2020, as these data were obtained from more reliable sources. Hence, we work with 72 observations of bioethanol production in “000,000” liters per year. As most of the bioethanol produced in Brazil is consumed in the national fuel markets, we assume an equivalence between the production and consumption of sugarcane bioethanol in the country.

Description of the time series analysis for periodization

In line with the stages described by Box and Jenkins (1976), we have followed three basic stages in our ARIMA analysis: the identification stage, the diagnostic checking stage, and the forecasting stage. To develop the analysis, we have used the Time Series Forecasting System of SAS ETS, which allows running ARIMA models with interventions (transfer functions) and comparing the adequacy and fitting of competing models.

The plots show information about the three steps for the ARIMA model AR (1) + interventions type: Ramp for 1975, 1986, 1997, and 2000 and Step 2011 for the series of production of bioethanol: “Ethanol_ pro 000, 000,” with fit range 1948 to 2020. Then I describe the process of model selection comparing adequacy and fitting with competing models.

• (i) Prediction Error Autocorrelation

In this part, I analyze the stationary of the model. The standard way to test if the model is stationarity is to plot its autocorrelation function. The plots show the autocorrelation function plot (ACF), the inverse autocorrelation function plot (IACF), and the sample partial autocorrelation function plot (PACF). These autocorrelation function plots show the degree of correlation with past values of the series as a function of the number of periods in the past at which the correlation is computed. By examining these plots, you can also judge prima facie whether the series is stationary or nonstationary.

If the series is nonstationary, its autocorrelation function will usually decay slowly.⁵ There is not a slow decline of the ACF and the normality plots also show no departure from normality, which suggests that first differencing is not necessary and stationarity is likely. The residual correlation and white noise test plots (in the next plots) show that I cannot reject the hypothesis that the residuals are uncorrelated. In consequence, the plots show a good fit for the three types of autocorrelations so the stationary condition for the model AR (1) is likely.

With these results, I can conclude preliminarily that the model AR (1) is adequate for the analysis of bioethanol production, and there is no point in trying more complex models. However, these adequacy results are strongly supported by the Stationary Test probabilities results (next plots).

• (ii) Prediction Error White Noise and Stationary Test probabilities

The Prediction error White noise test shows the significance probabilities through the Ljung-Box chi-square statistic. In the plots, long bars favor the rejection of the null hypothesis that the prediction errors represent white noise.

The Prediction error White noise test for the model AR (1) shows clearly that they are not significant beyond the 0.001 probability level so we cannot reject the null hypothesis that the prediction errors represent white noise, i.e. that the model is adequate for this series. The significance probability of lag 11 is 0.0620, which indicates that the autocorrelations of lags 1 to 11 are not significantly different from zero.

Sample of plots for “Prediction Error Autocorrelation” and “Prediction Error White Noise and Stationary Test probabilities” used with SAS ETS

The residual correlation and white noise test plots show that I cannot reject the hypothesis that the residuals are uncorrelated. Although the previous results indicate that it is likely that the model is adequate, I’ve observed if the presence of unit roots is likely, so I observe this through the Unit Root Test (Dickey-Fuller Single Mean Test). As we can see in the probability for every bar of the test, Unit roots are not likely for the model AR (1). Given that all of the P-values are small, I could reject the null hypothesis that the series has a unit-roots or that the model is nonstationary, i.e. that the stationary series is likely.

Table 10 Parameter estimation for sugarcane ethanol production with the model AR (1) (in ‘000,000 L)

Table 10

As regards parameter estimation, the fit shows that all of the parameters for the model AR (1) present a high likelihood. We have two periods of huge expansion with positive Ramps in 1975 and 2000. These periods are considered to locate Critical Juncture 1 and 2. Likewise, we have two periods of decline with negative Ramps in 1986 and 1997. I take them as a whole period of decline, as the qualitative analysis of the bioenergy sector, indicates that the conditions for this sharp decline are linked to institutional changes observed since 1986. Similarly, in the case of the Step type in 2011 we observed that this decline in the level of production occurred within the expansive trend observed since the year 2000, during Critical juncture 2.

The results show that Model AR (1) is adequate for the series of bioethanol production in Brazil. This does not mean that it is the best model, but there is no point in trying out more complex models as AR (1) does fit for purpose. With these probability results, we cannot reject the hypothesis that the model is enough good for periodizing the analysis according to the historical bioethanol production in Brazil. I suggest replicating the analysis with SAS ETS to verify and confirm these statistical results for the periodization.

• (II) AR (1) and competing models

The previous analysis shows that AR (1) model has a good fit and is adequate for bioethanol production, but don’t discard better models. Here I followed again the three general steps of adequacy and control to fit and compare different models according to the stages described by Box and Jenkins (1976). Along the analytical process, many different models are evaluated with and without interventions and/or with different kinds of interventions at different moments. The results are compared with the results of AR(I) in order to choose the best model for bioethanol production. I have analyzed all of the competing models with SAS ETS comparing first the estimation of the: (1) R-Square, (2) Mean Square Error, (3) Root Mean Square Error, (4) Mean Absolute Error, (5) Mean Absolute Percentage Error statistics, (6) Random walk R-square, (7) Akaike information criterion, (8) Schwarz Bayesian Information Criterion, (9) Adjusted R-Square, (10) Anemiya’s Adjusted R-Square, and (11) the Anemiya’s Prediction Criterion.

According to the results of the identifying stage, which includes all the alternative models or potential explanations of the historical Brazilian bioethanol production, the Auto-Regressive ARIMA model AR (1) is ranked 1st for every statistic. Although this is enough to justify the election of the RA (1). I’ve also double-checked different competing models to discard spurious estimations, analyzing the adequacy of each one against the AR (1).

Analyzing the adequacy of alternative explicative models

In this last stage, I compare the competitive models according to the different tests of adequacy, specifying the response series, computes autocorrelations, inverse autocorrelations, partial autocorrelations, white noise test, stationarity test (Unit Root Test /Dickey-Fuller Single Mean Test), and probabilities for the model parameters for the best ARIMA and non-ARIMA models, with or without interventions.

After the adequacy analysis of competing models, we can observe that there are no better candidates for modeling the historical production of bioethanol in Brazil. I confirm that the Auto-Regressive model AR (1) is fairly good for periodizing and it is unnecessary to search for more complex models. Supporting this analysis, others authors have also found before that the Box and Jenkins’ models are adequate for modeling bioethanol production.⁶