Unlike the global profile, Brazil's main emissions do not come from fossil fuel combustion, but rather from the sector known as LULUCF, i.e., emissions from land use, land-use change and forests/forestry. In Brazil, most forest-related emissions are linked to deforestation for agriculture use.

Brazil is home to the largest expanse of tropical forest in the world: about one-third of the world's remaining tropical forests are located within its territory (NICFI, 2026). At the same time, the country is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases associated with forests, underscoring the central role of deforestation and land-use change in Brazil's emissions profile (WRI, 2025).

The share of each sector in Brazil's emissions profile is as follows (Climate Watch, 2026):

1. Land use, land-use change and forestry – LULUCF (43%) – 916.5 MtCO₂e;
2. Agriculture (27%) – 581.95 MtCO₂e;
3. Energy (22%) – 477.11 MtCO₂e;
4. Waste (4%) – 93.81 MtCO₂e;
5. Industrial processes (3%) – 56.44 MtCO₂e.

With Brazil’s National Climate Change Plan (Plano Clima 2024–2035), just transition has become a cross-cutting component of the country’s climate strategy. Published in 2026, the Cross-Cutting Climate Action Strategy: Just Transition and Climate Justice (known by its Portuguese acronym, ETTJ), guides the implementation of the Plano Clima, aiming to promote just transition and climate justice as part of the effort to build a more sustainable and equitable society.

To this end, the ETTJ adopts a broad understanding of just transition that goes beyond changes in the energy sector and their effects on the labor market. In the Brazilian context, just transition is defined as a pathway toward a low-greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient model of socioeconomic development, guided by sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty. This approach takes into account the specific characteristics of different economic sectors, countries' differentiated responsibilities, the reduction of impacts on vulnerable groups, climate justice, and efforts to combat hunger, poverty, and inequality. Its aim is to prevent the costs of the transition from being distributed unevenly and to ensure that its benefits are shared more equitably.

To guide its implementation, the strategy sets out 11 national objectives:

1. Socio-environmental Integrity: Ensure the conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of ecosystems and biomes, while recognizing the interdependence of human, environmental, and animal health.
2. Labor Market: Promote productive inclusion, professional training, and decent work in low-emission and climate-resilient sectors, while strengthening social protection and working conditions.
3. Food Systems: Make agriculture and livestock farming more sustainable by strengthening family farming, agroecology, food and nutrition security, food sovereignty, and decent working conditions in rural areas.
4. Regional and Territorial Inequalities: Reduce inequalities across regions and territories, ensuring a more equitable distribution of the benefits of the transition throughout the country.
5. Inclusive Energy Systems: Promote an energy transition that reduces energy poverty and inequalities in access to energy, while ensuring that its impacts are distributed fairly.
6. Sanitation Management: Promote sustainable, low-emission, and inclusive models of basic sanitation management, strengthening the circular economy and the inclusion of workers in the formal labor market and social protection systems.
7. Sustainable, Resilient, and Inclusive Cities: Transform and adapt cities and urban areas to make them more sustainable, safe, and resilient, while reducing the vulnerabilities of populations most exposed to climate risks.
8. Industrial Transformation: Advance the transition of production systems toward a sustainable, resilient, and low-emission economy by encouraging innovation, local development, the adaptation of existing systems, and job and income generation.
9. Resilient, Sustainable, and Low-Emission Transport: Adapt transport systems and promote new resilient, low-emission infrastructure, incorporating nature-based solutions and measures to foster social inclusion.
10. Dialogue and Social Participation: Ensure the active and representative participation of vulnerable groups and communities at every stage of climate policies and actions, promoting equity across gender, race, ethnicity, and class.
11. Social Protection and Fair and Inclusive Financing: Strengthen social protection mechanisms and expand access to fair and inclusive financing, prioritizing the most vulnerable groups and territories

Brazil’s National Policy on Climate Change (PNMC), established in 2009, is the main framework for the country’s climate policy. One of its instruments is the National Adaptation Plan (PNA), first launched in 2016. In 2025, Brazil presented its Climate Plan 2024–2035, which incorporated an updated version of the PNA, known as the Plano Clima Adaptação. In February 2026, the document was submitted to the UNFCCC’s international repository of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).

The Plan places the reduction of inequalities at the heart of its implementation. Its approach is grounded in climate justice, the fight against environmental racism, and gender equality. It recognizes that the impacts of climate change and the capacity to adapt vary according to factors such as gender, race, and socioeconomic status. The document also highlights that Black populations, Indigenous Peoples, and traditional communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental and climate impacts as a result of historical and socioeconomic inequalities. In this context, addressing environmental racism requires policies that tackle these inequalities and safeguard the rights of these populations.

The Plan establishes nine National Adaptation Objectives:

1. Increase the resilience of populations, cities, territories, and infrastructure in the face of the climate emergency.
2. Promote sustainable and resilient production and ensure regular access to healthy and adequate food.
3. Ensure water security, with sufficient water availability in terms of both quantity and quality for different uses.
4. Protect, conserve, and restore ecosystems and biodiversity, ensuring the maintenance of ecosystem services.
5. Promote, protect, and restore health and well-being, while respecting the ways of life of traditional peoples and communities.
6. Ensure energy security in a sustainable and accessible manner.
7. Promote socioeconomic development while reducing inequalities.
8. Protect cultural heritage, preserving cultural practices and local knowledge in the face of climate risks.
9. Strengthen the role of the ocean and coastal zone in addressing climate change.

To guide and monitor the Plan’s implementation, 12 national targets were also established, with deadlines ranging from 2030 to 2035. Key targets include:

• Expand adaptation planning: ensure that all Brazilian states and at least 35% of municipalities have Adaptation Plans by 2035.
• Reduce disaster risks: provide structural risk-reduction measures to at least 4 million people exposed to geohydrological disasters by 2035.
• Expand urban green cover: increase vegetation cover in urban areas by 180,000 hectares by 2035, prioritizing municipalities facing greater climate risks.
• Strengthen water security: reduce to 7.5% the share of municipalities classified at the lowest level of water security by 2035.
• Adapt infrastructure: ensure that 100% of infrastructure projects supported by the Federal Government take climate risks into account by 2035.
• Promote resilient agriculture: expand the adoption of diversified, sustainable, and resilient agricultural production systems to 72.68 million hectares by 2030.
• Address food insecurity: eradicate severe food and nutrition insecurity by 2035.
• Adapt the health system: ensure that 100% of state and municipal health departments in areas identified as priorities for climate emergencies are mobilized to promote the adaptation of Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS) to climate change by 2035.

The Plan also includes 16 Sectoral and Thematic Plans, each with specific objectives, targets, and actions. They cover strategic areas such as agriculture and livestock, family farming, biodiversity, health, energy, transport, industry and mining, cities, and the ocean and coastal zone. They also address issues such as racial equality and the fight against environmental racism, as well as actions targeting Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities.