New Governance Mechanisms Contributing to the Integration of National Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Policies in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

Research in the field of Global Environmental Governance (GEG) pays considerable attention to the emergence of New Governance Mechanisms (NGM). NGM poses profound challenges to governments and institutions in the Developed and Developing world alike, corresponding to new ways of participation. This article seeks to contribute to the debates on NGM by analyzing a municipal-level environmental governance scheme based on deforestation-free commitments emerged in 2011, in Brazil, that has successfully helped to reduce deforestation in the participant municipalities; the Programa Municípios Verdes (PMV). We also shed some lights on the risks represented by promises of changes in federal environmental legislation by the newly elected government of Brazil. It is secondary research based on official data analysis that provided a cost-effective way of gaining a broad understanding of the integration of multi-level climate change mitigation and adaptation policies as well as a report of the governance of policy instruments in local governance schemes. Methodologically we rely on the method of content analysis, based on the study of the PMV Statistical Database, that gives visibility to a broad range of environmental, social, and territorial data and information for the 144 municipalities of the Pará State, through six different types of official reports.