Climate change policy in Brazil: contradictions, impacts, and peasant resistance strategies from Pontal do Paranapanema, São Paulo

Abstract

Climate policy, on multiple scales, is filled with false solutions based on technological innovation and the creation of environmental markets. In the case of Brazil, this policy is even more contradictory, as it relies on actions that do not address the sectors with the highest emissions, such as land use change and agriculture. In this complex context, the aim of this article is to discuss the contradiction between climate policies and their impacts on peasant territories, highlighting resistance strategies based on Agroecology in the Pontal do Paranapanema region, in the state of São Paulo. To achieve this, both quantitative methodologies, such as data collection and systematization, and qualitative approaches, such as fieldwork conducted throughout 2024 in agrarian reform settlements in the region, were employed. The research concluded that Brazil's ineffective climate policy promotes agribusiness in the Pontal do Paranapanema, encouraging the expansion of sugarcane cultivation as a supposed mitigation of climate change. At the same time, peasant territories affected by this process resist and fight for climate justice through Agroecology.