Policy Briefs approach export, pricing of water, and the climate changes in farming, the cost of urban immobility, green jobs, and the impacts of NGV

Recently released, the special series bring texts based on the theses and dissertations of the scholarship economists of Escolhas Chair of Economics and Environment, with data and numbers that contribute to the improvement of public policies

With the purpose of allowing greater visibility to the academic texts produced by the scholarship economists of Escolhas Chair of Economics and Environment, and focusing on subjects relevant to the society and that contribute with the formulation and improvement of public policies, Escolhas released the Escolhas Chair Policy Brief series. The five editions already published approach themes such as the export and pricing of water, in farming, the cost of the urban immobility in São Paulo, the impacts of the use of NGV, the effect of the climate changes in the agricultural production, and the green jobs. Escolhas Chair of Economics and Environment has Itaú as one of the sponsors.

The Project manager of Instituto Escolhas, Jaqueline Ferreira, explains the reasons so that the Institute releases the special series based on the theses and dissertations of the scholarships. “The Policy Briefs are a way of translating to the decision makers and society the result of the academic researches developed by the scholarships of Escolhas Chair. It is very common excellent academic works that bring important readings to the problems of the country be quiet at the sites of post-graduation programs. The idea is not to let it to happen.

With the title “Climate Changes in Brazil: systemic effects under uncertainty scenarios”, the author Bruno Santos de Souza opened the special series showing that the total economic losses on Brazilian economy may represent more than 3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with the climate changes projected to Brazilian regions. The work analyzes the effects on the productivity of soy, sugarcane, corn, beans, coffee, and orange between 2020 and 2100 – cultures that represent around 82% of the agricultural production of the country – and presents optimistic and pessimistic scenarios about the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG).   In the recommendations, strategies of public policies may be implemented in the short term able to minimize the emission of carbon; the variability of agricultural cultures, the willful governmental engagement in joint actions between agriculture and environment, among others.

In the Policy Brief “Virtual water exported by Brazil through farming products” , the economist Jaqueline Gelain analyzes the cost effectiveness of the exports of virtual water across the country. Among the conclusions: Brazil exported 2.5 billion cubic meters of water, between 2002 and 2016, contained in products such as sugar, coffee, corn, soy, and beef. The recommendation: the need of Brazil to assess the charge policy for the use of water. The virtual water is the total quantity of water used in the process of farming or industrial production, as explained in the work, which analyzes the quantity of such supply in each product. And, based on the value of the charge for the use of the water resource by the Brazilian states, Jaquelini Gelain approached the price of water in comparison to other 12 countries in the world. The result showed that Brazil, as well as Iran, is one of the countries that less charge for the water resource, being in the last place on the table with the average value of US$ PPP/m³ of 0.005 (PPP dollar – Purchasing Power Parity, year 2016).

“How much does the urban immobility in São Paulo cost?” is the third Policy Brief of Escolhas Chair series, signed by the economist Ricardo Campante Vale. The answer: the loss is over R$ 7 billion a year and to each worker it is of R$ 747.00. With more than 43 million trips a day in the city of São Paulo, its inhabitants face an average of 1,472 km of traffic jam. Additionally, the estimate is that 89% of the trips go through delays. The author makes recommendations to a policy of sustainable traffic, showing that it means the possibility of change of the citizens’ transportation preferences and that consider factors that influence such preferences, such as safety, comfort, agility, and predictability of the transportation.

The fourth Policy Brief  “Natural Gas Vehicles, environment, and fuel market”, signed by Roberto Amaral Santos, reveals that policies favoring Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) in states producers of ethanol may not show to be environmentally effective. NGV is an option of cheaper fuel, being able to reach 60% of the price of ethanol and of gasoline, an with lower emission of carbon gas than such two products.  When the driver invests in NGV, the demand for the other fuels is reduced, negatively impacting their prices. The Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) represent 3% of Brazilian fleet (approximately 2.25 million vehicles) and 5% of the fleet of Southeast region (approximately 1.7 million vehicles) reveals the text, which makes simulations according to the growth of the fleet of cars with such type of fuel to the state of Rio de Janeiro, considering three different scenarios.

“Green jobs: what is their impact?” , the fifth Policy Brief, which author is the economist Tayanne Renata Arbecispo, presents the ranking of the green jobs in Brazil, which brings the leadership of the Southeast region, followed by South region, distributed in sectors such as recycling and reduction of waste, agriculture, and reforestation, generation of renewable energy, green construction, and environmental protection. The work uses as reference the Green Job Index and aimed at identifying how green the economy of a certain location is, from the analysis of ten sectors, in the 26 Brazilian states and in Federal District, between 2002 and 2014, from the “Annual Report of Social Information” (RAIS). The information were cataloged from the definition of “green job”, that is, any job classified by the Occupational Information Network (O*NET). The Green Job Index varies from 0 to 1, where the results close to 1 reveal that the region is close to the structure defined as green economy, case of the state of São Paulo with index of 0.7. And the values close to 0 show the contrary, as it is the case of Alagoas and Acre, with indexes equal to 0.2.

About the Chair

Escolhas Chair of Economics and Environment, which counts on the sponsorship of Itaú, offers scholarships of master and PhD degrees for post-graduation students interested in studying Economics in its interface with the Environment. Know the scholarships and the works developed thereby in the social networks of Instituto Escolhas.

Since 2016, the Chair already benefited 23 scholars of several states of Brazil, being that twelve already defended the thesis.