REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT and GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS: The CASE of the AMAZON REGION

This paper verifies the existence of possible tradeoffs between policies directed at reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases and those policies directed at fostering the development of the Brazilian Amazon Region, considering its economic relations with the rest of the country and international markets. To achieve this goal, this paper uses an interregional input-output model, estimated for the Brazilian economy for the year 2004. The results of our analysis show that the sectors with the greatest importance in terms of emissions are cattle and soybean production, which are also the most prominent for the region's economic development. Although 63% of Brazil's anthropogenic emissions of CO2eq were concentrated in the Amazon Region, under a consumer perspective the region's responsibility corresponded to only 24% of emissions in the country, being surpassed by the consumer-based emissions of rest of Brazil (49%), as well as that belonging to foreign countries by means of exports (27%). This poses a dilemma that needs to be faced not only by Brazil but also by developed nations, as the burden of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the Brazilian Amazon region cannot be put only on the poor population of the region.