COP26: Ethanol is Brazil’s main focus in UN presentation

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With the automotive sector in the spotlight at the event, federal government and sugarcane industry representatives will showcase the benefits of ethanol in reducing the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere.

The Brazilian delegation will present a detailed study on ethanol to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body responsible for producing the climate report used by governments and which serves as the basis for debates at UN Climate Conferences.

The aim is to show that, contrary to what the UN believes, environmental damage is virtually zero when considering the production of this raw material, as no virgin forest is used for cultivation.

The agribusiness and automobile sector in Brazil has for some time been shifting toward the use of ethanol contrary to the advance of the sector’s electrification, the favored method in Europe.

Companies like Volkswagen, for instance, intend to invest in flex-hybrid cars, considering that the production life cycle of these models is much less polluting than a fully electric European vehicle. The German carmaker has also managed to bring its biofuel development center to Brazil.

This is possible because Brazil’s energy matrix is predominantly clean, and sugar cane production is not very harmful to the environment. Automakers such as Nissan want to use ethanol as a fuel cell for electric cars, by instantly producing hydrogen in the capsule. There is also a project underway at IPEN (Institute for Energy and Nuclear Research) to develop this technology.

Currently, with fuel prices on the rise in Brazil, the debate over the use of ethanol and alternatives to gasoline is highly relevant.