Brazil

Administrative Law and Climate Change

Executive summary

Brazil, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, faces heightened exposure to the impacts of global climate change –heat waves, floods, and droughts have become recurring events in the country’s reality, requiring significant action from public authorities.

A recent and highly impactful domestic example was the 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul, which caused an estimated economic loss of BRL 89 billion (USD 16.6 billion) according to analysis by the Inter-American Development Bank[1] – in addition to immeasurable social damage.

Administrative law, as a pillar of state action, must adapt to the new climate reality and the challenges faced by Brazilian society.

A number of key aspects on the policy agenda emerge as central to climate governance in administrative law:

• Integration between urban planning, civil defense, and environmental planning;
• The Brazilian Emissions Trading System;
• Sustainability in public procurement and new climate norms in public contract logic.

A key public administration-related development on the horizon is the implementation of the Brazilian regulated emissions market, which will be gradually implemented until full operation, representing a further consolidation of public procurement as an active instrument of climate and industrial policy. In this process, administrative law begins to internalize the climate agenda as a mandatory dimension of legality, efficiency, and accountability.

How climate change is impacting administrative law

In Brazilian administrative law, the climate issue is grounded in the Federal Constitution, which recognizes a balanced environment as a right for all and a collective good, imposing on the State and society the duty to protect it.[2] For Public Administration, this means an active duty[3] to adopt policies, decisions, and practices aimed at addressing, mitigating, and adapting to climate change – as climate is an intrinsic part of the environment.

Anchored in this constitutional mandate, administrative law is not indifferent to the climate challenge. As the framework that guides State action, its principles, institutions, and instruments are mandated to evolve alongside the transformations of Brazilian society and the international community — adapting to the new climate reality we collectively face. The 2023 Ecological Transformation Plan[4] helps to articulate environmental stewardship as a structural principle of governance, establishing a cross-cutting roadmap for green industrial development, low carbon innovation, and social inclusion – reinforcing the State’s duty to align administrative governance with ecological transition goals.

Climate disasters in Brazil

In recent years, extreme weather events have become more frequent in Brazil,[5] especially heavy and prolonged rains or droughts in regions where this was previously uncommon. This phenomenon, worsened by global warming, has produced significant social and economic consequences. The most emblematic recent case occurred in Rio Grande do Sul,[6] where the 2024 floods displaced hundreds of thousands, halted productive activities, and caused an estimated loss of BRL 97 billion to the Brazilian economy.[7]

These impacts highlight the role of the public administration to plan, prevent, and respond to climate risks. In July 2024, Federal Law No. 14,904/2024 was enacted, imposing concrete obligations on public administration to formulate and implement climate adaptation plans. The law requires integration of climate risk management into existing public policies, coordinated planning, federative governance, and social participation. It establishes administrative tools for financing, monitoring, and periodic review of plans, linking them to the National Climate Policy and demanding transparency and effectiveness in state action.

The National Policy for Civil Protection and Defense (Federal Law No. 12,608/2012) expressly recognizes the importance of climate change and provides for its integration with environmental, infrastructure, and urban development policies, aiming at sustainable development.[8] In administrative law, it reinforces the State’s duty of preventive action (e.g., mapping risk areas and preparing contingency plans) and provides for integrated action among the Federal Government, States, and Municipalities in risk and disaster management.[9] These obligations were substantively amended and updated by Law No. 14,750/2023, which expanded the objectives of the National Policy for Civil Protection and Defense and set out new obligations for risk reduction and disaster recovery, [10] including an obligation for the private sector to have disaster contingency plans in place.

Another sensitive point for administrative law is land-use planning. The City Statute (Federal Law No. 10,257/2001) reinforces guidelines for land use and occupation in line with environmental protection. In areas susceptible to floods and landslides, administrative authorization for construction, execution of public works, and granting of essential services cannot ignore climate risk assessments.[11] Thus, integration between urban planning, civil defense, and environmental planning is essential for public administration.

In this context, administrative law now requires a climate-oriented interpretation of its institutions: legality and justification of administrative acts must expressly consider environmental risks; public procurement and contracts must include clauses on climate resilience and adaptation, as well as obligations for contractors to mitigate climate impacts; and the very notion of efficiency, a constitutional principle governing administration, incorporates the State’s need to prevent disasters and reduce their social and economic costs.

The extreme events highlight the State’s duty to treat the climate issue as a central point in the exercise of public administration and, consequently, in the interpretation and application of administrative law.

Brazilian Emissions Trading System (SBCE)

The enactment of Law No. 15,042/2024 marked a milestone in how climate policy connects to administrative law in Brazil. By creating the Brazilian Emissions Trading System, the country begins the transition from a voluntary market model to a regulated environment.[12] The Brazilian Emissions Trading System is expected to be implemented gradually over the coming years, according to the following phases outlined in Federal Law No. 15,042/2024:

• Phase 1: up to two years for the government to publish detailed regulations;
• Phase 2: one year for companies to create systems to record their emissions;
• Phase 3: two years during which companies must only submit monitoring plans and annual reports;
• Phase 4: start of the first National Allocation Plan, with free allocation of allowances and initial market operation;
• Phase 5: full operation of the system after the completion of the first allocation cycle.

This framework transforms emission allowances and carbon reduction certificates into mandatory legal instruments,[13] redefining the responsibilities of public administration, regulated companies, and oversight authorities, and incorporating climate governance into the daily routine of the public administration.

Institutionally, the system will be managed by an interministerial committee, a technical advisory committee, and a managing body with regulatory, enforcement, and sanctioning powers. This means that climate regulation now requires formal procedures for rulemaking, monitoring, and enforcement. Acts such as approving allocation plans, validating monitoring methodologies, and imposing penalties for non-compliance become administrative decisions subject to legality, transparency, and judicial review.

A key element is the periodic reconciliation of obligations, whereby companies must prove that their emissions remained within the limits set in the National Allocation Plan. Failure to comply constitutes an administrative offense, subject to penalties and appeals, in accordance with the principles of due administrative process in Brazil.

Another innovation is the integration of carbon assets into the financial and capital markets, under the supervision of the securities authority. This extends the reach of climate regulation beyond the environmental sector, requiring coordination among different state bodies. This structure confirms the trend that climate policy is no longer the exclusive responsibility of environmental agencies but involves economic, financial, and planning institutions.

Finally, the system imposes new planning and transparency duties on the public sector. Allocation plans must be prepared in advance, submitted for public consultation, and accompanied by technical justifications; transaction records must be disclosed in open format; and part of the revenue collected will be allocated to decarbonizing the economy and compensating traditional communities. Each step reinforces the role of administrative law in ensuring legality, efficiency, and accountability in climate governance.[14]

The Brazilian Emissions Trading System, hence, shows how administrative law internalizes the climate agenda in its core functions. It transforms environmental targets into binding obligations, creates rights and duties over emission allowances, and subjects climate governance to the principles governing public administration.

How administrative law can help to address climate change

Having recognized how climate change is reshaping administrative law and redefining the role of the State, the next step is to examine how this legal framework may actively contribute to addressing climate challenges. This requires moving from a descriptive perspective of impacts to an analytical view of the instruments through which administrative law can engage with the emerging climate reality, beginning with public procurement as a central state policy.

Public procurement

Public procurement is a relevant administrative instrument to influence market behavior and promote sustainable development. With the entry into force of Federal Law No. 14,133/2021 (New Public Procurement and Administrative Contracts Law), sustainability was expressly incorporated as a principle of public procurement. This means that the entire procurement cycle—from planning to contract execution—must consider environmental impacts, life-cycle costs, and opportunities for low-carbon solutions[15].

This framework was reinforced by Decree No. 11,890/2024, which regulated the application of so-called preference margins for national products, recycled or biodegradable goods, and technological solutions developed in Brazil. In practice, the administration can pay up to 20% more for alternatives that offer environmental or innovation benefits, turning public purchasing into an active instrument of climate and industrial policy.[16] Thus, suppliers stop competing solely at the lowest price and begin to be encouraged to offer added value in terms of sustainability and technological performance.

From the perspective of administrative law, this design creates duties of justification and technical reasoning. Each bidding notice must demonstrate that environmental and climate criteria were considered in the preliminary studies supporting the procurement.[17] This requires public managers to clearly explain why certain materials, technologies, or suppliers best meet sustainability and climate adaptation goals.[18] Failure to provide this analysis may compromise the legality of the process and lead to liability.

Another significant development was the creation of the Interministerial Commission on Public Procurement for Sustainable Development (CICS),[19] a permanent governance body responsible for aligning the State’s purchasing power with industrial, technological, and ecological transformation policies. It is up to CICS to define technical standards, monitor the productive capacity of the sectors, and harmonize contracting criteria with national climate and industrial goals.

This set of changes represents a paradigm shift: public procurement ceases to be merely an administrative procedure aimed at obtaining the lowest price and becomes consolidated as a strategic instrument of public policy. Administrative law ensures legality, transparency, and equality, while incorporating climate goals into the State’s economic machinery. Each public contract, therefore, carries the potential to drive innovation, strengthen local supply chains, and foster climate resilience.

Nonetheless, the practical implementation of this model faces significant challenges, particularly due to the limited technical and budgetary capacity of many public entities — most notably state and municipal administrations — which often lack specific knowledge and skills to design, substantiate, and oversee procurement processes aligned with sustainability requirements.

Shifting climate norms in public contracts

Climate change has been challenging the traditional interpretation of the force majeure clause in administrative contracts. Traditionally, unforeseeable and unavoidable events—such as floods, extreme droughts, or landslides—were treated as extraordinary circumstances exempting the contractor from liability for non-performance. However, the increasing frequency and intensity of these events may be used by the government to question the unpredictability, a central element for configuring force majeure.

Federal Law No. 14,133/2021 requires administrative contracts to include a risk matrix, clearly allocating which events will be borne by the Administration and which by the contractor. In this context, climate disasters are no longer mere external events and must be analyzed in advance during contract planning. Failure to do so may lead to litigation, economic revisions, and even the suspension of essential works and services.

The increasing frequency and severity of climate change impacts therefore requires public administration and suppliers to internalize environmental risks in contractual instruments. This means:

• Revising the concept of unpredictability — recurring floods or droughts can no longer be generically claimed as force majeure; it must be verified whether they were foreseeable risks and whether they were mapped in the contract.
• Specific adaptation clauses — inclusion of contractual obligations related to climate resilience, such as contingency plans, use of more weather-resistant materials, or additional guarantees for service continuity.
• Flexibility in deadlines and rebalancing — when it is proven that the climate event exceeded contractual forecasts, the right to revise the contract term or value may be recognized, in light of the principle of economic-financial balance.

This evolution reflects a broader movement: the administration may no longer treat climate disasters as exceptional accidents but as part of the ordinary risk of public management.[20] At the same time, private parties should not be disproportionately burdened by phenomena whose intensity stems from global factors beyond their control. The key lies in balanced risk allocation, based on planning, technical evidence, and contractual dialogue.

Thus, the force majeure clause, traditionally seen as an exception, tends to gain centrality in administrative contracts in times of climate crisis. This is seen in practice – the Rio Grande do Sul floods reignited debate over what constitutes force majeure in the context of climate change,[21] particularly given that the “unpredictability” requisite is no longer present at the current state of climate science. It becomes a point of convergence between legal certainty and state resilience, ensuring that contract execution is not paralyzed by each disaster but adapted to face a scenario where the unpredictable has become increasingly predictable.

Future trends

The climate agenda in Brazilian administrative law tends to advance along the fronts mentioned above: (i) integration between urban planning, civil defense, and environmental planning; (ii) implementation of the regulated emissions market; (iii) consolidation of sustainability as a structuring principle in public procurement and the logic of the new climate normal in administrative contracts.

The integration between urban planning, civil defense, and environmental planning is increasingly essential to prevent and mitigate extreme events such as the 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul, requiring administrative law to regulate state action in this new reality.

Sustainability in public procurement is expected to gain increasing strength. As mentioned, Law No. 14,133/2021 enshrined sustainable development as a principle of procurement, reinforced by Decree No. 11,890/2024, which regulated preference margins of up to 20% for low-carbon, recyclable, and innovative goods. All this turns public purchasing into a climate policy tool and requires managers to provide technical justification for each choice. Finally, new climate norms tend to redefine the logic of administrative contracts: prior analysis of environmental risks and clearer contractual matrices, a new interpretation of the force majeure clause, and balanced allocation of responsibilities between the administration and contractors.

[1] Inter American Development Bank. Avaliação dos efeitos e impactos das inundações no Rio Grande do Sul. November 2024. Available at: https://publications.iadb.org/pt/avaliacao-dos-efeitos-e-impactos-das-inundacoes-no-rio-grande-do-sul.

[2] Brazil. Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988, Art. 225. Available at: https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicao.htm

[3] Moraes, Alexandre de et al. Constituição Federal Comentada. 1st ed. Rio de Janeiro: Forense, 2018.

[4] Brazil. Ministério da Fazenda (Ministry of Finance). Plano de Transformação Ecológica. Available at : https://www.gov.br/fazenda/pt-br/acesso-a-informacao/acoes-e-programas/transformacao-ecologica/novo-brasil-ecological-transformation-plan/novo-brasil-ecological-transformation-plan.

[5] Dantas et al. Projections of extreme weather events according to climate change scenarios and populations at-risk in Brazil. Climatic Change n. 178, n. 152 (2025). Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-025-03989-2.

[6] Brazil. National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency (Agência Nacional de Águas e Saneamento Básico – ANA). As enchentes no Rio Grande do Sul: lições, desafios e caminhos para um futuro resiliente. Brasília: ANA, 2025. Available at: https://lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/292115/001257393.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

[7] Brazil. National Confederation of Commerce in Goods, Services and Tourism (Confederação Nacional do Comércio de Bens, Serviços e Turismo – CNC). Análise dos Impactos Econômicos da Catástrofe no Rio Grande Do Sul. Brasília: CNC, 2024.

[8] Brazil. Federal Law No. 12.608/2012, Art. 3, sole paragraf.

 [9] Almeida; Paula Emília Gomes de. A Política Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Civil: Os desastres como Problema Político. 2015. Available at: https://www.ufrgs.br/sicp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ALMEIDA-Paula-Em%C3%ADlia-G.-A-Pol%C3%ADtica-Nacional-de-Prote%C3%A7%C3%A3o-e-Defesa-Civil-desastres-como-um-problema-pol%C3%ADtico.pdf.

[10] Empresa Brasil de Comunicação. Law that improves the instruments for the prevention of accidents or disasters is sanctioned. 2023. Available at: https://agenciagov.ebc.com.br/noticias/202312/presidente-lula-sanciona-lei-que-aprimora-os-instrumentos-de-prevencao-de-acidentes-ou-desastres.

[11] Marques, Luiza Barbosa et al. Mudanças Climáticas e Planos Diretores em Cidades de Pequeno Porte: Possibilidades e Desafios para o Enfrentamento da Crise Climática na Escala Local. In: Proceedings of the 17th National Meeting on Comfort in the Built Environment (Anais do 17º Encontro Nacional de Conforto no Ambiente Construído – ENCAC), 2023. Available at:  https://eventos.antac.org.br/index.php/encac/article/view/4102/4338.

[12] Brazil. Ministry of Finance (Ministério da Fazenda). Roteiro de Implementação do Sistema Brasileiro de Comércio de Emissões de Gases de Efeito Estufa – SBCE. Brasília:Ministry of Finance, 2024. Available at: https://www.gov.br/fazenda/pt-br/central-de-conteudo/publicacoes/guias-e-manuais/2024/241209-crtlh-implementacao-sbce-v4.pdf.

[13] Vieira, Adriana Carvalho Pinto et al. O mercado regulado de carbono no Brasil. Estudos Avançados n. 39, no. 114 (2025). Available at: https://doaj.org/article/eac734811c334622a73f5d48fc37eed8

[14] Guitarrari, Luiza; Aguiar, Ana Beatriz; Marques, João Victor. O mercado de carbono no Brasil: Desafios para a harmonização com mecanismos setoriais – Renovabio, 2025. Available at: https://fgvenergia.fgv.br/sites/fgvenergia.fgv.br/files/opiniao_mercado_de_carbono_13-01-2024.pdf.

[15] Brazil. Federal Law No. 14.133/2021. Art. 5º and Art. 11, IV.

[16] Brazil. Federal Law No. 14.133/2021. Art. 18, §1º, XII.

[17] Brazil, Federal Law No. 14.133/2021. Art. 18, §1º, XII.

[18] Brazil. Advocacia-Geral da União – AGU. Consultoria-Geral da União. Cartilha: Como Inserir Critérios de Sustentabilidade nas Contratações Públicas. Brasília: AGU, 2022. Available at: https://www.gov.br/agu/pt-br/composicao/cgu/cgu/cartasecartilhas/cartilha-como-inerir-criterios-de-sustentabilidade-nas-contratacoes-publicas.pdf.

[19] Brazil. Decree No. 11.890/2024. Arts. 7 and 8.

[20] Lobo, Felipe; Nóbrega, Marcos. O Novo Contrato Administrativo e os Desafios de uma Infraestrutura em Transformação: a natureza dinâmica e complexa dos contratos e das novas abordagens legais. 1st ed. Salvador: Juspodivm, 2025.

[21] Machado Meyer. Tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul continues to have effects on civil liability. 2024. Available at: https://www.machadomeyer.com.br/en/recent-publications/publications/litigation/tragedy-in-rio-grande-do-sul-continues-to-have-effects-on-civil-liability.