The Brazilian National Council of Justice (CNJ) has recently issued Recommendation No. 156/2024, advising all branches of the Brazilian Judiciary and judges to adopt the second scope of the CNJ’s Protocol for Judging Environmental Lawsuits (Protocol). This second scope provides guidelines for quantifying the impact of environmental damages on climate change. In 2023, the CNJ published the first scope of the Protocol, which focused on using satellite imaging as evidence in environmental lawsuits.
The second scope aims to assist Brazilian judges in adhering to Article 14 of CNJ Resolution No. 433/2021, which requires that verdicts on environmental damages consider their impact on climate change. Specifically, the Protocol introduces methodologies for calculating greenhouse gas emissions resulting from deforestation and fires in Brazilian biomes, assigning a financial value to these emissions.
The financial valuation of damages is calculated using the following steps:
- Determine the extent of the damaged area (in hectares).
- Estimate the average carbon stock in the area or biome (per hectare).
- Calculate the carbon stock lost by multiplying (1) and (2).
- Convert the lost carbon stock into tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).
- Assign a price to CO2e, based on Protocol parameters.
- Calculate the final value by multiplying (4) and (5).
Regarding CO2e pricing, the Recommendation specifies that judges should not use a value lower than the rate established for contracts under the Amazon Fund, which is currently set at USD 5.00 per tCO2e. When this rate is revised, judges are encouraged to adopt the updated value, converted into Brazilian reais (BRL).
This new framework is expected to guide the Brazilian Judiciary in addressing environmental damage lawsuits more comprehensively. By incorporating the climate impacts of deforestation and fires, the assessment of these damages by the Judiciary will no longer be limited to their direct effect on the forest but is also expected to reflect their contribution to climate change.