Environmental law, public policies, and climate change: A social-legal analysis in the brazilian context

Abstract

This chapter aims to analyze the laws and public policies in relation to climate change in Brazil, its implementation, and concrete results. Through a review of legislation and state of the art, this chapter gives evidence to the positive and negative interventions of the public policies since the 1950s until the present moment, using some examples, such as the bad initiative of construction of roads that promoted the deforestation and the good work made in Paragominas, Pará, to reduce environmental degradation and deforestation. As results, this chapter proposes a new perspective of the environmental law and reveals its importance in order to cope with the challenges of climate change and environmental issues, in an integrative way. In order to do so, it seeks to integrate society and governments’ efforts to make possible the changes in the present climate situation, as it has been made in some isolated cases, such as Paragominas.