Address by Minister Mauro Vieira at the opening of the "Sustainable Mobility: Ethanol Talks’ - Hanoi, April 10, 2024

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honor to open this seminar and inaugurate the discussion of such a pivotal issue for the world. The crucial matter at hand is the urgent need to decarbonize our economies. Sustainable bioenergy is paramount in achieving this goal. Brazil has an important experience in bioenergy, with ethanol figuring as a central tenet of our flagship policy for decades.

The world faces the challenge of reducing emissions quickly, while ensuring access to clean and affordable energy in a context of growing demand. Brazil approaches this challenge very seriously. We believe the only reasonable way to collectively overcome the climate crisis is through cooperation, the exchange of experiences, and public-private dialogue.

Today’s seminar will discuss ways to reduce emissions from the transport/mobility sector, focusing on how biofuels can contribute to this goal. Together, we can add to global efforts towards a low-carbon future.

I congratulate the Brazilian Sugarcane and Bioenergy Industry Association, UNICA, and the Brazil Ethanol Cluster, APLA, for organizing such an insightful event. The panels address topics like the importance of policy frameworks, ethanol’s role in the automotive industry, technological solutions for emission reduction and sustainability, and ethanol production and use in Southeast Asia.

I would also like to thank our Embassy in Hanoi for their support in helping us organize this event here in Vietnam. This initiative is proof of Brazil’s renewed willingness to further cooperate with Vietnam and ASEAN in shaping a more prosperous and sustainable future for our countries.

Ladies and gentlemen,

There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution when it comes to energy transition. It is the sovereign right of each country to choose the technological pathways that best align with their national priorities and realities in their efforts to decarbonize their economies. In Brazil, roughly 90% of the electricity output and nearly 50% of the overall energy mix come from a wide variety of clean and renewable sources, and these results have been achieved with locally adapted technologies and an understanding of our national realities.

Brazil’s policymakers never overlooked bioenergy. On the contrary, modern, sustainable bioenergy has become the most important clean energy source in our country. It corresponds to almost one-third of the total energy supply in the country. The Brazilian experience of more than five decades with biofuels demonstrates that they are a sustainable, low-cost and a competitive solution to reduce emissions in the transport/mobility sector and to limit expenses with fossil fuel imports. Thanks to biofuels, Brazil is the second largest creator of green jobs in the world.

We have learned through this journey that the production and use of biofuels depend heavily on an enabling public environment – in other words, it depends on sound public policy. Through an innovative bioenergy program called RENOVABIO, Brazil adopted a legal framework that created the conditions for emission reduction targets and for the trading of carbon credits to mitigate emissions in the transport sector. The Brazilian Government plans to expand this program to second-generation biofuels, such as sustainable aviation fuels, biomethane, biodiesel, green diesel, and aviation biokerosene.

Brazil is also engaged in international initiatives that can contribute to sharing knowledge and experiences on bioenergy production and use. Brazil is an active member of the Global Bioenergy Partnership at the FAO and the Biofuture Platform. We are also a founding member of the Global Biofuels Alliance, the GBA, launched during the G20 Summit in New Delhi last year. We believe this initiative can significantly contribute to the development of a global biofuels market, with a special contribution from the Global South.

Brazil’s G20 presidency will also bring bioenergy to the center of the debate on energy transition, as it is an excellent example of what sustainable development should look like in developing countries: biofuels can, at the same time, create high-quality jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, bring development to rural areas, and strengthen energy security.

Finally, I would like to commend Vietnam on its ambitious 2030 National Energy Plan. I hope that our experience in bioenergy to be shared here today will somehow contribute to Vietnam’s energy transition process.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Over the last months and years, we have witnessed the worsening symptoms of climate change all over the world. Extreme weather events have become more and more frequent. We are facing an emergency.

As pointed out by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), without scaling up our use of bioenergy, the world will not reach our collective goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5 degree Celsius. Brazil believes that the IEA’s call for the world to triple its modern bioenergy supply by 2050 is feasible, as long as proper policies, frameworks, technology, finance, and good practices are in place.

I look forward to working with all of you and wish you a very fruitful seminar today. Thank you.