Brazil has enacted a law creating the country’s first regulated cap-and-trade carbon market, taking a long-awaited step to mitigate the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions. The law (No. 15.042/24), signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Dec. 11 and published in the official register the next day, cleared both houses of Congress in November by wide margins. It enables the government to set carbon-emissions limits on companies that are large greenhouse-gas emitters. Companies that surpass the limits are required either to pay a penalty or to purchase emissions allowances from companies that emit less carbon than their caps allow. In enacting the new law, Brazil has become a Latin American leader in regulated carbon-market schemes. Government officials say the legislation, along with other initiatives such as stepped-up forest conservation, will help the country reach its recently strengthened Paris Agreement goals on carbon... [Log in to read more]