By: Jeffrey A. Brooks and Jonathan B. Freeman

“In exchange for political support, the Brazilian government is signaling landholders to increase deforestation, putting the country’s contribution to the Paris Agreement at risk. The President of Brazil has signed provisionary acts and decrees lowering environmental licensing requirements, suspending the ratification of indigenous lands, reducing the size of protected areas and facilitating land grabbers to obtain the deeds of illegally deforested areas2. This could undermine the success of Brazil’s CO2 emission reductions through control of deforestation in the previous decade…”

Nevada and Massachusetts, two of the first adopters of modern-day renewable portfolio standards (RPS), just celebrated their policies’ 20th birthdays.