President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s aim to turn Brazil into a global environmental leader has faced three different challenges: conceptual, economic, and political-institutional tensions. In this article, we discuss and analyze how the concept of climate justice, the old tension between development and environmental protection, and the relationship with the Congress and social movements have been reconfigured in Lula’s third term in office. We discuss these tensions in light of Brazil’s environmental history and of the perception of important […]

Studies on the environment, public opinion, and voting have shown that, despite widespread support for the environmental cause among the population, this support does not necessarily translate into votes. This article will look into concepts including agenda setting, framing, and media effects to provide a background of how the environment became a prominent issue in public opinion. It will also test hypotheses that argue for the significance of issue decision salience, in conjunction with the issue ownership theory, to explain […]

This article aims to examine how the entry of biofuels into Brazil’s international agenda came about and which actors and interests have influenced the formulation of the Brazilian foreign policy on biofuels. To this end, the article will be developed in two stages: (1) an analysis of the factors that explain how biofuels came to fit into Brazilian foreign policy; (2) an analysis of domestic and international actors and interests that impact the international strategy adopted by Brazil on biofuels. […]