The government of Brazil announced today a new climate goal, targeting a 59% – 67% reduction in economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2035, on a 2005 basis, and highlighted key progress in the fight against deforestation, which it said has decreased by nearly a third over the past year.

The new decarbonization goal, to be officially presented at the COP29 climate conference currently underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, will form Brazil’s second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement. NDCs are national climate action plans presented by each country under the agreement, and are required to be updated every five years with increasingly higher ambition.

Brazil’s current NDC targets a 53% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030. The country has also set a goal to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.

Brazil is currently the world’s sixth-largest greenhouse gas emitter. According to a government statement, achieving the new target will be equivalent to reducing emissions by 850 million to 1.05 billion tonnes in 2035.

Alongside the new target, Brazil said that it will update its Climate Plan, guiding its actions to combat climate change through 2035, including a series of sectoral plans targeting climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Among the key initiatives highlighted by the government in its actions to address climate change, is combatting deforestation. Brazil announced last week that the deforestation rate in the Amazon declined by 31% year-over-year from August 2023 to July 2024, marking the largest percentage drop in 15 years.