Mandatos de biocombustíveis e crescimento da demanda mundial de etanol: efeitos sobre a economia brasileira

Abstract

The worsening effects of global warming, the volatility of oil prices and the concern about energy security are issues that contribute to increasing incentives for the production of biofuels and the development of related policies. Since the 2000’s, regions such as the United States and the European Union have launched the biofuel mandates, policies that set targets for consumption and production of renewable fuels by the year 2020. The growth of domestic demand is not accompanied by a growth in domestic supply, thus needing to import ethanol or biodiesel. It is in this scenario that Brazil emerges as a possible supplier of ethanol to these regions because of the availability of land for the expansion of sugar cane cultivation the high productivity of this commodity and the knowledge of production technology. The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze the role of Brazil in the world biofuels market and to identify the implications caused by the renewable fuel policies of regions such as the United States and the European Union. For this purpose, a Computable General Equilibrium model was constructed from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) called GTAP-BIOBR. In this model, the biofuels sectors are disaggregated, which favors the analysis of the sugarcane ethanol trade, whose main producer is Brazil. The analysis strategy employed was to simulate three scenarios with shocks in Brazilian ethanol exports to the United States and the European Union in the year 2020. The results show that ethanol production in Brazil would increase in all situations, accompanied by the growth of the level of economic activity. On the other hand, the price of sugarcane ethanol would suffer a fall and there would be a loss of economic welfare in the country as a result of the worsening terms of trade.