OPINIÃO. Por que o dinheiro do clima pode mudar de endereço?

In the previous year, global climate investment reached approximately US$2.1 trillion, according to estimates by the Climate Policy Initiative. This figure is comparable to global defense spending (US$2.9 trillion) and artificial intelligence (US$2.7 trillion), positioning climate change as a key theme in the global economy. While the growth rate slowed to around 2.5% after peaking at 30% in 2021, the investment remains far short of the needed US$7.8 trillion annually by 2030.

The sector is undergoing transformation with fiscal constraints in wealthy countries reducing structural public capital availability. In this context, three factors place Brazil in a privileged position for the coming years. The first is maturity. In 2024, 92% of Brazil's added electricity capacity was renewable, in a nearly 90% clean matrix.

The energy models are already financeable with commercial capital, and the demand for innovation focuses on efficiency and scale. The second is the search for private capital, particularly domestic (85% of the global climate investment has already been made by the country of origin). With fewer donor funds, the sector seeks to understand how much private capital each public real can mobilize.

Brazil is one of the few emerging economies with savings and capital markets capable of financing its own catalytic capital. With Treasury resources, Eco Invest Brasil — the Ministry of Finance's program offering cheap credit and exchange-rate protection to financial institutions in exchange for private capital for the ecological transition, has allocated R$57.5 billion in its first five auctions and has an average private capital leverage of 3.5x — has made Brazil the largest blended finance market in the world in 2025, accounting for 18% of transactions and 10% of the financed volume.

The third is land use. Agriculture, forests, and land use have a mitigation potential of 8 billion tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030 and form the most underfunded theme. About 70% of the resources still come from public sources, and the amount needed is 153 times the amount invested today, one of the largest growth potentials. It is a theme in which Brazil is a global leader, with the planet's greatest biodiversity, the largest tropical forest, and the largest exporter of soy, beef, and coffee.

Technology can be used structured to reduce uncertainties. Agrorobotic, born at Embrapa, analyzes soil with lasers and AI in seconds, and measures carbon stored in it. Another case is Traive, which assesses agricultural credit risk and connects producers to the capital market. With more information, the rural producer becomes financeable.

However, technology and traditional credit are not enough to solve one of the main problems of land use transition in Brazil. Recovering the passive of areas degraded by extensive pastures is one of the bets of the Federal Government to increase food production and stop deforestation by 2050. Addressing such a massive challenge requires creating mechanisms that allow traditional markets to invest without having to change the risk levels stipulated in their mandates.

A unit trust investment structure is the model that today can best attract traditional capital, which would enter the senior shares, with conditions to which they are accustomed. With the end of the electoral cycle, the issue stops being whether Brazil has the conditions and becomes how to turn them into a flow of capital. In a mandate pressured by the need for a fiscal adjustment, three low-cost measures would help.

The first is to give predictability to Eco Invest, with a regular auction schedule and more lines dedicated to land use, capable of financing senior shares of credit credit funds. The second is to open space for pension funds and insurers in the senior shares of these structures, reviewing allocation rules that today hamper this investment.

The third is standardization. Structures that already work should have a reference model, so each operation does not have to be designed from scratch. Gilberto Ribeiro de Oliveira Filho is a partner and co-CEO of VOX Capital, a pioneer manager of Impact Investments in Brazil.