The Brazilian lower house of Congress (Câmara dos Deputados) has approved a bill to set up the RenovaBio programme, which aims at increasing the use of biofuels throughout the country. It gives Brazilian fuel distributors targets to cut carbon emissions based on certificates issued by biofuel producers, which they are expected to meet by selling increasing volumes of ethanol and biodiesel over the coming years. Besides, it would enable distributors to sell and buy the required certificates on a secondary market to meet the emissions targets.
However, the bill has to be approved by the Brazilian Senate (Senado Federal) before it could be signed by the Brazilian President.
RenovaBio is meant to help Brazilian ethanol producers, who are struggling to compete with gasoline, and could result in raising the ethanol domestic demand of 40 billion liters by 2030, from 26 billion liters in 2016.