Setback for sustainability: Brazil’s new licensing law threatens climate and biodiversity goals

Brazil’s recent environmental licensing reform exposes a contradiction between national regulation and international climate and biodiversity commitments. Law No. 15.190/2025 narrows analytical scope, expands exemptions, weakens preventive mechanisms, and shifts responsibilities to subnational authorities with uneven technical capacity. Although environmental impact assessments remain formally required, the law reduces their applicability and overlooks indirect, cumulative, and synergistic impacts. It also omits ecosystem services, despite scientific consensus on their role in climate regulation, water provision, soil protection, and pollination. This omission underestimates socio-environmental risks and undermines resilience, food security, and long-term planning. This contradiction is evident in Brazil’s renewed international engagement, including its role as host of the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém. To align national regulation with global commitments, integrating ecosystem services into licensing, alongside transparency and impact data disclosure, is urgently needed.