Brazil's Conselho Nacional de Política Energética (CNPE, the National Council for Energy Policy) approved on Friday (6) the resolution setting out the guidelines for a national roadmap to gradually reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels. There are 18 guidelines, and an interministerial working group will have to turn them into a concrete route — with deadlines, costs and financing mechanisms — within 270 days.
The meeting was chaired by Mines and Energy minister Alexandre Silveira and attended by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Casa Civil (chief of staff) minister Miriam Belchior. According to Agência Gov, the resolution follows an instruction from the president himself.
What the 18 guidelines cover
The resolution does not pick a year for the end of oil. It lists the subjects the working group is obliged to address — and that list is the measure of the problem. Among them: a just transition as a driver of development; national vulnerabilities and resilience; climate targets and international commitments; social participation; transparency and monitoring; energy security; sector impacts and capacities; financing mechanisms; public revenue; competitiveness and energy prices; workforce training; equity; risk and regret costs; transition trends; diversification of the energy sector; infrastructure adaptation; research and innovation priorities; and the alignment of energy subsidies and incentives.
Four bodies and a deadline
The working group is coordinated by the Ministério de Minas e Energia (Ministry of Mines and Energy) and brings in the Casa Civil, the Ministério da Fazenda (Ministry of Finance) and the Ministério do Meio Ambiente e Mudança do Clima (Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change). The deadline is 270 days from the appointment of its members, extendable by a further 90.
One of its tasks is to work out who pays, including the possible creation of an energy transition fund. A public consultation is planned, and other government bodies, industry, experts and civil society may take part. The roadmap must align with Brazil's national energy policy, the Plano Clima (Climate Plan) and the country's NDC — the emissions reduction target submitted under the Paris Agreement.
The four-year plan
At the same meeting the council approved the Plano Nacional de Transição Energética (Plante, the National Energy Transition Plan), an instrument of the national energy transition policy created by CNPE Resolution No. 5/2024. It has two volumes and four-year implementation cycles, and is aligned with the 2055 national energy plan and the ten-year energy expansion plan. The public consultation that preceded it drew more than 1,400 submissions and produced more than 400 changes to the text, according to the ESG Insider website. The resolution also creates a working group to follow the plan's execution.
What else came out of the meeting
- A national energy data strategy for 2027–2031, aimed at governance, standardisation and the strategic use of sector data, with its own management committee.
- An electromobility working group, with an initial 120-day term, extendable by the same period, and five technical fronts, to support a national electromobility strategy.
- A working group on the energy use of waste, to examine the legal, regulatory, economic and technological aspects of turning non-reusable, non-recyclable waste into energy — through routes such as biogas and biomethane, advanced biofuels, low-carbon hydrogen, electricity and heat. The Empresa de Pesquisa Energética (the state energy research agency) projects potential above 97 billion normal cubic metres of biogas a year by 2031.
- Changes to Resolution No. 3/2026, covering the Gás do Povo cooking gas programme, with tighter control over distributors and accredited resellers, fraud prevention, and reinforced identification and safety rules for cylinders of up to 13 kilograms.
The starting point
Figures from the 2026 national energy balance explain why Brazil comes to this debate from an unusual position. The country's energy mix — which includes transport, industry and all end uses — was 49.5% renewable in 2025, against a world average of 14.5% in 2023. In the electricity mix, the renewable share is above 80%: hydroelectric plants accounted for 51.2%, wind for 14.9% and solar for 11.4%.
The counterweight sits on the other side of the ledger. Brazil has been expanding oil output in the pre-salt basin and studying the Equatorial Margin, and it is that tension — selling more oil while designing its own way out of it — that the roadmap will have to settle in numbers.
With information from Agência Gov and the ESG Insider website.
