Resumo

The Paris Climate Agreement (PCA) represents a historic milestone for humankind when it comes to climate change. In fact, the 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21), a part of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) that happened in 2015, yielded a new global pact to tackle climate change and global warming issues. The Paris accord is now ratified by about 185 countries. For some researchers, – Kinley, 2017, for example – COP 21 was the most successful climate change conference of all time. The main aim of the Accord is to reduce greenhouse gases emission.

The imminent risks linked to climate change are seen as threats, taking into consideration the impact on the return of investments for investors. Thus, initiatives are being taken by businesses to reduce GHG emission and, consequently, increasing information disclosure and carbon performance (Pinkse e Kolk, 2009; Ziegler Busch e Hoffmann, 2011). There was an increase in the level of climate change disclosure (CCD) and climate performance (CP) of Brazilian businesses after the Paris agreement? The purpose is to investigate the level of CCD and CP by corporations before and after the agreement.

According to the NDC (2016), Brazil committed itself to reduce emissions by 37% below 2005’s levels by 2025, and to achieve a total reduction of 43% by 2030. In 2005, Brazil emitted 2.03 billion tons of CO2. By 2030, the country can only emit 1.15 billion tons to fulfill the Agreement’s commitment. Consequently, Brazil made a promise to increase the participation level of bioenergy in its energy mix by approximately 18% by 2030, besides restoring and reforesting 12 million hectares of forests, as well as achieving an energy mix consisting of 45% of renewable energy resource in 2030.

The population of this study is represented by all Brazilian companies. However, to compose the sample, the company must consistently respond to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) questionnaire. This is the sine qua non condition to integrate the sample of the present work. Thus, the sample is made up of the Brazilian companies that answered the CDP questionnaire between 2013 and 2018, three years before the Paris agreement (2013 to 2015) and three years after the agreement (2016 to 2018). We accessed the official site CDP (https://www.cdp.net/en) to collect data from all Brazilian companies.

This article shows that the climate management scores obtained by the companies after the agreement are higher than the scores obtained before the agreement, indicating that the companies interpreted the agreement signed in Paris as a potential regulatory risk that could strongly affect their business through a climate regulation. Thus, Brazilian companies reacted proactively by increasing their climate management disclosures after the Paris agreement and consequently their level of commitment as a way of demonstrating that they are prepared to meet the challenges of climate.

The present study contributes to the literature that deals with corporate social and environmental disclosure, especially climate disclosure. The analysis in this study provided some insight into how companies have behaving after the Paris agreement on reducing GHG emissions. It is known that the climate changes as they were put in the agenda during the Paris conference require immediate and urgent action. The corporate sector is one of the main emitters due to the production process and therefore is identified as a major contributor to climate change (Sakhel, 2017, Kolk et al., 2008).

Hoffman, A. J., & Woody, J. G. (2008). Climate change: what's your business strategy? Harvard Business Press. Kinley, R. (2017). Climate change after Paris: from turning point to transformation. Climate Policy, 17(1), 9-15. Kolk, A., & Pinkse, J. (2005). Business responses to climate change: identifying emergent strategies. California Management Review, 47(3), 6-20. Larkin, A., Kuriakose, J., Sharmina, M., & Anderson, K. (2017). What if negative emission technologies fail at scale? Implications of the Paris Agreement for big emitting nations. Climate Policy, 1-25.