Guidelines to Strategic Environmental Assessment in the state policy of climate change (SP, Brazil)

Abstract

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is an instrument to inform decisions at strategic levels, which main objectives is to promote the integration of sustainability targets in policy, plans and programmes. Considering its characteristics, SEA has been pointed as an important mechanism to integrate climate changes issues and objectives following a clear definition of the legal requirements to assure the adequate scoping and procedures to be applied, together with methodological guidelines to SEA application. The Sao Paulo State Policy of Climate Change provides for the use of SEA to assess the environmental effects of public and private plans and programmes by taking into account the challenges posed by climate changes within the state. Nevertheless it isn't clear concerning procedures and methodological aspects to be applied, which constitutes a challenge that must be faced within a solid scientific basis. Therefore, the present research project aims to identify the state of the art of the integration of climate change issues in impact assessments in Brazil and the definition of methodological guidelines to the use of SEA in the context of the Sao Paulo State Policy of Climate Change based on the principles and references of best practices at the international level. (AU)