Overview
The study of a country's legislative production, encompassing the volume and nature of proposals within the realm of the Legislative Branch, holds significant academic potential. They serve as a mirror reflecting political priorities, legislators' interests, coalition dynamics, and the debates surrounding crucial social, economic, and environmental issues. Despite its notable potential, the academic pursuit of understanding these legislative proposals encounters notable hurdles. The sheer volume of data stands out as a primary challenge. In our research project, we venture into the database of the National Congress to thoroughly examine all legislative efforts pertaining to the energy transition from 1988 up to December 2023.
Methods
Our methodology for mapping legislative proposals involves creating a comprehensive database that encapsulates a range of variables relevant to these proposals. This includes basic information, legislative progress, and content analysis. The data acquisition phase sources legislative proposals from the official databases of the National Congress through methods like APIs, web scraping, or specific format data extraction, all guided by predetermined keywords.
To process the text of these proposals, we employ Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to identify patterns, specifically focusing on whether a proposal introduces new legislation or amends existing norms, complemented by manual readings by our research team.
We then utilize machine learning for classifying these proposals into themes and subthemes, again supported by manual readings to ensure a thorough categorization. Following this, we undertake descriptive statistical analyses and create visualizations to aid in the comprehension and interpretation of the data.
In the qualitative phase of our methodology, we focus on data validation to ensure its consistency. This involves identifying inconsistencies, errors, and anomalies through manual data review, logical consistency analysis, and random sampling for a detailed examination.
Results
Our research is currently underway, focusing on a thorough quantitative and qualitative analysis of Brazil's legislative efforts towards energy transition. We anticipate our findings to culminate in a detailed paper, profiling the legislative proposals from 1988 to December 2023. This will encompass a variety of key areas, including renewable energy policies, solar and wind power generation, infrastructure and smart grids developments, energy storage and emerging technologies, supply chains for clean energy, research and development (R&D) initiatives, energy efficiency policies, and greenhouse gas emissions mitigation.
In particular, our study will explore legislative landscape around incentives and fiscal stimuli for the development and use of renewable energies, regulations supporting distributed solar and wind generation, grid modernization for renewable integration, energy storage incentives, cleaner energy transition strategies, supply chain policies, R&D investments, and legislative measures for enhancing energy efficiency and reducing emissions.
Conclusions
The conclusions of our article aim to deliver key insights into Brazil's legislative framework regarding energy transition, offering a comprehensive understanding of the policies, regulations, and initiatives driving the country's transition to clean and renewable energy sources. Through a detailed examination of legislative proposals spanning renewable energy policies, infrastructure upgrades, R&D funding, and emissions reduction, this research would contribute significantly to the academic community's understanding of Brazil's energy transition trajectory.
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