Green rhetoric, anti-environmental voting: legislative behavior in Brazil’s agribusiness caucus

Do international market pressures reshape domestic climate politics, or do they merely induce rhetorical adaptation? While climate politics in advanced economies centers on fossil fuels, Brazil presents a different configuration: land-use change and agriculture account for most national greenhouse gas emissions, placing agribusiness at the center of climate policymaking. Research documents intra-sectoral divisions in agribusiness rhetoric: exporters integrated into global value chains increasingly adopt pro-environmental discourses under international scrutiny, whereas less exposed producers oppose environmental regulation. We test whether these external pressures translate into divergent legislative behavior within Brazil’s Agribusiness Caucus (FPA). Using roll-call votes and campaign finance data, we compare legislators primarily financed by export-oriented firms with those financed by farmers. Contrary to expectations, we find near-unanimous alignment against environmental protections across the caucus. Global value chain pressures induce rhetorical adaptation but do not alter climate policymaking, revealing the limits of market-based external constraints in shaping domestic environmental politics.