Respostas de comunidades ao desenvolvimento da energia eólica no litoral do Ceará, Brasil

Abstract

Recent renewable energy studies have pointed out that the gap between national and local public opinion poses a challenge to the wind energy sector. Institutional, justice and landscape factors are considered to be among the reasons for this divergence of opinion, known as the Social Gap problem. In the state of Ceará, northeastern Brazil, the opinion and participation of communities near wind farms are poorly known and opposition to wind farms has been reported. Thus, the objective was to understand responses to wind farms in three communities located in the west coast of Ceará. The methodology included the random application of questionnaires with 310 residents, defined by statistical sampling techniques. The questionnaire was adapted from Walker, Baxter and Ouellette (2014, 2015), with five levels statements of response (totally agree to completely disagree). The survey topics included procedural justice, distributive justice, landscape, institutional, territory, community invisibility and land tenure. Amarelas and Patos communities supported the existing wind farm with 50% and 54% full agreement, respectively. In Maceió, 82% totally disagreed the existing wind farm. Participation in the decision-making process was different among communities: in Patos, 67.2% reported the opportunity to express concerns and clarify doubts before the project was approved, while in Maceió 54.2% opposed this statement and 79.5% in Amarelas opposed this statement. A inequitable distribution of benefits and problems was confirmed: in Amarelas 57,7% disapproved, Patos 48,3% disapproved, Maceió 80% disapproved of the statement "the benefits of wind energy are distributed equally in my community" and Amarelas 64,1% agreed, Patos 53,8% agreed and Maceió 83,6% agreed with the sentence "wind farms have brought environmental problems for my community." The Spearman correlation coefficient confirmed that benefits, problems and the landscape had a higher correlation with the dependent variable "I support the existing wind power project in my community." Results showed that wind farms in Ceará present distributive and participatory justice problems, which can promote dissatisfaction and doubts even if benefits have been produced in some communities. Results also reveal a complex and heterogeneous reality in each community that involves territories, invisibility and land organization and that can be assessed in the context of wind energy in future research. Although low correlation was found between the dependent variable and participation, increased participation at the local level can avoid negative impacts and may reveal community priorities. Therefore, thinking about the development of wind farms in a democratic way depends on multiple aspects based on local participation.