PLANB Index : Sociological Categories for Climate Policymakers ,

This article presents a theoretical-normative instrument for climate policymakers to address the climate issue from the social studies’ sociological perspective intersected with political ecology. Climate initiatives and policies are on the agenda of various social groups; at the same time, climate policymakers need instruments. Brazil lacks such theoretical-normative instruments. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature on climate ethics from a sociological perspective, this study developed and tested ‘PLANB Index’ in twenty-two Brazilian climate instruments formulated by the state, the private and third sectors, and academia. The index is composed of five modeled analytical categories: plurality in decision-making, energy locality, epistemic and material access, planned naturalness, and generational benefit. The results show that there is a mix of anthropocentric and ecocentric principles in the contents created by multisectoral arrangements – including private superclusters and international state investment funds. ‘PLANB Index’ proved to be an effective tool to identify the guiding principles in Brazilian climate policies; it might also contribute to future climate policymaking. ‘PLANB Index’ is an original contribution because it was not only empirically tested in the Brazilian context but also modeled from a sociological perspective, in close connection to other social science fields, with an emphasis on the ethical-political dimension.

ormulating climate policies to postpone the end of the world is not only a techno-economic challenge but also an ethical and political issue given the climate emergency and the variety of social agents from different social groups involved (BRULLE, 2019;GARDINER, 2017).Compared to other disciplines, the social sciences have only marginally approached the issue of climate change (FLEURY, MIGUEL and TADDEI, 2019).Theoretical-normative instruments -which comprehend the fields of climate governance and criticisms of the Anthropocene (especially in the Social Studies of Science and Technology -SSST) -have emerged in the Brazilian scientific community, such as the 'Urban Adaptation Index', which seeks to contribute to tackling the effects of climate change in large urban centers (NEDER et al., 2021).This study addresses the topic of politics of climate change (with a focus on climate change policies) in Brazil in a context in which different climate moral agents (State, Market, Civil Society Organizations, among others) interact while competing for utopian perspectives currently under construction.
This article presents a theoretical-normative instrument built based on social studies dedicated to the nexus between ethics and politics.This is the result of research on climate initiatives and policies in Brazil.'PLANB Index' was developed and tested to help climate policymakers formulate and assess policies guided by ethical values that were normalized through five analytical categories and their respective indicators.The instrument works as a bridge between the reflective-theoretical and normative-empirical spheres.The name 'PLANB' is the Portuguese acronym for the five analytical categories: 'p'lurality in decision-making, energy 'l'ocality, epistemic and material 'a'ccess, planned 'n'aturalness, and generational 'b'enefit.
This study aimed at developing a conceptual framework to evaluate and build climate policies that are morally oriented by a type of science that is politically guided by ethics.'PLANB Index' thus seeks to address this contemporary challenge that affects human and more-than-human beings 1 differently and aggravates social and ecological inequities.'PLANB Index' was constructed based on climate ethics (GARDINER, 2017;______________________________________________________________________________________________ GARDINER et al., 2010), socio-environmental ethics (FLORIT, SAMPAIO and PHILIPPI JR., 2019), and convivialist ethics (INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020).
Baumgarten raises the following concern: In the face of "the crisis of positivist science and its paradigms, its historical relationship with hegemonic interests, the risks of an unethical science for nature and society […] How are conceptions of the world, ideologies, and utopias built?" (BAUMGARTEN, 2022, p. 63).And, I add, how can the demands of different moral agents be addressed -at least partially -given that climate policies are shaped by imagined utopias guided by different ethical principles?In the climate context, hegemonic interests are organized by large dominant coalitions that create denialist counternarratives and (anti-) climate policies (BRULLE, 2019).The expectation is that, by revealing the ethical dimension in scientific production, 'PLANB index' will directly contribute to an ethically guided political action.
In sum, this article offers a new instrument that might be used by climate policymakers in Brazil.'PLANB Index' was created based on a new, original concept developed within the sociology of climate change: socio-climatic ethics.The originality of 'PLANB Index' lies in the inclusion of a new analytical layer oriented by the ethicalpolitical dimension.

The transition from environmental ethics to climate ethics and how it affects the politics of climate change and its policies
Climate ethics, which originated in the disciplines of philosophy and political ecology, has broadened the field of environmental ethics and became a scientific field in its own (GARDINER et al., 2010).Climate ethics is a field pervaded by interconnected elements, such as social studies on the relationship between individuals and collectives and between local and global structures, intergenerational issues, ethical approaches to the responsibilities of certain dominant groups with a hegemonic view, and the society-Nature ontological separation 2 .In the early 2000s, the categories climate ethics and climate policy began to be discussed together; in 2010, the term climate ethics started to take shape in global warming policies in a sociological perspective (GARDINER et al., 2010).
______________________________________________________________________________________________ 2 Some of the most prominent references in the climate ethics field include Gardiner, Caney, Jamieson, and Shue.Singer and Callicott, originally from the environmental ethics field, also joined this new field of study (GARDINER et al., 2010).The complete list of concepts and authors dedicated to climate ethics is in Appendix 01.
Socio-climatic ethics is what connects the ontological sphere (of various worldviews and utopian perspectives), the ethics sphere (anthropo/techno, bio/eco, climate/geo, or multicentric orientation -beacons for political moral agents), and the political sphere (political actions and practices -from small groups to superclustersmaterialized in social 'praxis').
In the climate context, developing science without ethical reflections leads to barbarism (BRUCKMEIER, 2018).Therefore, climate change is approached as a fundamentally ethical issue (GARDINER, 2017) -in this study, the sociological perspective is added to this approach.Socio-climatic ethics, on the other hand, emphasizes the nexus between ethics and politics and the intersection between ethicalsociological criticism and political practice.These moralities3 are observed in the climate arena dominated by large state-corporate coalitions (BRULLE, 2019).
In this discussion, "the difference between ecocentric and anthropocentric approaches is an ethical-practical separation, given that both perspectives recognize the material unity of the planet" (WELLS and GÜNTHER, 2019, p. 26 -literal translation).
Political ecology scholars argue that Nature must be recognized as an entity with intrinsic moral value (GUDYNAS, 2019), that is from an ecocentric perspective of the world and those who inhabit it (human and more-than-human beings simultaneously), unlike anthropocentric approaches, which ignore or erase nonhuman beings.Therefore, in treating climate as an ethical-sociological and political issue, we are able to explore nonanthropocentric perspectives.
The contents of the 'Summary for Policymakers in the Assessment Reports' (IPCC, 2022(IPCC, , 2021) ) arguably follow the ethics perspective in the international climate agenda."an important sociopolitical contribution to a debate that is all-to-often technocentric in focus" (SMITH, CHRISTIE, and WILLIS, 2020, p. 01).The issue is not about the technopolitical ways to carry out an energy transition and reduce global warming; rather, ______________________________________________________________________________________________ it is about the ways in which social inequities could be reduced, both for human and nonhuman beings.
An empirical example of an instrument created based on the nexus between ethics and politics in the international arena is the European Union's 'Next Generation EU' mechanism for responding to the health and climate crisis 4 .This instrument is committed to carrying out a "double transition, green and digital" with a "fair and inclusive recovery" in which "social equity is at the heart of recovery" (COMISSÃO EUROPEIA, 2020, p.12).
Politics and ethics are thus intertwined, which makes the current challenge more complex and takes us to the realm of morality (OTTO et al., 2020).
In Brazil, scholars have recently began creating instruments that are directly based on the nexus between the fields of sociological ethics and politics (SALMI and FLEURY, 2022).The scientific-political project 'CiAdapta' is emblematic, as it produced the 'Urban Adaptation Index' -UAI (NEDER et al., 2021).This instrument is climate "a decision-support tool", which was developed and tested in Brazilian cities to "to assess the current potential capacity of cities to deal with climate change impacts" and to be  2011) was conducted on the BCIs and their moral agents' accounts.These categories were tested in a pilot study and subsequently adjusted before they were deemed ready to be hard tested, that is ready to be applied in the selected instruments for climate policymaking.More details on the categories listed below and the theoretical foundation of convivialism are found in section 3.2.To identify and select the climate instruments, the following criteria were used: 01. the instrument is oriented toward tackling climate change; 02. the instrument was formulated or revised after the IPCC report 8 (2018), that is, the BCI was launched, published, and/or updated9 as of January 201910 ; 03. the BCI was active between January 2019 and January 2021 ; 04. the instrument is implemented in the Brazilian territory, with emphasis on the federal and state levels; 05. the instrument has ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 8 One of the goals of the IPCC is to generate consistent scientific data for developing policies to tackle climate change.Each 'Assessment Report' (AR) produces an executive 'Summary for Policymakers'.For the first time, a section on the nexus between ethics and policy has been included in an AR (IPCC, 2022, p. 01-48-49).
( 2023) 17 (3)  e0001 -9 As for the thematic groups associated with climate ethics, ethics and politics are intrinsically linked as shown by the connections between the different thematic groups in the database (Figure 02).The themes helped identify categories in these subfields and, ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 11 Being relevant means that the set of proposals and results projected by each BCI has the capacity to really transform -i.e., effectively reduce social and ecological inequities simultaneously -the social structures where human and nonhuman beings reproduce their ways of living.Due to time limitations, the focus in this study was on the federal and state levels.Although the pilot test was carried out at the municipal level -at a benchmark metropolis for climate studies (and studies on other issues) -municipal agents' involvement with the Brazilian climate issue has become increasingly relevant.I stress that conducting this test at the municipal level opens a promising path for future research.
PLANB Index: Sociological Categories for Climate Policymakers (2023) 17 (3)  e0001 -10/38 after an assessment of their relevance to the climate issue 13 , the main elements made up the five analytical categories condensed into 'PLANB Index'.This index seeks to fill the gap in theoretical instruments suitable for restructuring existing institutions and formulating effective and adequate climate policies for the new times.After a content analysis (BARDIN, 2011) was conducted on the concepts and categories pertinent to the convivialist ethics from the theoretical perspective of convivialism 14 , five categories were compiled and condensed (Figure 03), which were used in this study to select the BCIs and identify the moral relations between the agents.
This study has collected mainly state-level climate change policies (PEMC, in its Portuguese acronym) on the official websites of the nine states that make up the Legal Amazon 15 .
______________________________________________________________________________________________ 13 To assess whether a theme was relevant for the climate issue, this study identified the strictly climaterelated elements -that was necessary because some themes focus only on environmental perspectives (e.g., studies related to natural or biological sciences, such as those characterizing physical-chemical elements of the soil) or only on social perspectives (e.g., social sciences studies on labor, such as those dedicated to the social effects of gentrification processes).One can arguably say that every social or environmental issue is currently associated with the climate issue, but for studies to be selected in this study, they had to combine social, ecological, and climate issues.
14 For details about the list of theorists and notions/concepts associated with each of the five categories of 'PLANB Index', see Appendix 01.
15 Such an emphasis is justified because of the scope of the research within which this study was developed: the AmazonFACE Program.The Legal Amazon is composed of the following states: Amazonas, Roraima, Rondônia, Pará, Amapá, Acre, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, and Maranhão.Two of the criteria used to select these CMAs 17 were that 01. the respective BCIs had more ecocentric principles (see Appendix 03) identified in the contents of their documents, and that they took an antagonistic view of purely anthropocentric principles 18 ; and 02. the CMA had actively participated in the formulation of the instruments.It is important to stress that socio -climatic ethical principles can be empirically identified through the analytical categories of 'PLANB Index', which operate as bridge-mirrors of these principles since the plane of reflection is the 'locus' of ethical principles.
The data and information were categorized through the 'Nvivo12' software.Data were categorized according to the morphology of the BCIs and the identification of the contents and their correlations with the analytical categories.The elements of each category were correlated to the theoretical contents with the help of markers of the Foxit editor.
In analyzing 19 the BCIs, the focus was on the relationship between the socioclimatic ethical principles and the socio-ecological moral practices 20 , the latter materialized in the BCIs.
______________________________________________________________________________________________ 16 The interview guide and the guiding questions of the baseline questionnaire are in Appendix 02. 17 From a theoretical perspective, it is understood that the CMA, the formulator of the climate instrument, is a human subject.This agent produces an agency with other agents, such as the representatives of morethan-human beings, and it also produces the existing (infra)structures.The relationships individual-others and structures-others produce shared agencies and generate morally oriented effects-others.The interviews sought to capture the ethical orientations based on the effects of these relationships (CRIPPS, 2013). 18The criteria for selecting the instruments included three or more socio-climatic ethical principles identified in the document analysis stage. 19The content analysis of Table 1 focused on the horizontal analysis since the goal in this step was to identify BCIs with a high density of ecocentric principles.For a vertical analysis and its implications for the nexus of the horizontal analysis, see Salmi, 2022.  2This study understands that the social and ecological spheres are inseparable; therefore, it presents a critique of the society-nature dichotomy (GUDYNAS, 2019; INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020); in other words, moral practices or actions should be understood as being socioecological, their social or ecological aspects should not be addressed separately.LEFF, 2021).In the sphere of analysis, 'energy locality' refers to the fact that the community -human and more-than-human -has control over energy sources in a territory (CALLICOTT, 2017 -see Table A2).It includes the production of renewable Finally, the category 'generational benefit' is essentially associated with the temporal dimension and with the notions of increasing socio-ecological equity or effectively reducing socio-ecological inequities within a feasible period of time (BROOKS, 2020; GARDINER, 2017) in a given territory (INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020).
In the sphere of analysis, 'generational benefit' (GARDINER, 2017; SHUE, 2020) is temporally related to the materiality of better physical and symbolic conditions for humans and non-humans, in vulnerable or invisible conditions.The materiality of the benefits is observed in two periods of time: intragenerational and intergenerational.The first type refers to the current generation's possibility of enjoying the benefits within the period of life expectancy of each species.As for the second, it is the expansion of benefits on a larger scale for future generations through the creation of 'intergenerational institutions' and policies.The counterpoint can be captured by categories such as the 'illusion' of redistribution through 'development' projects or 'technological and economic progress' in the present time, 'return' of benefits 'after' economic growth, among other equivalent notions in which the benefits of any type of transition 'are not' equally materialized for all societies today.

Results: a lying 'PLANB Index' to the Brazilian context
The results of applying 'PLANB Index' to the 22 BCIs are summarized in Table 01 and Figure 04.These BCIs were collected between June 2019 and March 2021 through the lens of socio-climatic ethics and according to the 'PLANB Index' categories.Table 01 presents these BCIs, their ethical orientation (from anthropocentric to multicentric), and the CMAs directly involved; it also specifies whether each BCI is a new instrument or an update of existing rules (with the corresponding date).The results show that when the agent is a state organization in its pure form, initially isolated from other arrangements or disconnected from other sectors, the moralities observed refer, with rare exceptions, to anthropocentric ethical principles guided by neoliberal and/or neoextractivist logics.Similarly, supercluster arrangements, or 'supercoalitions' (BRULLE, 2019), are guided, without exception, ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 22 Since this is an arrangement with a diversity of sectors and high numbers of entities (greater than three digits), I treat it as a 'super-arrangement of collectives'.Similar terms such as 'institutionalized brokers' and subcategories such as 'peak associations', 'associations hubs', 'multisectoral bodies', can also be used.More information in Lavalle and Bülow, 2015.

Discussion: Ethical principles under dispute among Brazilian climate policymakers
The following questions guided the discussion of the results obtained after applying 'PLANB Index' to BCIs: Which socio-climatic, onto-ethics principles are guiding recent BCIs?How do the socio-ecological practices associated with these principles emerge and coexist -with a mix of consensus and tension -in these climate instruments?
Roughly speaking, 'hybridized' anthropocentric 'and' (emerging) ecocentric principles were identified in recent BCIs (2020-2021) -with some exceptions (as in the case of purely anthropocentric principles).Socio-ecological practices, on the other hand, began to emerge through simultaneous ontological disputes, often in multiple layers of agency, some more tense, accessed by a diversity of moral agents organized in superclusters -in the case of anthropocentrically guided agentsand in small groups -in the case of agents with a more ecocentric inclination -in spaces where the line between local and global are blurred, and in hybrid temporalities, some nonlinear and recent, others expanded over the large historical trajectories of certain agents -such as multinational corporations that, organized into 'large global coalitions', have formed a climate countermovement.
There is a type of relationship based on ecocentric principles.The 'convivialist relationship' 23 (taken as the dynamics in which ethical-political practices emerge) is found in BCIs, although marginally.In this study, the dynamics and societal arrangements involve a variety of CMAs guided by different ethical principles, which are grouped into two major drivers: anthropocentric and ecocentric.Only two instruments associated with a multicenter driver were found; moreover, the only groups of human agents that explicitly recognize nonhuman ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 23 'Convivialist relationship' is that which is fueled by tensions, dissent, and consensus among different moral agents, one that enables a socio-ecological reordering based on a normatively defined horizon in which structural equities are increased and differences coexist without mutual massacre.(INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020).agents (e.g., entities of Nature as subjects of rights 24 ) were the native peoples who acted directly in the societal arrangements associated with these instruments; however, no nonhuman agents directly involved in decision-making spaces were identified.
With respect to 'plurality in decision-making', it is the climate instrument itself that materializes the space for decision-making; in other words, agents and entities put their ethical and moral differences on the same table.CMAs 'recognize' that building a common horizon against the (high confidence) scenario 25 of climate collapse (IPCC, 2021) is necessary.Beck (2018) argues that only a process of global catharsis will lead dominant agents to embrace a more ecocentric horizon that could take us toward the emancipation of civilization.Other studies demonstrate that current climate policies are still created to reproduce the existing social and ecological order without major changes in dominant structures (IPCC, 2022).The axiological principles of these climate policies are still rooted in an anthropocentric view; consequently, these policies are not breaking with the dominant neoextractivist system.I believe that the IPCC's high confidence scenario might materialize unless an effective ethically guided change is made toward 'more realistic utopian horizons' (BECK, 2018;INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020), that is unless those groups in a position of power assume new moral practices that are more consistent with scientific evidence.
As for 'energy locality', the analysis shows that, whenever there are societal arrangements based on ecocentric principles and organized by some type of network structure that connects plural moral agents 'mediated' (INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020) by local communities, which work in partnership with one or more agents, the so-called 'morally guided ecological collectives' (CALLICOTT, 2017), agency moves towards these more structured local communities.These communities are aware that actions must be taken at various levels, a fact observed in relationships between local agents and international development entities (the case of multisectoral arrangements).In other words, these communities recognize ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 24 An example are the social and political studies on the relationship between Latin American constitutionalism and the rights of Nature as a subject of rights, with the prospect of transitioning from an anthropocentric model of social organization to anecocentric one (GUDYNAS, 2019). 25The IPCC uses this rating (low, medium, and high confidence) to indicate the likelihood of a specific type of irreversible human-induced climate change (IPCC, 2022(IPCC, , 2021)).The IPCC 'does not' specify which types of subjects or worldviews or even types of ethics cause climate change.

Semi-structured interviews
The interviews were carried out after the basic questionnaire had been applied.The interviews sought to capture the agents' ethical orientations (drivers) through the effects of the relation between the interviewee and the BCI.They were also useful to interpret the contents of the instruments -the ethical drivers crystallized in the BCI documents that had been previously identified during the stage of document analysis.
The interview guide was prepared to collect verbal data and information (FLICK, 2009;RUBIN and RUBIN, 2011) about the processes of ethical-political construction and the dynamics related to the launch of climate initiatives and climate policies designed to tackle global warming in the Brazilian context.This study's method of semi-structured interview was guided by a flexible structure (RUBIN and RUBIN, 2011) and, whenever possible, I used the answers to the questionnaires that were returned before the interview took place.
All interviews were conducted virtually, and they were not recorded.My decision not to record was viewed as positive 30 by the interviewees because confidentiality was maintained -consequently, more in-dept information was shared.
The contents of the interviews were written down in fieldnotes and consolidated by NVivo® along with previous analyses of BCI documents so these contents could be latter analyzed.
______________________________________________________________________________________________ 30 An analysis of the implications of interviewees' perception that the recordings were positive was not carried out.
Plan B Index: Sociological Categories for Climate Policymakers Appendix 03 List of the indicators (Table A4) used to operationalize each of the five analytical categories of 'PLANB Index'.
/38 relevance 11 for socio-environmental reordering; and 06. in what concerns the type of goal orientation: in addition to being ecologically oriented, the instrument is socially oriented and can be reproduced in the contemporary context and from the Brazilian sociopolitical perspective.With respect to data sources, in addition to the websites of BCI policymakers, data was collected from the 'Twitter' profiles of actors linked to movements focused on tackling the climate emergency in Brazil; data on supporting and financing organizations was also collected.The literature review 12 started from the notions of 'climate ethics'(GARDINER et   al., 2010), 'socio-environmental ethics' (FLORIT, SAMPAIO and PHILIPPI JR., 2019), and 'convivialist ethics'(INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020).Since the literature review focuses on climate ethics, the most cited climate ethics scholars and the most mentioned terms in this scholarship between 2001 and 2021 were also mapped.The methodology was based on a bibliometric analysis on climate change conducted in the social sciences(SALMI and FLEURY, 2022).The databases 'Scielo Citation Index' and 'Web of Science' were used, and the data were analyzed with the support of the software 'VOSViewer' (Figures01 and 02).There is a prominent author, Stephen Gardiner, who has consistently published on climate ethics since 2010.According to him, the world is currently experiencing an 'intergenerational extortion' and the 'perfect moral storm', which are characteristic of the Anthropocene era and the result of three factors (GARDINER, 2017): the fragmentation of climate policymakers' responsibilities, the inadequacy of the institutions dedicated to planning (fair and equitable) policies, and the inefficiency of the global governance system.

Figure 03 .
Figure 03.Relationship between the five categories of socio-climatic ethics and the theoretical concepts of the convivialist, socio-environmental, and climate ethics of document contents(BARDIN, 2011) were concluded, another methodological stage was included: semi-structured interviews 16 with the formulators of the climate instruments best classified according to this study's criteria.The intention was to confirm or reject the findings of the content analysis of the BCIs.The contents of twenty-two instruments were analyzed, and nine 'climate moral agents' (CMA) -formulators of BCIs -were subsequently interviewed.The interviews confirmed and consequently enhanced the interpretations of the contents of BCI documents previously made through the categories and indicators of 'PLANB Index'.
ethics is based on three spheres.In the sphere of reflection, socioclimatic ethics is the interface between environmental ethics and social studies on climate equity.In the sphere of analysis21 , it is the study of social relations leading to the moral consideration of Nature and the more-than-human beings.In the sphere of norms, it is a critique of the rules behind the policies governing the coexistence of human beings and more-then-human beings, without one massacring the other.Socio-climatic ethics encompasses ontological aspects (utopian worldviews and horizons), ethical principles (drivers of the actions of CMAs) and moral practices (political moralities materialized in social praxis).Therefore, it ranges from the theoretical, epistemic, and methodological field to the analytical and normative instrument.The instrument 'PLANB Index' is based on five analytical categories: plurality in decision-making, energy locality, epistemic and material access, planned naturalness, and generational benefit, which are summarized next.'Plurality in decision-making' refers to the notion of social equity between human and non-human beings in decision-making processes based on the ethics of otherness(INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020;LEFF, 2021;RICOEUR, 1992), with the redistribution and sharing of agency domain with more-than-human beings.At the sphere of analysis, 'plurality in decision-making' is understood as 01. the recognition that local communities have agency and should be included(BROOKS, 2020;GARDINER, 2017) in territorial decision-making processes (BECK, 2018; INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020) that directly or indirectly affects the preservation of other ways of living (GARDINER, 2017), and 02. the formulation and implementation of different climate instruments created by different subjects -more vulnerable subjects (SKILLINGTON, 2017).The anthropocentric approach to decision-making is the counterpoint, as it erases or preclude the agency of other beings.______________________________________________________________________________________________ 21 A list of indicators associated with each of the five analytical categories was created to operationalize the five categories of 'PLANB Index'.The indicators were modeled based on the literature review on socioenvironmental ethics and climate ethics with the aim of building climate instruments and refine the definition of the five PLANB analytical categories based on the results of the pilot test (SALMI, 2023) carried out before the final modeling of 'PLANB Index' itself.The full application of the indicators of each of the five categories is the basis for the collection of data and information supporting the assessment and/or construction of effective climate initiatives and policies from the perspective of socio-climatic ethics.The list of 'PLANB Index' indicators is available in Appendix 03.PLANB Index: Sociological Categories for Climate Policymakers (2023) 17 (3) e0001 -14/38 'Energy locality' refers to the notions of energy autonomy with reduction of 'Anthropocene inequities' in its multiple geographic scales (BECK, 2018), energy sharing (CANEY, 2020; INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020), economic degrowth (GARDINER, 2017), and good living at the local level (FLORIT, 2019; GUDYNAS, 2019; energy and locally based food.Categories such as centralizing 'development projects', 'infrastructure megaprojects' by large transnational corporations, and other equivalent notions can be considered a counterpoint.The category 'epistemic and material access', roughly speaking, refers to the material (COSTA, 2019) and epistemic levels -of wisdom and knowledge(COSTA, 2019;GARDINER, 2017;INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020;ULLOA et al., 2021).In the sphere of analysis, material access refers to human and nonhuman communities' ability to move natural and technological materials -including financial resources -within ecocentric principles in the climate context.'Epistemic access', in turn, refers to access to spaces where ancestral wisdom can be exchanged -such as the recognition of native peoples and more-than-human beings -and the production of scientific knowledge, in addition to the active sharing of the knowledge accessed.The obstruction or erasure of ancestral wisdom and/or scientific knowledge produced and the obstruction of material resources, such as economic resources, constitutes the counterpoint.'Plannednaturalness' is associated with the notions of ecological reciprocity(COSTA, 2019;INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020) and restoration of the originary conditions of and for Nature (SHOCKLEY, 2017) -which is in line with the critical thinking on the ontological society-Nature separation.In the sphere of analysis, 'naturalness' refers to practices of rewilding, reforestation, environmental restoration, natural regeneration, and the expansion of Nature's limits, with the epistemic perspective of conceiving Mother Earth as a subject(KRENAK, 2019;SANTOS, 2016) in its originary spaces.'Common naturalness' refers to practices of renaturalization and reterritorialization of Nature in spaces modulated and planned for human and more-thanhuman beings to live together and coexist, not without tension(INTERNACIONAL CONVIVIALISTA, 2020).This category can also be used as a marker of anthropocentrism (neoliberalism/neoextractivism).It is based on the plan of returning to the originary close to the state of native, which allows humans and nonhumans to live together and coexist in balance, including technologies -but without getting into the logic of planetary geoengineering.The category 'objectification' of any natural element (FLORIT, 2019) is the counterpoint here.

Figure 04
Figure 04 allows for an analysis of 01. the ethical position of each BCI (xaxis), 02. the size of each arrangement through an analysis of the composition of the entities participating in each BCI and its effect on the construction of each instrument (y-axis), 03.more influential and/or dominant agents, 04. the mediation of conflicting ethical principles regarding the sharing of CMAs (entities) in the composition of several BCIs and their different moral practices in certain configurations.

Figure 04 .
Figure 04.BCI network, moral agents by socioclimate ethical orientation . Only the third group, multisectoral arrangements (civil society, private and/or state organizations), refers to normativities guided, to varying degrees, by ecocentric ethical principles.
multilevel action.Local agency is thus closely related to the other levels and their various agents.With respect to 'epistemic and material access', the Brazilian context indicates that making fairer climate instruments and policies depends on dominant moral agents granting permissions -an example being the creation of publicly to the homogenizing structural violence among different agents and their multiple ethical principles in a common planet made of common elements.In analyzing the interconnected set of categories, one notices that CMAs gained new, emerging frontiers -from small clusters to transnational superclusters.The definition of which is the unit of analysis when it comes to the subject in the climate context can (and should) be revised to account for the agency and the identification of who and where the agency domain is.Identifying a non-heterogeneous entity is a challenge because there are clusters formed by hybrid groups that are made of CMAs from different segments.Classic analytical categories, , Government, Market, Civil Society, are not sufficient for circumscribing homogeneous groups or entities since the level of connection, interdependence, and intertwinement between individuals and groups can be observed in multiple layers, both spatially and temporally.The analyses of the contents of recent BCIs show that these instruments have a normative horizon, they envision the improvement of social and ecological well-being at the planetary level, resulting in morally planned climate change policies.However, the proposed scales for the socio-ecological practices included in these climate policies are still incompatible with what is necessary to effectively reduce greenhouse gases and tackle social inequalities -such as the growing hunger crisis affecting about one billion human beings -and ecological and climatic inequities -ranging from the reduction of native ecosystems to the deterioration of planetary climatic conditions, which affect all species unequally, including humans.In line with Gardiner's findings (2017), I consider the 'climate issue to be essentially an ethical issue'.The results and analyzes in this study show that, despite the emerging initiatives and policies formulated in the last two years, Brazil is still a victim of a generational extortion by dominant CMAs.Between the end of the world and possible heterotopiasThis study has shown that moral practices for total (and possible) control of the planet are already emerging in the Brazilian context.Such practices are informed by a 'Climate Leviathan'(WAINWRIGHT and MANN, 2018), a type of moral project that was orchestrated and designed by a small oligarchic groupsuperclusters associated with state arrangements -that has global dominance.On the other hand, there is also a diversity of initiatives and societal arrangements that are in place or emerging that could lead to an ontological change and an ecoterritorial turn at the planetary level, which in turn could allow for many planets to fit inside the same planet, for example, the 'pluriverse' type of moral project guided by a 'radical ecological democracy'.It follows that climate policies are the moral and political effects of having moral agents in dominant positions.Climate initiatives created by non-dominant human groups reveal that there are creative spaces that could be expanded -with tensions -and/or be used as input for fostering open and in-depth public

PLANB Index' as an instrument for evaluating and formulating climate policies Some preliminary definitions: climate instruments and policies
planetary level, and the multicentric orientation is guided 5 by a more-than-human logicand it includes native peoples or representatives of Nature in the BCIs.In sum, these BCIs are climate initiatives and policies, and they may be examined through the rules and regulations formulated by different agents guided by distinct (NEDER et al., 2021, p. 02).Based on normative indicators, the UAI seeks to identify whether cities have established structures and standards such as "municipal housing plan, municipal council and funding, municipal mobility plan, organic agriculture and community gardens, climate program for agriculture, law of land use and occupation related to landslide prevention" among others(NEDER et al., 2021, p. 07-09).The UAI only examines practices -which, from the perspective of socio-climatic ethics, are considered moral practices -from a legal procedural standpoint; it does not analyze issues directly associated with ethical principles (e.g., anthropocentric and ecocentric principles).Ethical-sociological components are not present in the UAI.'PLANB Index' was therefore partially inspired by the UAI, and it was created to pragmatically address the direct nexus between ethics (principles) and climate change policies (rules established by different types of agents -state, private, or third sectors).'PLANB Index' is a bridge between the planes of reflection and norms, the connection between ethical principles and political practices.______________________________________________________________________________________________ 4 With respect to material access, this instrument officially allocated '1.85 trillion euros' (COMISSÃO EUROPEIA, 2020, p. 02).PLANB Index: Sociological Categories for Climate Policymakers (2023) 17 (3) e0001 -6/38 Methodology: 'the logic of ecosystem preservation/regeneration, the climate/geocentric orientation is guided by the logic according to which human rationality has control over forces a the

Methodological path: from theoretical literature to analytical framework
five dimensions: 01.ecological -planned naturalness, 02.social -plurality in decisionmaking, 03.time -generational benefit, 04.space -energy locality, and 05.cultural-material -epistemic and material access.This study analyzes the contents of BCIs published and/or updated between June 1, 2019, and March 31, 2021.A content analysis from a sociological perspective (BARDIN, Chart 01 presents the way in which moral agents are grouped: type of arrangement (state, multisectoral, or supercluster), level in which they act (in case of state entities, whether they are linked to the executive, legislative, or judicial branch; in case of a multisectoral arrangement or supercluster, the level of agent density (if less than ten agents, it is classified as a multisectoral arrangement; if more than ten agents, it is classified as a supercluster).
Frederico Salmi(2023) 17 (3) e0001 19/38 available databases, but with few data.It is possible to achieve normalized and consensual actions, and these can help prevent socio-ecological inequities from rising at all levels if the climate emergency is taken as empirical evidence of the effects of the current neoliberal and neo-extractive system.Recent BCIs incorporate worldviews and ways of life that are based on more ecocentric and less anthropocentric principles, but it is necessary to let go of climate policies based on purely technoeconomic and anthropocentric principles.The state structures associated with these climate policies are not only fragile, or flexible, they also reveal that one should "consider social regulation of the state" (GUDYNAS, 2019, p. 250).The (infra) structures of the state 'must' -from a deontological perspective -be flexible enough to allow for the social transitions and social reordering that could affect human and more-than-human agents ecologically.On the other hand, these same structures 'must' be robust if they are to lead us to certain desired horizons, With respect to 'planned naturalness', two major ethical groups are found in the corpus: anthropocentric and ecocentric, both hybrids in some way.The first group, which includes anthropocentric BCIs and agents, loses its apparent ecocentric grammar when confronted with other ecocentric categories.The second group is more consistently ecocentric, to different degrees when compared to the other ecocentric categories.These political practices of regeneration, restoration, and reforestation, among other similar practices, are aimed at reducing unlimited growth in wildlands and local communities.BCIs and moral agents in this second type of ethical group seek to repoliticize life based on other non-anthropocentric From the perspective of socio-environmental justice, the challenge of overcoming the negative effects of climate change is as formidable and complex as the roots of the extractive neoliberal ideology that pervades bodies and territories.Finally, in what concerns the 'generational benefit', BCIs are closely associated with practices of regenerating Nature in close relation with time (Table 01, cases of BCIs that are more ecocentric).There are empirical examples of Brazilian climate policies that could be planned with the support of CMAs guided by ecocentric principles, but time is an imperative and crucial issue.From the These intergenerational principles seek to build horizons so current and future generations can enjoy a more just, decent, and equitable world before the climate collapses.In other words, it is necessary -even crucial in light of scientific evidence (IPCC, 2022, 2021) -to include and overcome the 'climate horizon dilemma' in discussions about climate change.
(ULLOA et al., 2021)ies(ULLOA et al., 2021)directly affect political action associated with the planning of how to relate with the natural territories and Nature. Thfore, it is worth noting that the 'PLANB Index' categories are interdependent and that such interdependency is crucial for understanding the broad context of ethical principles and political practices.Plan B Index: Sociological Categories for Climate Policymakers (2023) 17 (3) e0001 -24/38 of the climate precautionary principle' (BROOKS, 2020; GARDINER, 2017).'international'resources in BCIs oriented to promoting ecocentric practices, although on a 'small scale' ; 05. the planning of territories to be preserved or regenerated is competing with 'climate-washing' practices ; 06.there is an 'incipient'intragenerational benefit for the present generation of human and more-thanhuman beings and 'absence' of benefits for future generations; 07. the 'utopia of intergenerational benefit' appears as a planned horizon without pragmatic implementation; 08. the 'common good' has emerged in the state-level political arena; 09. and there is an indication that a new globalizing structure operationalized by dominant oligarchic groups is being formed, and there is the observation that a 'conviviality threshold' exists -from the tension

Table A4 .
List of indicators of the five categories of 'PLANB Index'The knowledge produced is transmitted under the logic of 'copyleft', free access, or similar.