A wind farm in La Serena (Chile).SOPA Images (LightRocket via Getty Images)
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Long-term planning is something that both people and governments often struggle with. But that is precisely one of the greatest challenges brought about by climate change. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of international scientists collecting the most concrete evidence on the subject, has already indicated that we want to achieve the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C By by the end of the century, we need to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. This means that for every unit of carbon emitted, a country must have a strategy to sequester another unit of carbon, either through forest management and conservation or other types of technologies.
That’s why we’ve heard in recent years that several countries are announcing commitments to be carbon neutral by 2050. But how strong are they? Are they just words, or are they backed by laws and plans? To answer these questions, the Action Climate Tracker group, which specializes in analyzing countries’ climate commitments, scrutinized the zero-emissions pledges of 31 countries. And for the region, in the midst of the tide, the news isn’t so bad, as three of the six countries that made the top category with an “acceptable” exposure are from Latin America and the Caribbean: it’s Chile. , Colombia and Costa Rica. Furthermore, the other countries with a transparent commitment to carbon neutrality are the United Kingdom, Vietnam and the countries united in the European Union, which together represent only 8% of the analyzed countries.
“The net-zero emissions targets set by Costa Rica, Colombia and Chile are well documented, study-backed, coherent and very complete,” said Gustavo de Vivero, climate policy analyst at the New Climate Institute, which is part of the New Climate Institute was analyzing Colombia’s commitments. “That these Latin American countries are setting a good carbon neutral target is a very strong message, because although they are not big emitters, they are going to the top,” adds her colleague Judit Hecke, who conducted the evaluation for Chile. .
Although they clarify that the Climate Action Tracker methodology does not take into account countries’ implementation to effectively comply with net-zero emissions, they explain that they used ten criteria to determine whether these commitments are sufficiently strong and transparent. For example, the first is the year: that the commitment is in line with the IPCC’s proposals and should be implemented by 2050. Then there are three elements that have to do with the scope of the commitment: whether countries consider the different types of emissions and not just carbon dioxide; when they include emissions from flights and cargo in their commitments and when they rely on emissions reductions in other countries to achieve that goal.
There are also three criteria related to how they intend to achieve the goal, including whether countries have laws making the obligation legally binding; if they separate emissions reduction targets from capture targets and if they have tools to monitor and verify that the process that should be achieved by 2050 is being achieved along this path. Finally, the last three points they analyze have to do with transparency: whether they specifically explain how they intend to reduce emissions from land-use change and other methods of carbon removal and sequestration; whether there is coherent planning and whether they explain whether their aim is a fair contribution to the global goal of limiting global warming.
Chile, for example, managed to achieve the highest category in eight of the ten criteria. “This country had an incredible participatory process with the people, asking the public about how to achieve this goal of net zero emissions,” says Hecke. This significantly increases the transparency of the process. In addition, he explains, Chile’s goal of carbon neutrality specifies how many emissions each sector must reduce beyond environment and energy, and clearly lays out how that process will be verified.
Regarding the two criteria on which Chile has not performed well, namely aviation and cargo, as well as whether they explain whether the goal is a fair contribution. However, in light of this, Heckle notes that it is relatively normal for countries not to include the air and freight posts and that this exercise was in fact only conducted by the UK and Switzerland.
Like Chile, Colombia got the best score in eight of the ten criteria and also failed in aviation and cargo, and although they explain how they plan to reduce emissions through land-use change, they don’t say how other necessary emission reductions through carbon removal technologies and – achieve storage. In this regard, de Vivero clarifies that it is a somewhat ambiguous target and a challenge to achieve, since in Colombia the main source of emissions remains deforestation, so a very ambitious program will be needed to move from paper to reality “Although we have not considered that in the analysis, the biggest challenge is the implementation gap,” says the expert.
Finally, Costa Rica achieved four points in the best category, two in a “medium” state and two more in a “red” classification. Despite the fact that this country, unlike Chile and Colombia, has very strong climate commitments, these are not yet bound by any law, so they are not binding. And like Chile, it totally fails on the aviation and cargo criteria, and when they say whether their goal is a fair contribution related to climate change.
But as both experts so aptly point out, the fact that three countries in the region are starting to top these kinds of rankings is a great sign of how seriously the fight against climate change is being taken. At least on paper.