Santiago, Chile (photo by Horst Engelmann/Pixabay).
Since being elected for a second presidential term in December 2017, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera has placed climate action at the top of his political agenda, building upon a strong legacy of climate leadership and legislative action undertaken by the previous Bachelet administration. Over the past two years, Piñera has firmly pulled his country to the forefront of both Latin American and global climate leadership, and in recognition of his advanced energy and green policy progress, the Atlantic Council will honor the Chilean president at its annual Global Citizen Awards on Monday, September 23rd. This award could not be timelier—as millions of youth and activists from around the globe descend on national capitals to demand action on climate change in advance of the UN General Assembly Climate Summit and as intense weather events continue to batter both the Texas coast and the Caribbean.
Political inaction on climate change could have severe consequences,
and as an oceanic and Antarctic state, Chile will be forced to contend with
numerous climate threats: deglaciation, sea level rise, drought, and desertification,
not to mention indirect effects such as internal migration and food insecurity.
And Chile will face this despite only generating 0.25 percent of global
greenhouse gases.
Standing up to the challenge, the current Chilean government has
refused to remain idle or complacent. President Piñera’s government is likely
to use the coming year to advance unilateral and multilateral climate action,
especially as it prepares to host COP25 in Santiago this December. Whatever the
Summit outcome may be, Chile has firmly positioned itself as a leader in the
climate advocacy and policy space and is ready to take advantage of its
renewable resources and rich mineral deposits to move into a clean energy
future.
In taking on a new climate leadership role after Brazil withdrew its
bid to host COP25 in November 2018, Piñera will welcome the
annual climate summit to Santiago this December, further solidifying Chile’s
place as a global climate and advanced energy leader. This COP bears extra
weight, as it precedes the post-Paris five-year benchmark summit to take place
in 2020, during which countries are expected to set bigger, more ambitious
climate goals. At the Santiago COP, the Chilean government, as chief moderator,
will hope to sway countries to up the ante on their climate commitments, but
will likely face an uphill battle from several of the world’s top emitters,
namely the United States and several rapidly developing nations like
Bolsonaro’s Brazil. Given its geography, Chile will prioritize sea level
rise, ocean sustainability, and marine protection as key issues at this year’s
COP.
As chief COP negotiators for Chile, President Piñera and Environment
Minister Carolina Schmidt will play an outsized role in brokering multilateral
compromise and laying the groundwork for a fruitful COP26 in 2020. If successful,
Chilean leadership, like the French
before them, could convince
states, high and low-emitting alike, to greatly expand the scope of their climate
action and take our planetary emergency seriously. The United Nations
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that we have twelve
years to make
the changes necessary to reverse and subvert global climate change before we
hit a tipping point; the stakes for Chile, and the world at large, could not be
higher.
Fortunately, given its current legislative agenda and policy outcomes,
there are few countries more suited to lead the world in global climate action
than Chile. With respect to
climate and energy policy, Piñera has pushed ambitious legislation and set
strong goals, reinforcing the Bachelet 2050 Energy Strategy, which established a national carbon tax
and committed Chile to 70 percent renewable energy production by 2050. Going
beyond that, his government seeks to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent over the next five years, decarbonize the
energy sector by 2040, and make Chile carbon neutral by 2050. In doing so, the government is
working to shutter all twenty-eight operating coal plants by 2040, decommission eight over
the next five years, and implement energy efficiency regulations to reduce
total energy consumption by 7 percent by 2035. To codify Chile’s climate goals into law
and develop a robust policy framework to achieve them, the Chilean government
began drafting the Framework Law on Climate Change in the first half of this year and
submitted the text for public review in June. If passed into law,
this bill would establish a set of governance principles, management instruments,
and adequate financing mechanisms to allow for a successful zero-carbon
transition, increased climate resilience, and high-levels of climate compliance.
Furthermore, Chile now boasts the world’s second-largest electric bus fleet,
trailing only China, with the government intent on replacing 40 percent of private vehicles and 100
percent of public transport with electric vehicles (EVs) by 2050. In June 2019, the
number of electric buses and charging stations in the country stood at 400 and eighty-one
respectively, with the
number of vehicles in circulation quadrupling over the past eighteen months. Going
forward, the Chilean government intends
to expand the EV strategy to include commercial trucks, scooters, and taxis,
with the ultimate goal of increasing the national EV fleet tenfold by 2022 and
raising the total number of charging stations to two hundred. Additionally, Chile is the world’s biggest copper producer and second-largest lithium producer, as
well as home to the planet’s largest known reserves of both metals. Looking to
move beyond primary lithium extraction, the Piñera government has directed its
attention to domestic ore processing and advanced
battery manufacturing.
With the help of preferential pricing and government action, Chilean officials seek
to convince East Asian battery producers to open downstream plants in Chile in
the near future.
Despite Chile’s impressive recent policy actions, the Andean nation has
also received criticism for its weak 2015 Nationally
Determined Contribution (NDC). In September 2019, Climate Action Tracker, which evaluates
Paris commitments against current national policies, rated Chile’s NDCs and climate
efforts as “highly insufficient” to keep warming below 1.5 degrees. According
to the watchdog, if all governments pursued NDCs and policies in line with
Chiles’, global warming would reach between three and four degrees, well over
the Paris target. Despite this, Climate Action Tracker projects that, if Chile
successfully decommissions all coal plants by 2050 and completely decarbonizes
its energy sector, the Andean nation will be on track to meet Paris goals. Furthermore,
it is crucial to note that few countries to date have received a “sufficient” Climate
Tracker ranking, not even progressive states like Sweden, Japan, or New Zealand.
As Chile steams ahead with strong advanced energy and climate policy, its rating
is certain to gainfully improve.
Regardless of the COP outcome, one
thing is clear: Chile has firmly launched itself into the low-carbon future and
has demonstrated no interest in going back. As the public electric transport
capital of the Americas with a robust renewable energy and environmental policy
framework, Chile stands as an exemplar of climate progress and vision, both in
the region and beyond.
Zachary
Strauss is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center.
EnergySource provides analysis and insight on key energy issues, making sense of key energy trends and their implications for geopolitics, geoeconomics, policy, and markets.
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Chile has firmly launched itself into the low-carbon future and has demonstrated no interest in going back. As the public electric transport capital of the Americas with a robust renewable energy and environmental policy framework, Chile stands as an exemplar of climate progress and vision, both in the region and beyond.
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