Energy sector contribution to regional climate action: The case of Latin America

This research was supported by the Chair Modeling for sustainable development, driven by MINES ParisTech, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, and AgroParisTech, supported by ADEME, EDF, GRTgaz, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC and the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy. The funding body was not involved in study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, the writing of the report or the decision to publish.In South America and the Caribbean, a region representing a relevant share of global GHG emissions with a weight of 7.7% in 2011, slightly more than its share of the world’s population (6.9% in 2010), the latest estimates point to a 1.5% to 5% GDP loss by 2050. Particularly, Brazil already ranks fourth in the world when it comes to national contributions to global warming and a strong increase in GHG emissions can be anticipated in the years to come throughout the region on a BAU basis. In this context, quite logically, the region has a relevant role to play in mitigating global emissions. The energy sector, the largest contributor to GHG emission, shows promising potential to achieve climate mitigation worldwide and South American NAMAs consider it extensively. Given Latin America’s regional specificities, what contributions can its energy sector make to the fight against climate change, and at what cost? This paper investigates this specific aspect of the energy-climate nexus in Latin America through the prism of ongoing climate negotiations. This analysis focuses on the climate commitment of Latin America pledged before the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) asked to publish through the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris in December and which led to the signing of a historical global agreement on climate change. We use a bottom-up energy prospective model from the MarkAl/TIMES family with four contrasted scenarios for future climate policies in South America