What is now intended is to go granular at a country level. That is, to undertake country-based analysis of what needs to be done and what would be the associated costs and benefits to reach carbon neutrality by mid-century. The intention is to do this in countries that are representative of the conditions in the region, and which could be used as examples and inspiration worldwide. As it is, three countries are already well advanced in the decarbonization process: Uruguay, Costa Rica and Chile.  

The new analysis, to be led by Walter Vergara, will be focused on Brazil and Chile and will use state of the art tools, aided by GACMO and GCAM, two advanced models to estimate cost competitiveness of mitigation actions and the implications of climate action at a national level.  

The first step will be to get an accurate picture of where Brazil and Chile stand now and what have been the recent trends. The sectors and actions envisioned are to get to zero deforestation and start a large-scale program of reforestation; to move all the power sector to renewables at a scale that would enable electrification of the economy; to electrify the transport to fully displace fossil fuels; to electrify the industrial sectors and to displace emissions from agriculture. The report will review the impacts of these actions on labor, education, entrepreneurship, oil and coal production, commerce and industrial policy. 

The objective is to have a first draft of the report before the end of the year and aim for official publication and dissemination by the COP in Brazil November 2024.

[1] Zero Carbon Latin America. UNEP-DTU, 2015; The opportunity, cost and benefits of the coupled decarbonization of Power and Transport in Latin America. The Climate Institute, 2021.

Read the Report about Decarbonization in Latin America