Climate change mitigation from municipalities
Nowadays, the environmental discussion is more present, the idea of an efficient environmental policy is central and has been installed in the public discussion of municipal affairs, driven by the increasing pollution of air, water and soil in cities.
According to the IPCC‘s Sixth Assessment Report, the outlook is not encouraging in the regions of the Global South. Particularly in Central and South America, there are systemic risks of overstretching the capacity of infrastructure systems and public services, such as health services, due to the impact of natural hazards and epidemics, which affect large parts of the population. This results in little improvement, maintenance and expansion of public health systems and low resilience of systems.
Faced with this diagnosis, some Latin American countries decided to create mitigation and adaptation plans for each municipality. One example is that of the Mexican government. According to studies carried out by the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC) in the report Risk Management in the Face of Climate Change and Vulnerability Diagnosis (INECC, 2013), it was detected that 480 municipalities in 13 states are the most vulnerable to climate change, which represents 20% of the municipalities at the national level. It is worth noting that these municipalities are concentrated in the southern and southeastern states; Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Tabasco are the states with the highest percentage of municipalities with a high degree of vulnerability to climate change. In view of this, municipalities must draw up municipal climate change programmes within the framework of the National Climate Change Strategy and also in relation to the Special Climate Change Programme. The National Climate Change Strategy is a medium- and long-term instrument to address the effects of climate change and to move towards a competitive, sustainable and low-carbon economy. The legal framework is the General Law on Climate Change and its planning is the National Climate Change Strategy.
In this case, municipalities must update and implement mitigation and adaptation actions in the following areas: provision of drinking water and sanitation services; local ecological planning and urban development; natural resources and environmental protection; civil protection; municipal solid waste management; efficient and sustainable public passenger transport; promote scientific and technological research, development, transfer and deployment of technologies, equipment and processes; develop comprehensive climate change mitigation projects to promote efficient and sustainable public and private transport; carry out education and information campaigns; participate in the design and implementation of incentives.
Another example is Argentina. In the framework of COP 27 in Egypt, Argentina presented its National Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Plan (NAP and CCM) and its Long-term Low Emissions Resilient Development Strategy (ELP). Both instruments are central to start mainstreaming the necessary state policies to place the country on the path of sustainable development towards carbon neutrality, reducing socio-economic and environmental risks and vulnerabilities. On the one hand, the National Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Plan sets out around 250 measures and instruments that the country will take until 2030. The Plan responds to Law 27,520 on Minimum Budgets for Adaptation and Mitigation of Global Climate Change, and is central to start concrete actions regarding the goals set out in the Second Determined Contribution (NDC), i.e., the climate commitment to 2030 assumed by the country under the Paris Agreement. In the same NDC, Argentina committed not to exceed net emissions of 349 MtCO2eq by 2030 (according to the latest GHG inventory, in 2018 the country would have emitted 366 MtCO2eq). The document presents a series of strategic lines around which the proposed measures are ordered and which are classified according to their contribution to mitigation, adaptation and/or loss and damage. These strategic lines are:
- Biodiversity conservation and the commons
- Sustainable management of food systems and forests
- Sustainable mobility
- Sustainable and resilient territories
- Energy transition
- Productive transition
However, according to Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN), there are certain irregularities in the document that do not effectively translate into an adaptation and mitigation path. For example, within the strategic line of energy transition, mention is made of the “development of its hydrocarbon basins, onshore and offshore” through which “Argentina will seek to become a supplier of natural gas on a regional and global scale”. Catalina Gonda, co-coordinator of FARN’s Climate Policy area, warns that the context of the global climate crisis requires a real energy transition away from fossil fuels.
On the other hand, the Long-Term Low Emission Resilient Development Strategy (LTRDS) is framed in article 4.13 of the Paris Agreement, which invited countries to present such a strategy by 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries – including Argentina – had to delay the elaboration of these long-term goals.
At the same time, Argentina had already made progress in drafting its ELP through a participatory process, with the intention of presenting it to the UN at COP 26 in 2021, but due to tensions with the agricultural and energy sectors – the country’s emitting sectors – this document was not presented a few days before the Conference. The document presented at COP 27, in comparison with the one prepared the previous year, does not outline a concrete roadmap for achieving emissions neutrality, but only talks about the need to carry out a participatory planning process to formulate it and the viable paths to achieve its goals.
In this context, it is inevitable to think about the relevant role of transparency and the participation of diverse actors that these spaces should have, where the contributions of civil society are taken into account, not in a substantive and insufficient way, but in a way that is binding for decision-makers.
CILA believes that the presentation of these long-term plans or strategies to address environmental issues should represent the interests of the affected communities and not merely be documents that “comply with requirements”. In this sense, it is relevant to us that the Escazú Agreement is applied, which, according to article 7, ensures the right of public participation in environmental decision-making processes. The same article provides mechanisms for public participation in decision-making processes, reviews, examinations or updates related to projects and activities, as well as in other environmental authorization processes that have or may have a significant impact on the environment, including when they may affect health. In line with the above, “environmental matters” refers to land-use planning and the development of policies, strategies, plans, programmes, rules and regulations, which have or may have a significant impact on the environment.
By Fiorella Ricagno, CILA intern.
