Ministerial Roundtable
Combating climate change: What policy makers are doing World leaders attending the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris know they have a rare opportunity to forge a new international agreement to combat climate change and set forth a pathway towards a low-carbon world. More ambition will be needed by all sides if global temperatures are to be prevented from rising above 2°C, the agreed threshold for preventing catastrophic climate change. But even without that target, unleashing a low-carbon future makes sense for health, costs and sustainable development.
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So what are policy makers actually doing? In our latest OECD Observer Roundtable, we asked a representative range of world leaders: What concrete actions is your government taking to combat climate change and promote a low-carbon economy?
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Pablo Badenier Martínez, Minister of Environment
As examples of our current efforts in addressing the challenges of climate change in Chile, I would like to highlight three actions. Firstly, as proposed in the Government Programme of President Michelle Bachelet we have strengthened our climate institutional framework by setting up an inter-ministerial decision body on climate change, called the Council of Ministers for Sustainability and Climate Change; this brings the climate agenda to the highest decision level. Our recently announced Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) and previously our National Adaptation Action
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Plan were both reviewed and approved by this committee. Secondly, in close co-ordination with the finance and energy ministries, a carbon tax of USD$5 per tonne of CO2 emitted to thermal generation sources above 50 megawatts is due to be applied in the country from 2017. Chile was the first country to set a tax of this kind in South America and in this regard, in October 2015 President Bachelet expressed Chile’s support to the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, to be launched at COP21 in Paris. Thirdly, the Ministry of Environment is leading the building of the country´s next National Climate Change Action Plan (2016-21). This action plan will be built upon a participatory approach open to actors from all sectors and fields, following Chile’s commitments on environmental democracy. The plan will have a strong emphasis on implementation, with a special focus on those measures needed to fulfil Chile´s INDC. Of course, our work is not limited to these areas and measures. We are taking forward an ambitious agenda in other key areas, such as adaptation, greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and regional best practice sharing. We are working for a global agreement in COP21, but Chile’s work will not end in Paris: we are fully committed to a long-term climate agenda. Visit: http://portal.mma.gob.cl/cambio-climatico/
Germany Exceeding its pledge Barbara Hendricks, Federal Environment Minister
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Chile Three actions for environmental democracy
From 1990 to 2013 Germany achieved a significant cut of 24% in its GHG emissions, thus exceeding its pledge under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions by an average of 21% between 2008 and 2012 compared to 1990. Moreover, in 2007 Germany had already set itself the goal of cutting emissions by at least 40% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. This is substantially more ambitious than the target for the EU as a whole. On 3 December 2014 the German government adopted the Climate Action Programme 2020, comprising more than 100 individual measures in all sectors, to ensure that the target is achieved by 2020.