Argentina

Critically Insufficient4°C+ World

NDCs with this rating fall well outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would exceed 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming of greater than 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

Highly insufficient< 4°C World

NDCs with this rating fall outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach between 3°C and 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming between 3°C and 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

Insufficient< 3°C World

NDCs with this rating are in the least stringent part of a country’s “fair share” range and not consistent with holding warming below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach over 2°C and up to 3°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming over 2°C and up to 3°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

2°C Compatible< 2°C World

NDCs with this rating are consistent with the 2009 Copenhagen 2°C goal and therefore fall within a country’s “fair share” range, but are not fully consistent with the Paris Agreement long term temperature goal. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming could be held below, but not well below, 2°C and still be too high to be consistent with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with holding warming below, but not well below, 2°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

1.5°C Paris Agreement Compatible< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDCs in the most stringent part of its “fair share” range: it is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Role model<< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDC is more ambitious than what is considered a “fair” contribution: it is more than consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. No “role model” rating has been developed for the sectors.

1.5°C Compatible< 1.5°C World

Historical emissions

Historical emissions for 1990–2014 were taken from the national GHG inventory (Ministry of Environment Argentina, 2017). The inventory provides numbers in CO₂-equivalent calculated with GWP from the Second Assessment Report (SAR). We recalculated CH₄ and N₂O emissions using GWP from AR4. For F-gases the original values were kept.

The inventory data is also used in the Second Biennial Report but there is a deviation in emissions from fossil fuels combustion in the years 1990 – 1994. We use the data directly from the inventory.

Pledge for 2020

NDC absolute emissions levels including LULUCF are provided directly in the NDC for the unconditional and conditional targets (Government of Argentina, 2016a). To distinguish LULUCF emissions from total GHG emissions and calculate its ratings, the CAT assumes that the mitigation efforts will be proportional to the sector's relevance in terms of emissions contribution, thus maintaining the share of each sector's emissions similar across the years until 2030. This assumption is in line with the information provided by the Ministry of Environment on the expected shares of emissions of each sector in the present and until 2030 (Ministry of Environment of Argentina, 2016). We also recalculate the target, that is originally communicated as an absolute number calculated using SAR GWP, to AR4 GWP. To do so, we apply the growth rate between 2014 and 2030 that the original target implies to inventory data in AR4 GWP.

Current policy projections

The CAT projections for Argentina are based on various sources:

For the “current policies projections – upper bound”:
- Energy sector projections from the mitigation scenarios prepared for the 3rd National Communication (Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development, 2015). The document covers all energy related emissions under implemented policies until 2015. The 3rd National Communication scenario is adjusted in terms of renewable and nuclear energy capacities to follow the “Capacity underway” scenario. The document does not mention the carbon tax (compare section “current policies” further up).
- For the remaining sectors, we use the country’s GHG emissions projections of the 3rd National Communication (Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development, 2015) which uses 2012 as base year.
For the “current policies projections – lower bound”:
- Energy sector projections developed by National University of Buenos Aires (UNICEN), in the report “Current situation and GHG emissions projections in Argentina” (Keesler, Orifici and Blanco, 2019). The document covers all energy related emissions under implemented policies until 2018. The baseline scenario has the following assumptions:
  - The penetration of renewable energy in the power sector follows the current trend;
  - Adjusts the emissions curve of the power sector to capture the current development of nuclear energy;
  - Accounts for barriers in the implementation of energy efficiency measures presented in the sectoral plans (buildings, industry and transport);
  - Takes into account the significant development plan for the exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels (fracking and off-shore oil and gas production);
  - The document does not mention the carbon tax.
- For the remaining sectors, we used the reference scenario projections of the National University of Buenos Aires (UNICEN), in the report “Current situation and GHG emissions projections in Argentina” (Keesler, Orifici and Blanco, 2019).
For the “additional policies projections”:
- Energy sector projections from MINEM, published in December 2017 (Ministry of Energy and Mining Argentina, 2018).
- For the remaining sectors, we used the reference scenario projections of the National University of Buenos Aires (UNICEN), in the report “Current situation and GHG emissions projections in Argentina” (Keesler, Orifici and Blanco, 2019).

We harmonise the projections to the inventory data by applying the growth rates of the projections to the last available historical data point.

Global Warming Potentials

The CAT uses Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for all its figures and time series. Assessments completed prior to December 2018 (COP24) used GWP values from the Second Assessment Report (SAR).