Chile

Historical emissions from 1990 to 2022 were taken from the PRIMAP National Historical Greenhouse Gas Emissions Database (Gütschow and Pflüger, 2023). The data is provided in AR4.

LULUCF data from 1990 to 2020 is taken from the Greenhouse Gas Inventory presented alongside Chile’s Fifth Biennial Update Report to the UNFCCC (Ministerio del Medio Ambiente, 2023).

No assumptions or calculations were made with respect to the unconditional NDC target for 2030 as it already included an absolute target for emissions excl. LULUCF. The NDC also included a peak year (2025) and an emissions budget (excl. LULUCF) for the period between 2020 and 2030 (Government of Chile, 2020a). These numbers were taken directly into our calculations and no additional assumptions were needed.

The range for the conditional NDC target has been updated from the previous assessment due to an update in historical emissions. We used the 2016 historical emissions value (incl. LULUCF) from Chile’s latest National Inventory Report (BUR5) to recalculate the new range (Ministerio del Medio Ambiente, 2023).

For the new conditional target – a reduction of up to 45% in net emissions by 2030, compared to 2016 levels – we assumed that reductions from “net emissions” refers to economy-wide emissions incl. LULUCF. This translates into an emissions target of 25.1 MtCO₂e (incl. LULUCF) by 2030. Chile has not provided further details on the extent to which it will rely on LULUCF to meet the conditional target, thus we have developed a range based on the following assumptions:

• For the lower end of the range, we assumed that the further emissions reductions needed to meet the conditional target, as compared to the unconditional target, will come from reductions in all sectors except LULUCF. Thus, we assume the 45% reduction would apply to emissions excluding LULUCF. This translates into an 88 MtCO₂e emissions level by 2030 (excl. LULUCF). For the same year, we assume the LULUCF sink would remain at -63.1 MtCO₂e, its most recent historical value.
• For the upper end of the range, we assumed that the further emissions reductions needed to meet the conditional target as compared to the unconditional target will come entirely from removals in the LULUCF sector. This means emissions excluding LULUCF by 2030 will remain at 95 MtCO₂e (as in the unconditional target), while the LULUCF sink increases to -69.9 MtCO₂e.

Current policy projections have been harmonised to historical emissions up to 2022. We derive our current policy projections using a few different sources.

For the upper range of our current policy projections, we use:

• Energy CO2 emissions: based on the Asian and Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2022 Outlook. As this scenario includes all current key policies, no additional calculations were added. These policies include Chile’s Energy Efficiency Law, the retirement of coal plants by 2040, with 65% of coal plant capacity shutting down before 2025, the National Electromobility Strategy, as well as its Hydrogen Strategy (APEC, 2022).
• Energy non-CO2 emissions: based on non-CO₂ emissions projections from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2019).
• Industrial processes, agriculture, and waste emissions: based on Chile’s Fifth Biennial Update Report (BUR5) (Ministerio del Medio Ambiente, 2022).

For the lower range of our current policy projections, we use:

• All sectors, including energy: based on the ‘Transición tardía’ projections from Chile’s Fifth Biennial Report (Ministerio del Medio Ambiente, 2022).

For ‘other’ sector emissions in both scenarios, we have taken a 10-year historical trend (2010-2019) from PRIMAP (Gütschow and Pflüger, 2023).

We also compared our current policy projections to those from Observatorio de Carbono Neutralidad (across all sectors) harmonised to 2022 emissions, but this currently falls between the lower and upper end of our CPP (Observatorio de Carbono Neutralidad, 2024).

Some policy developments such as the update on the Distributed Generation Law (also referred to as the “Net Billing” Law) (Law 20.571), which triples the capacity threshold for installed capacity for projects of self-consumption, are not quantified due to lack of available data.

Chile has committed to being net-zero by 2050. According to Chile’s long-term strategy submitted to the UNFCCC, the target includes a LULUCF sink of 65 MtCO₂e to neutralise remaining emissions. Thus, we estimate Chile’s total GHG emissions excluding LULUCF in 2050 to be 65 MtCO₂e (Gobierno de Chile, 2021).

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).

Black carbon can have both a warming and a cooling effect in the atmosphere, depending on where it is: black carbon on snow reduces the albedo of the surface and thus leads to warming. It also leads to higher local temperature of the snow and thus to higher rate of snow melt. Both cooling and warming effects can emerge from interferences with other particles in the atmosphere (depending on the exact conditions). The IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6) indicates a net-positive effect of black carbon on warming over time, i.e. in sum, black carbon has contributed more to warming than cooling over the last centuries (Szopa et al., 2021). AR6 also reports an increase in the radiative forcing of black carbon over time, meaning that the warming effects are growing more strongly than the cooling effects.

The IPCC concludes that reducing emissions of black carbon (as well as other anthropogenic emissions like methane) in the short term would contribute to limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C. Along with the decarbonisation of the energy system that is required for 1.5°C, black carbon decreases in the 1.5°C compatible scenarios analysed in the IPCC's 6th Assessment Report.

The climate response of black carbon differs from greenhouse gases in terms of the geographical reach of its impacts, its lifetime, and its interactions with other particles and gases in the atmosphere. The IPCC therefore does not provide any estimate of the global warming potential of black carbon