Peru

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Economy-wide

Historical emissions, excluding LULUCF, have increased by 63% from approximately 54 MtCO2e in 1990 to 96 MtCO2e in 2014.¹

Under currently implemented policies, GHG emissions will increase to 139–148 MtCO2e, excl. LULUCF, by 2030 (157–174% above 1990 levels). These projections take into account policies implemented according to the Third National Communication (Ministerio del Ambiente del Perú, 2016). The minimum range of the current policies projections shows the full mitigation potential of these policies. The maximum range of the current policies projections is equal to the BAU scenario as it is uncertain if the full mitigation potential of those policies would be realised in 2030. However, even under the full mitigation potential of currently implemented policies, Peru will not achieve its NDC targets.

In April 2018, President Vizcarra announced Peru’s long-awaited framework law on climate change, which serves as a legislative instrument for the 2014 National Strategy on Climate Change and effectively made Peru’s NDC legally binding (MINAM, 2018). The law emphasises the need for climate adaptation, but also describes how mitigation efforts should be pursued: carbon sequestration in forests, sustainable transport, waste management, switching to renewable energy and energy efficiency in industry.

The law also created a high-level commission, the Comisión de Alto Nivel de Cambio Climático, which can propose adaptation and mitigation measures to the Peruvian Government, as well as suggesting changes to the NDC. The Ministry of Environment is mandated to report annually to the Parliament on the progress made in implementing adaptation and mitigation measures (MINAM, 2018).

Peru has adopted several policies and planned projects to lower its GHG emissions. The National Strategy on Climate Change establishes 11 strategic national priorities to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change the country faces, including management of ecosystems, mitigation, adaptation and scientific research. The aim of the strategy is to identify potential vulnerabilities where adaptation projects should be implemented, and to define the guidelines for action on mitigation through energy efficiency and renewable energy programmes.

The most relevant sector specific policies are summarised below.

1 | Emissions (including and excluding LULUCF) in 2010 reported in the Third National Communication differ from the levels in the NDC as the National GHG Inventory was only updated after the submission of the INDC.

Energy supply

The contribution of Peru’s energy supply sector to overall emissions in Peru (excl. LULUCF) is around 14% (Ministerio del Ambiente del Perú, 2016). Policies that aim to mitigate these emissions include the policy for ‘promotion of investment for the generation of electricity from renewable energies’, which builds on the National Strategy on Climate Change and prioritises renewable energy generation as a matter of national interest and public necessity. It mandates the setting of renewable energy targets as a share of electricity consumption in five-year intervals ‘up to 5%’. Since 2009, four renewable energy auctions have contributed towards achieving this target (El Comercio, 2017).

Peru also has a law to promote an efficient use of energy. Law no. 27345 mandates the Ministry of Energy and Mines to carry out activities aimed at encouraging a culture of improving energy efficiency, in coordination with other public institutions and the private sector. It also defines sectoral programmes for the efficient use of energy.

In addition, the Universal Access Plan 2022 subsidises the installation of improved cook stoves in rural areas.

The law to promote a market for biofuels (Law no. 28054) establishes the general framework to promote the development of biofuels with the aim of diversifying the fuel market. However, the current fuel mix quotas (5% for biodiesel and 7.8% for ethanol) are only considered in the BAU scenario (Government of Peru, 2015a).

With 21% of renewables in its total primary energy supply in 2016 (IEA, 2018), Peru is lagging behind in its efforts compared with its Copenhagen pledge of 40% renewable energy by 2021.

Transport

The contribution of Peru’s transport sector to overall emissions in Peru (excl. LULUCF) is around 21% (Ministerio del Ambiente del Perú, 2016) and constitutes the largest contributor to energy-related emissions in the country. To mitigate these emissions, Peru has already implemented the construction of the Lima Metro Network and the COFIGAS Programme which supports the conversion of vehicles to run on natural gas.

Peru has also had a Maximum Allowable Emission Limits regulation in place since 2007. This regulation mandates that new private vehicles being imported into the country should comply with Euro 3 or Tier 1 fuel standards and cannot be older than five years.

Recently, the President and other government representatives have made statements that they intend to accelerate the entry of electric vehicles in Peru. The NDC includes a 5% EV share target by 2030 (Government of Peru, 2015b), which is highly insufficient considering that, at global level, the last fossil fuel car should be sold before 2035 to reach full decarbonisation in the road transport sector by mid-century.

Buildings

In 2015, Peru approved a Sustainable Construction Code to improve technical criteria for the design and construction of public and private buildings (Supreme Decree no. 015-2015-VIVIENDA). More recently, energy efficiency labels for household appliances have been introduced (Supreme Decree no. 009-2017-EM).

Forestry

The contribution of Peru’s LULUCF sector to overall emissions in Peru (incl. LULUCF) is around 51% (Ministerio del Ambiente del Perú, 2016). Peru hosts about 740,000 square kilometres of forests, including the largest area of the Amazon rainforest after Brazil (World Bank, 2015). However, the Amazon is poised to become one of the 11 regions in the world to have more deforestation and forest degradation in 2030 than anywhere else (WWF, 2015), and Peru’s contribution is not insignificant. Deforestation remains a significant problem, particularly in the Andean-Amazon countries like Peru – due to expansion of palm oil, agriculture, illegal logging and informal mining (Swenson et al., 2011; WWF International, 2015).

Under current policies projections for the LULUCF sector, emissions from Peruvian deforestation are projected to soar by 82–84% between 2012 and 2030, a growth rate not seen before in Peru’s history. We note that this estimate is significantly higher than previous estimates by CIFOR (CIFOR, 2014). This appears to be at odds with Peru’s refined Copenhagen pledge of reducing LULUCF emissions to zero by 2021. As world LULUCF emissions would need to decrease towards 2030 to fall in the Paris Agreement emissions pathway, Peru needs to address—and prevent—this significant projected increase.

Peru’s forest law (Law no. no. 29763) and the National Strategy on Protected Areas aim to reduce deforestation through sustainable forest management and improved management of protected areas, respectively. Both policies are included in the current policies projections. To fund such efforts in the Amazon, Peru has recently received USD 36 million support in form of grants and loans from the Interamerican Development Bank and the Climate Investment Funds (IDB, 2018).

Finally, Peru has further policies in the forestry sector such as the National Forestry and Climate Change Strategy, the law and an executive decree aimed at compensation for services to Ecosystems (Law No. 30215) and the commercialisation of fees by ecosystem conservation (Executive Decree no. 26-2014-SERNANP). However, the emission reduction impact of these policies is unknown.