SLCPs: The implementation of identified measures across LAC / Progress and Opportunities | Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) Skip to content Skip to navigation

SLCPs: The implementation of identified measures across LAC / Progress and Opportunities

Astrid Puentes Riaño, AIDA's co-executive director, and Florencia Ortúzar, an AIDA attorney, are two of the lead authors of chapter 5 of Integrated Assessment of Short-Lived Climate Pollutants in Latin America and the Caribbean: Summary for Decision Makers, a publication edited by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC).

Their key message: Efforts and experience reducing some SLCPs are already in place across LAC and could be scaled up if identified barriers were overcome.

The modelling carried out for this assessment has highlighted the potential for mitigation of SLCP emissions from a small number of suggested measures. A few of these have already been implemented or are currently being considered at national and subnational scales within Latin American and the Caribbean. The full implementation modelled in this assessment requires the strengthening of current policies, as well as more efficient, sustainable and widespread penetration of the measures across the region. Barriers to full implementation, however, need to be recognized and overcome if the identified mitigation potential is to be achieved. A national and regional discussion could be initiated to address SLCPs in the LAC regions as a whole.

Examples of integrated frameworks for coordinated management of climate change mitigation and air quality actions are already in place, showing the effectiveness of leveraging institutional synergies. 

Chile and Mexico, recognizing that integrating policies for climate and clean air can significantly reduce the cost of achieving objectives in both sectors, have implemented appropriate strategies. Chile has unified the two functions in a single department, the Division of Air Quality and Climate Change within the Ministry of Environment. Mexico, on the other hand, has enacted the General Law on Climate Change (LGCC), which provides a legal framework regulating climate change policies and includes the National Strategy of Climate Change (ENCC) and the Special Programme on Climate Change (PECC). Both the ENCC and PECC incorporate greenhouse gases and SLCPs as part in the mitigation strategies. Such efforts need to be synchronized with the goals of other governmental institutions, as has been done in Chile and Mexico, where ministries of energy, transportation, finances and even housing have coordinated their policies to achieve the maximum effect.

 

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