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A study developed by Strategic Conservation (CSF) in coordination with the Plurinational Authority of Mother Earth – APMT and with the support of the Swedish embassy in Bolivia, evaluated the economic impact of a set of mitigation measures considered in the second national report of the Nationally Determined Contributions, NDC (for its acronym in English) recently presented by the Plurinational State of Bolivia before the United Nations.
According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, time is running out to reach the “peak” of global emissions to prevent the earth’s average temperature from rising above 1.5°C relative to the pre-industrial era.
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According to estimates, emission mitigation efforts must be accelerated to achieve 45% reductions by 2030. To achieve this goal, scientists and academics urge all countries, developed and developing, like Bolivia, to act immediately. .
Bolivia is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change due to its physical conditions and level of development. In this context, the country recently advanced in the process of reviewing and updating its NDCs, with the aim of reducing its emissions by 2030 and contributing to the global effort to keep the average global temperature increase at 1.5°C.
In Latin America, the greatest challenge is in the forestry and land use change sectors, and Bolivia is no exception. A recent study, developed by CSF, shows that Bolivia has great possibilities to continue its economic development by making sustainable use of its forests and, at the same time, reducing its carbon dioxide emissions.
The study developed by CSF, in joint collaboration between academia, civil society and the public sector, analyzed the economic impact of some of the measures considered by the Bolivian State to achieve the NDC.
The measures analyzed belong to the forestry, energy and transport sectors. According to the study, reducing deforestation would be the most cost-efficient measure and the one that would have the greatest capacity to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases.
Likewise, the study establishes that the implementation of the set of measures would allow the country to contribute with a 40% reduction in its emissions by 2050. This objective would be achieved without incurring an economic cost, given that the projections of growth in a scenario with measures, compared to a baseline scenario (without measures), would be between 2.4 and 2.7% higher. This represents approximately an additional $15.5 billion in present value and net job creation.
During the study presentation event, Luis Gonzales, Economic Coordinator of Climate Change at Clapes UC and associate researcher at CSF, mentioned that Bolivia has the potential to advance towards sustainable development, if it adopts forest conservation commitments and abandons its dependence on fossil fuels. fossil fuels in electricity generation and transportation “The data shows us that the efforts to mitigate emissions would be rewarded with greater fiscal resources, higher GDP, generation of new job opportunities and improvement in the quality of life thanks to the improvement of the environment. environment”.
Regarding the set of measures that were analyzed, Juan Carlos Torrico, Director of Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change of the Plurinational Authority of Mother Earth, stressed that, although the list of measures that were analyzed by the study does not coincide 100% With the list of measures that were presented in the update of the NDCs within the framework of the Paris Agreement, the study rescues the most relevant measures and, therefore, the results are highly representative and useful to guide the decision-making process.
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Likewise, Guido Meruvia, from the Swedish Embassy in Bolivia, highlighted that the implementation of the set of measures would have an implementation cost equivalent to 30% of GDP, therefore, its financing would depend on both internal and external sources, and will require the participation of public and private actors. Finally, Alfonso Malky, CSF Technical Director for Latin America, highlighted the importance of taking immediate action to reduce the growing rates of deforestation, pointing out that “Bolivia’s best opportunity to meet its climate commitments is in its forests, the Increasing deforestation observed in recent years positioned Bolivia as one of the three countries with the highest deforestation in the world and as the first in terms of deforestation per capita, for which it is necessary to take immediate action to reverse this trend.
According to the study, postponing the fulfillment of the deforestation reduction goals (expected until 2030), until 2050, would imply the emission of more than 830 million additional tons of CO2eq (carbon dioxide equivalent). This scenario would not only make it impossible to comply with Bolivia’s climate commitments, but would also cause irreversible losses for the Bolivian economy and a significant deterioration in the well-being of the population.
