Economy wide
To be in line with a 1.5°C pathway, Chile’s emissions would need to be around 64 MtCO₂e (41% below 2016 levels) by 2030. The gap between Chile’s target and a 1.5°C compatible pathway is 26 MtCO₂e or an extra 24% reduction below 2016 levels.
Chileʼs total GHG emissions
excl. LULUCF MtCO₂e/yr
- 1.5°C compatible pathways
- Middle of the 1.5°C compatible range
- Current policy projections
- 1.5°C emissions range
- Historical emissions
2030 NDC
Chile’s unconditional nationally determined contribution (NDC) aims for an emissions level of 95 MtCO₂e/yr by 2030 excluding LULUCF, or a 14% reduction below levels in the reference year of 2016.1
1 Climate Action Tracker. Chile. November 2022 update. Climate Action Tracker. 2022.
2 PIK. PRIMAP: Paris-Reality Check, Chile. 2016.
3 Ministerio de Energía. Energia abierta: Balance nacional de energía.
4 Guerra, E. & Guillén, J. Leyes de Eficiencia Energética en Latinoamérica y el Caribe. 2021.
5 Ministry of Energy. Energia 2050 Politica Energetica de Chile. 2022.
6 Ministerio de Minería, G. de C. Minería 2050. Politica Nacional Minera. 2022.
7 International Energy Agency. Country Profile: Chile. 2019.
8 S&P Global Platts. Chile lifts coal imports, but limited by rising natural gas supplies. S&P Global. 2019.
9 Gobierno de of Chile. Presidente Piñera presentó plan para cerrar todas las centrales energéticas a carbón para que Chile sea carbono neutral. 4 de Junio. 2019.
10 Government of Chile. Chile’s Nationally Determined Contribution – Update 2020. 2020.
11 Climate Action Tracker. CAT Climate Target Update Tracker Chile. Climate Action Tracker. 2020.
12 Ministerio de Energia del Gobierno de Chile. NDC y Plan de Carbono Neutralidad 2050. 2020.
13 Ministerio de Energia- Gobierno de Chile. Plataforma de Electromovilidad. Orientaciones de Politicas Publicas. 2022.
14 EBP Chile. Estudio de Movilidad Eléctrica en Chile. 2018.
15 La Tercera. El plan que busca convertir a Chile en el segundo país con más buses eléctricos del mundo. Electricidad. La revista energetica de Chile. 2018.
16 Government of Chile. Chile announces that it will work to put an end to coal use by 2030 after joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance. 2021.
17 Ministerio de Energía. Energía 2050: Política Energética de Chile. 2015.
18 Gütschow, J., Günther, A. & Pflüger, M. The PRIMAP-Hist national historical emissions time series (1990-2021). 2022.
19 While global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C provide useful guidance for an upper-limit of emissions trajectories for developed countries, they underestimate the feasible space for such countries to reach net zero earlier. The current generation of models tend to depend strongly on land-use sinks outside of currently developed countries and include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches. The scientific teams which provide these global pathways constantly improve the technologies represented in their models – and novel CDR technologies are now being included in new studies focused on deep mitigation scenarios meeting the Paris Agreement goal. A wide assessment database of these new scenarios is not yet available; thus, we rely on available scenarios which focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology. Accordingly, we do not yet consider land-sector emissions (LULUCF) and other CDR approaches.
Conditional NDC
Under its NDC that is conditional on international support, Chile aims for an emissions level of 90–95 MtCO₂e excl. LULUCF (14–18% below 2016 levels).
Current policies
Emissions under current policies are projected to be between 88–104 MtCO₂e, showing that Chile may reach its current conditional target, but demonstrating the need for additional effort and ratcheting up to be 1.5°C compatible.
Net zero GHG
Chile has set a net zero GHG emissions target for 2050, however, it foresees 50% of these emissions reductions to come from sequestration from the land use and forestry sector (-65 MtCO₂e/yr from LULUCF in 2050).
1.5°C compatible pathways would require Chile to reach a level of remaining GHG emissions lower than 14 MtCO₂e/yr excluding LULUCF by 2050 (or 87% below 2016 levels). Chile would need to balance the remaining emissions through the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches to reach net zero GHGs by mid-century.19
Sectors
Power
- To be aligned with 1.5°C pathways, Chile’s power sector will need to be fully decarbonised in the early 2030s, with renewables representing an 87-99% share of power generation by 2030, compared to roughly 47% in 2019.
- In 2019, Chile set a goal to phase out coal by 2040. However, decarbonising the country’s power sector in line with 1.5°C pathways requires a coal phase-out in the current decade and a gas phase-out between 2031-2035. The current government is studying the feasibility of a more ambitious target and of accelerating the closure of all coal power plants by 2030.2
- Phasing out fossil fuel based power plants will reduce Chile’s dependency on fossil fuel imports, avoid the risk of stranded assets and provide more opportunities for renewable technologies.
Buildings
- In 2020, the building sector in Chile made up around 23% of total national final energy demand, representing more than 7% of total GHG emissions.2,3
- Chile’s energy efficiency law grants an energy efficiency label to buildings that meet a certain energy rating and also mandates all types of building, whether public, residential, commercial or office buildings, to be energy rated.4
- Analysed 1.5C° pathway shows that current measures should be accelerated for the building sector to be decarbonised by 2032–2047.
Industry
- The analysed 1.5°C compatible pathways show that the combined share of electricity, biomass, and hydrogen in industry final energy demand would need to increase to between 83-98% by 2050, from the 2019 level of 55% (predominantly electricity followed by biomass).
- The mining industry is the biggest industrial energy consumer in Chile. The government’s main policy plans for the sector are outlined in the “Energy Strategy”, which sets a 70% reduction target for the mining sector’s energy related emissions by 2050.5
- As part of the government’s long-term strategy and national mining policy, the goal is to reduce the sector’s GHG emissions by at least 50% compared to 2020 by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040.6
Transport
- The Chilean government aims to reduce emissions from road transport by 40% by 2050 and achieve a fully decarbonised public transport fleet by 2040. Current measures include a ban on the sale of fossil fuel powered light duty vehicles by 2035 and promoting electromobility in the public fleet.
- Although the electric vehicle (EV) share of new car sales remains low, recent measures implemented by Chile are positive and should lead to a significant and imminent increase in EV sales.
- Emissions projections in all 1.5°C scenarios show emissions peaking in 2020, followed by a rapid decline to achieve decarbonisation of the sector around 2050, demonstrating that Chile’s current 2050 target remains insufficient.