Skip to content

Peru Current situation

What is Peruʼs pathway to limit global warming to 1.5°C?

Emissions profile

Forests cover about two-thirds of Peru’s territory. Emissions from the land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector represented the largest portion (51%) of Peru’s overall emissions in 2014, based on a national emissions inventory. The LULUCF emissions are mainly due to deforestation. The energy sector is the country’s second largest emitter, accounting for 26% of total emissions. Transport is the largest individual contributor to the energy sector emissions followed by the power sector.

In the last official GHG inventory year (2014), Peru’s deforestation rate grew by 80% compared to 2001, contributing to the high proportion of LULUCF emissions in the 2014 total.13 However, current policy projections are estimated to increase by 23% by 2030 compared to 2015 levels.2 Increasing the share of renewable energy in the power sector and incentivising the use of zero-emission modes of transport are key policies to drive emissions reductions.

1 Climate Action Tracker. Climate Target Update Tracker: Peru. (2020).

2 Climate Action Tracker. Peru: Country Summary. (2020).

3 Ministerio de Ambiente de Peru. Estiman que reducir emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero beneficiará al país en 98 mil millones de dólares al 2050. Press Release, Ministerio de Ambiente (2020).

4 Gobierno del Peru. Contribuciones Determinadas a Nivel Nacional del Perú. Reporte de actualización periodo 2021-2030. 29 (2020).

5 Ministerio de Energía y Minas Peru. Minem: al cierre del último año se ejecutaron 49 proyectos de energías renovables en el Perú. (2021).

6 COES Perú. Actualización Plan de Transmision 2021 – 2030. (2020).

7 Andina Staff. 15% of Peru’s energy matrix in 2030 to be generated from renewable sources. Andina: Agencia Peruana de Noticias (2018).

8 International Energy Agency. Peru: Electricity generation by source. (2020).

9 BN Americas. What’s next for Peru’s failed 7-region gas concession call? BN Americas (2021).

10 Ministry of the Environment. Peru. Inventario Nacional de Gases de Efecto Invernadero del Año 2016 y Actualización de las Estimaciones de los Años 2000, 2005, 2010, 2012 y 2014. (2021).

11 Guglielmetti, F. Por decreto Perú facilita ingreso de vehículos eléctricos, híbridos y de hidrógeno verde. Portal movilidad (2022).

12 Ministerio de Transporte y Comunicaciones (MTC). Decreto Supremo que crea el Programa Nacional de Transporte Urbano Sostenible. Peru government (2019).

13 Reuters Staff. Peru says deforestation on the rise, up 80 percent from 2001. Reuters (2014).

14 International Energy Agency (IEA). Peru: Total energy supply (TES) by source. (2020).

15 Banco del Desarrollo de Perú (COFIDE). Prácticas e instrumentos financieros para promover la descarbonización de la movilidad urbana. (2019).

16 COFIDE. KfW y COFIDE firman acuerdo de préstamo por 250 millones de euros para Programa “Covid 19: Programa de Reactivación Verde”. (2020).

17 Organismo Supervisor de Inversión en Energía y Minería (OSINERGMIN)- Perú. La industria del gas natural en el Perú a diez años del Proyecto Camisea. vol. 51 (2017).

18 El Congreso de la República de Perú. LEY No 29969: Ley que dicta disposiciones a fin de promover la masificación del gas natural. El Peruano vol. 23 32 (El Congreso de la Repúblic de Perú, 2012).

19 Government of Peru. Peruvian submission to the UNFCCC under the Copenhagen accord. (2010).

20 Ministerio del Ambiente- Perú. Segundo Informe Bienal de Actualización ante la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático. (2019).

21 Ministry of Environment of Peru. Programa Bosques del Minam proyecta conservar 10 millones de hectáreas de bosques comunales hacia el 2030. (2020).

22 Climate Action Tracker. Peru: Country Summary. (2020).”:https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/peru/

23 BN Americas. Increasing natural gas use in 7 Peruvian regions: a mature and profitable project. (2020).

24 Gaillard, C. Sustainable construction in Peru between informality, unskilled labour, self-construction and corruption. Construction 21 (2019).

25 Ministerio de Vivienda, C. y S. Decreto Supremo que Aprueba el Codigo Tecnico de Construccion Sostenible. (2021).

26 Ministry of the Environment. Peru. National Inventory Report 2016 and update 2000, 2005, 2010, 2012 y 2014. (2021).

27 Salas Oblitas, L. Autos híbridos y eléctricos: ¿cómo está el Perú respecto a los países de la región? El Comercio (2020).

28 Government of Peru. Decreto Supremo que crea el Programa Nacional de Transporte Urbano Sostenible. (Ministry of Transport and Communications, 2019).

29 To exclude LULUCF emissions, it was assumed that the percentage of share of mitigation effort in the LULUCF sector is the same as described in the first NDC and this value is subtracted from the absolute value.

30 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. 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.

Peruʼs current GHG emissions

MtCO₂e/yr

Displayed values

By sector

  • Transport
  • Industry (energy use)
  • Power
  • Fugitive emissions
  • Buildings
  • Other
  • LULUCF
  • Agriculture
  • Waste
  • Industry (processes)
Energy (26%)0

By gas

  • CO₂
  • CH₄
  • N₂O
  • Other
077%0

Sectors by gas

Energy
093%0
Agriculture
00
Industry (processes)
098%0

Energy system

Fossil fuels made up 75% of Peru’s total energy supply in 2018.14 The majority of this share comes from oil used for fossil fuel vehicles in the transport sector. Fossil gas produced 28% of the total energy supply.14

In the power sector, roughly 60% of Peru’s electricity is already generated from renewable sources, with hydropower being the main renewable energy source with a 55% share.8 However, natural gas still accounted for 38% of the power production in 2017. Peruvian government has not set a phase-out date for fossil gas.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) in particular is being promoted in the country, with increasing usage in the transport and residential energy sectors through projects financed by the government and the Peruvian Development Bank.15,16 The government of Peru sees improving access to fossil gas as a key step to increasing social inclusion and reducing energy poverty in rural areas.17,18 However, the continued development of fossil gas in the country brings high risk of stranded assets and a lock-in of emitting technologies in the future.

Targets and commitments

Economy-wide targets

Target type

Fixed level target

NDC target

Unconditional NDC Target:

  • Absolute emissions limit of 208.8 MtCO₂e/yr by 2030 (incl. LULUCF).
  • Equivalent to 123 MtCO₂e/yr by 2030 (excl. LULUCF)39 or 23% above 2015 levels.

Conditional NDC Target:

  • Absolute emissions limit of 179 MtCO₂e/yr by 2030 (incl. LULUCF).
  • Equivalent to 107 MtCO₂e/yr by 2030 (excl. LULUCF) or 5% above 2015 levels.

Long-term target

  • Peru has announced its intent to achieve net zero GHG, by 2050. As of January 2023, the Government of Peru has not yet submitted a Long Term Strategy to the UNFCCC.

Sector coverage

EnergyIndustryWasteAgricultureLULUCF

Greenhouse gas coverage

CO₂CH₄NF₃HFCsN₂OSF₆

Sectoral targets

Energy

  • In its Copenhagen pledge, Peru set a target to reach 33% renewable energy in its total energy supply by 2020.16

Buildings

  • The NAMA for Sustainable Construction aims to reduce water consumption in buildings by 30–40% and energy consumption by 30–50% by 2030.20

Agriculture

  • In Peru’s 2019 biennial report to the UNFCCC, the country indicated several ongoing NAMAs for the agricultural sector focused on reducing emissions from the cultivation of cocoa, coffee and oil palm, and keeping livestock. The mitigation potential from these measures is still being calculated.20

Power

  • The Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines has set a target of reaching 15% renewable electricity production from non-hydro renewable sources, such as wind and solar, by 2030.5

Waste

  • The NAMA Solid Waste aims to reduce waste sector emissions by 2.4 MtCO₂e/yr in 2030 through improving recycling, composting and the use of methane from waste facilities for energy.20

LULUCF

  • In 2010, Peru set a target of reaching zero deforestation in the country by 2021.19 It did not meet this target.
  • Peru’s National Forest Conservation Program includes a new target to conserve 10 million hectares of community owned forests by 2030, which would translate to reducing the current deforestation rate by 30%.21

Footnotes