Economy wide
1.5°C compatible emissions pathways would require the country to reduce its emissions by 33% below 2015 levels or to emissions levels of 67 MtCO₂e/yr in 2030, excluding LULUCF.
Peruʼs 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
Peru’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), updated in 2020, sets a 2030 conditional target to limit emissions to 179 MtCO₂e/yr by 2030 including LULUCF. This translates to absolute emissions levels of 107 MtCO₂e in 2030 excluding LULUCF, or a 5% emissions increase above 2015 levels.1,2
1 Climate Action Tracker. Climate Target Update Tracker: Peru. (2020).
2 Climate Action Tracker. Peru: Country Summary. (2020).
3 Ministerio de Energía y Minas Peru. Minem: al cierre del último año se ejecutaron 49 proyectos de energías renovables en el Perú. (2021).
4 COES Perú. Actualización Plan de Transmision 2021 – 2030. (2020).
5 Andina Staff. 15% of Peru’s energy matrix in 2030 to be generated from renewable sources. Andina: Agencia Peruana de Noticias (2018).
6 International Energy Agency. Peru: Electricity generation by source. (2020).
7 BN Americas. What’s next for Peru’s failed 7-region gas concession call? BN Americas (2021).
8 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).
9 Gobierno del Peru. Contribuciones Determinadas a Nivel Nacional del Perú. Reporte de actualización periodo 2021-2030. 29 (2020).
10 Reuters Staff. Peru says deforestation on the rise, up 80 percent from 2001. Reuters (2014).
11 International Energy Agency (IEA). Peru: Total energy supply (TES) by source. (2020).
12 Banco del Desarrollo de Perú (COFIDE). Prácticas e instrumentos financieros para promover la descarbonización de la movilidad urbana. (2019).
13 COFIDE. KfW y COFIDE firman acuerdo de préstamo por 250 millones de euros para Programa “Covid 19: Programa de Reactivación Verde”. (2020).
14 Organismo Supervisor de Inversión en Energía y Minería (OSINERGMIN)- Perú. La industria del gas natural en el Perú a diez años del Proyecto Camisea. 51, (2017).
15 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 23, 32 (El Congreso de la Repúblic de Perú, 2012).
16 Government of Peru. Peruvian submission to the UNFCCC under the Copenhagen accord. (2010).
17 Ministerio del Ambiente- Perú. Segundo Informe Bienal de Actualización ante la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático. (2019).
18 Ministry of Environment of Peru. Programa Bosques del Minam proyecta conservar 10 millones de hectáreas de bosques comunales hacia el 2030. (2020).
19 BN Americas. Increasing natural gas use in 7 Peruvian regions: a mature and profitable project. (2020).
20 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.
21 In some of the analysed pathways, the energy sector assumes already a certain amount of carbon dioxide removal technologies, in this case bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS).
Fair share
Limiting emissions to Peru’s 1.5°C compatible domestic emissions pathway will require substantial international support to close the large gap between its fair share level and and 1.5°C compatible domestic emissions level.
Remaining emissions
When excluding LULUCF emissions, Peru‘s remaining GHG emissions by 2050 should not exceed levels of around 12 MtCO₂e/yr or emissions reductions of at least 89% below 2015 levels. Similarly, Peru’s CO₂ emissions will reach zero by 2050 under 1.5°C compatible pathways. On the road to net zero, the country will need to balance its remaining emissions through the use of carbon sinks, likely from land sector.20
Land-use and forestry
Given its high share of LULUCF emissions (more than half of total GHG emissions in Peru’s latest national inventory report), Peru will need to implement stringent policies to halt deforestation to reduce LULUCF emissions so the land sector can become a larger sink.
Net zero CO₂
Zero CO₂ emissions, excluding LULUCF, will need to be driven by the full decarbonisation of the power sector and replacement of fossil fuel transport with zero-emission vehicles.
Sectors
Power
Power
- In 2019, around 60% of Peru’s power was generated from renewables – mainly from hydropower. However, only about 4% of Peru’s power came from solar and wind generation.6
- While coal plays a very small role in Peru’s power supply (1% of the power mix in 2017), natural gas accounts for approximately 38% of its power production.6 1.5°C compatible pathways show that coal should be phased out in Peru as quickly as possible and gas between 2033 and 2035. However, no phase out dates for these fossil fuels have been announced by the government. To achieve these phase out dates will require some significant international support, on top of the measures that Peru needs to undertake through its own resources.
- Peru had originally planned to contract a major natural gas project to service seven regions, but this fell through in July 2021 due to lack of economic and technical trust in the feasibility.7 Continued use of natural gas for power production in the country brings a high risk of stranded assets and lock-in in a carbon intensive emissions pathway.
- Full decarbonisation of the power sector will require a minimum of 99% renewable power generation by 2035.
- Peru’s power sector should be fully decarbonised between 2031 and 2035 to be on track with a 1.5°C compatible pathway. International support may be needed to fully achieve these emissions reductions on this time frame.