Latin America Report: Thinking Big About Clean Energy and Climate Change
May 1, 2013
New Hampshire, USA -- Virtually eliminating the carbon footprint from Latin America's power sector by 2050 would require $66 billion in annual investments, with spending on renewable energy making up half that amount, according to a new report analyzing full "climate stabilization" in the region.
The study, initially presented at last year's Rio+20 meeting, is a joint effort of the Inter-American Development Bank, the Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the World Wide Fund.
Starting with the assumption that Latin America's geography, population distribution, infrastructure, and reliance on natural resources (agriculture, biodiversity, and water availability) make it particularly vulnerable to climate change, the study projects what it calls a "conservative" calculation of $100 billion in yearly economic damages by 2050 attributed to climate change. The region's emissions profile basically is the opposite of the global profile, with most emissions stemming from land use and transportation and 25-30 percent from energy/power generation.
The path back to climate stability — defined as 2 tons per capita of CO2 emissions in 2050 — lies mainly with aggressive land-use adjustments, including "widespread electrification of the transport sector," but also rethinking the region's energy pathways with lofty goals of vastly reduced energy demand (40 percent), ratcheting to 60-80 percent of primary energy mix from renewables, and 75-100 percent of electricity from low-carbon sources. Think those numbers are outrageous? The study says the "business-as-usual" scenario would require an additional $464 billion in financial expenditures annually by 2050 just to meet the region's projected rising energy demand.
"Arresting and reversing the current carbonization path of the regional power matrix by 2050 would imply a major shift toward rapid deployment of the substantial renewable energy endowment in the region," the report authors say. "The implication is that for less than $100 billion annually in 2050 (or less than $2 trillion cumulatively) in incremental, or 'net,' additional financial requirements, the region could reduce its emissions from its projected level in 2050 [...] to a level consistent with defending the 2°C guardrail."
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