Skip to main content

What should Colombia do?

1

Enhance its NDC to be 1.5 degree aligned by COP28:

  • Define adaptation actions for sectors
  • Pursue a financial reform along international actors that aligns financial flows to the NDC
  • Establish targets to reduce FF exports reliance via diversification, import substitution and increased domestic savings by 2035
  • Implement resolute plans to shutter the unabated coal-fired power plants before 2030 and gas-fired plants before 2040
  • Attain net zero emissions by 2050 focusing on electrifying its economy based on RE
2

Implement a Just Energy Transition plan:

  • Adopt ambitious targets for decarbonizing energy production while electrifying transport and residential sectors
  • Promote financial arrangements to scale up funding for RE and energy efficiency
  • Use revenues from taxes (carbon tax) to subsidize energy efficiency and RE, and initiate a gradual phase-out of FF subsidies
  • Accelerate permitting, planning and siting systems to prevent human rights violations, ecosystem damage, corruption and displacement
  • Provide R&D incentives for the creation of a national value chain

What you need to know about Colombia?

  • Colombia’s NDC was updated in December 2021 to establish a 51% reduction of GHG emissions by 2030 with respect to a 2014 baseline. Despite the apparently ambitious target, it is classified by CAT as ‘highly insufficient’ given the low ambition of key sectors excluding LULUCF, particularly energy, and a lack of domestic policies in place to actually deliver on the target.
  • Left-oriented political parties are the majority in Congress and regional elections will be in October 2023.
  • Colombia elected Gustavo Petro as new president in June 2022. It appears to be a climate-committed government, with no specific actions deployed so far. The country’s high dependence on fossil fuel exports for fiscal revenue remains a key determining factor for this incoming government.
  • Current policies with particularly high mitigation potential include plans to boost renewable electricity generation from wind and solar by 2030, as well as ongoing policies aimed at boosting electric vehicle use and creating a more resilient agricultural sector. However, gas is increasingly gaining momentum and its use as a ‘transition’ fuel is serving as the basis for locking-in related infrastructure for the long term.

Recent developments, threats and levers for action

Recent developments

  • Colombian president Gustavo Petro called for a planetary ‘Marshall plan’ for Debt-for-climate swaps. It would be financed by both taxes on financial transactions and special debt issues for climate investments
  • A first draft of the roadmap for the Just Energy Transition was published, being the first document that addresses a JET scenario and trajectory for achieving carbon neutrality in 2050, and it will be officially presented in early 2024. In addition, President Gustavo Petro appointed a new Energy Minister in July
  • The Escazú Agreement, a legally binding regional treaty addressing environmental and human rights issues on access to information, public participation and environmental justice, was ratified in October 2022, and specific measures to implement it are to be discussed.
  • Deforestation continues to be critical and effective restoration of ecosystems is urgent. Land grabbing, for speculation, agricultural and livestock purposes, illegal mining and drug trafficking are leading drivers. The government keeps promoting the Leticia Pact as the regional initiative to decrease the deforestation in the Amazon biome, but the plan is yet to yield concrete results

Strengths

  • Strong international record with progressive positions on climate in multilateral scenarios
  • Relative progress and stability on domestic climate and environmental legislation and institutions
  • Regional leadership on RE generation due to its retention of critical minerals for the transition (Nickel)
  • Presidential call to the Amazon countries and partners in the Global North to commit to phasing out oil and coal

Opportunities

  • Electrification of transport has a high potential for emissions reductions, increased resilience and improvements in air quality in urban areas
  • Local potential for non-conventional RE generation to boost local economies
  • Promotion of an international fund for peasants to preserve the Amazon
  • Opportunity of collaborating on regional climate ambition upon the upcoming Brazilian G20’s presidency

Weaknesses

  • Lack of a consistent public narrative on the need for and benefits of a Just Energy Transition. Social buy-in is critical for the transition in Colombia
  • Highly dependent economy on FF exports (coal and oil) for jobs, local development and fiscal revenue
  • The lack of state control in key regions, alongside illegal economies and non-state armed groups, drives and makes it harder to tackle threats such as deforestation.

Threats

  • Deforestation remains at critical rates and largely untackled, with potentially devastating long-term consequences
  • Colombia remains the world’s deadliest country for social and environmental defenders, with insufficient effective protection measures
  • Strong lobbying from the oil and gas sector risks undermining current decarbonization targets and measures, and further entrenching carbon-intensive infrastructure

About Climate Diplomacy Snapshots

The data is clear. Accelerated and enhanced action is needed now to build resilience and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. As they seek to address the ongoing health, economic and social impacts of COVID-19, the Ukraine-Russia war and growing climate change impacts, governments should seize opportunities to invest in a recovery that will build social, economic and climate resilience on the long-term.The Climate Diplomacy Snapshots aim to provide the climate community with a clear overview of what each country should do, on climate and recovery, to pursue these joint objectives and keep the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C. Each has been prepared with the help of national experts, and will be regularly updated. The snapshots aim to support climate advocacy in the lead up to COP28.

Learn More