The Latin American Region (LA), formed by the subregions of Central America (CA) and South America (SA), is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to its geographical, sociodemographic and climatic situation (Barcena et al. 2020). Its natural assets make it an extremely diverse region which is sensitive to climate change impacts (IPCC 2014a; Barcena et al. 2020). The region contains the six countries with the most biodiversity in the world; Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela, whilst 40% of the biodiversity of the planet is located in SA (UNEP-WCMC 2016). Anthropogenic activities such as deforestation and land-use changes for urban growth or agricultural and mining activities contribute enormously to the loss of biodiversity in the region and to climate change (IPCC 2014a; Armenteras et al. 2016).
During the last years the impacts of climate change has become evident. According to Barcena et al. (2020), in LA and Caribbean regions, the average temperature observed between 2000 and 2016 is 0.7% higher than the average from 1901–1990. An increase of between 1.6°C and 4°C is estimated for CA and SA by 2100, compared to the average temperature from the 1986–2005 period. Climate change in the region is associated with variations and intensification of natural phenomena such as hurricanes, tropical cyclones, the Niño-Southern Oscillation, the North and South American monsoon system, and the Atlantic Ocean oscillations (IPCC 2014a; Barcena et al. 2020). An increase in sea level from 2 to 7 millimetres in the 1950–2008 period has also been observed, noticeable to a greater extent along the Atlantic coasts (IPCC 2014a), and it is forecasted that the sea level rise will increase by 3.6 millimetres annually between 2040–2070 (Barcena et al. 2020). There was higher annual rainfall in SA, around 0.6 millimetres per day, and a decrease in CA and Chile, around − 1 millimetre per day between 1950 and 2008. In some areas, sea level changes and an increase in precipitation caused floods and disasters with enormous impacts on natural resources and coastal zone ecosystems such as mangroves, corals, and fisheries, causing socioeconomic impacts along the coast (IPCC 2014a; Reyer et al. 2017; Barcena et al. 2020). In addition to these impacts, there are also socioeconomic impacts due to the scarcity of rainfall. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), migration and drought are correlated. One example is the migration from CA, especially from the northern corridor that extends from Guatemala to Honduras, where drought has worsened due to climate change. There are estimates of potential migratory flow, for example, in a worst-case scenario estimation, by 2050 in LA, between 3.9 and 17 million people will be climatic migrants (Kumari Rigaud et al. 2018; Barcena et al. 2020).
In the last years, the socioeconomic condition of countries in LA has improved. However, the region still has challenges to meet, including facing climate change without leaving its development needs behind. Historically the region has been characterized by slow economic growth, structural weakness and income inequality (Barcena et al. 2020). Regional structural weaknesses include, among others, precarious health systems, high labour informality and poverty (International Monetary Fund 2020; ECLAC 2021).
The average annual economic growth between 2014 and 2019 in LA was 0.3% (ECLAC 2021). As per the income classification from the World Bank (WB) for the Latin American countries, Chile and Uruguay are high-income countries. Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua are lower-middle-income countries. The rest of the countries are upper-middle countries, namely Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guyana, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. According to the World Bank, LA is not among the poorest regions of the world although its extreme poverty levels are below those of the Middle East and North Africa. However, in LA (including the Caribbean), the population living at the poverty line of US$3.20 a day during 2018 totalled 9.3%, around 59.4 million; while 3.8%, around 24.2 million, were at the extreme poverty level of US$1.90 a day (World Bank 2020). Furthermore, the region is characterized as having a high degree of social inequality (UNDP 2019). These inequalities cause delays in the eradication of poverty and unequal access to drinking water, sanitation and adequate housing; at the same time, these factors are associated with the population’s vulnerability and low capacity to adapt to climate change (IPCC 2014b).
When tackling the climatic crisis in LA, it is necessary to have cooperation and political will backed by sufficient and relevant information that can help to generate tools and establish policies for climate change mitigation that also contemplate sustainable development needs. In the context of regional cooperation, the ECLAC promotes cooperation programs between the region’s countries to generate knowledge and design public policies that encourage inclusive and sustainable adaptation to climate change and a transition to low greenhouse-gasses-emitting economies. In the context of international cooperation, the outcomes from the Summits of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the European Union (EULAC) are especially relevant, particularly the Lima Declaration “Addressing our peoples’ priorities together” approved during the fifth summit that took place in 2008. The Lima Declaration established as one of its main objectives, the compromise to push for bi-regional cooperation on climate change by facilitating mitigation and adaptation initiatives in line with sustainable development and supported by technology, financing, and capacity building (EULAC 2008). At the heart of this cooperation framework between LA and UE27, the Euroclima program was born. This UE27 program financed by the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) promotes projects that focus on achieving the Lima Declaration’s objective (CEPAL 2021).
The countries of LA have shown firm willingness to fight against the climate emergency and have submitted their first commitments within the Paris Agreement (PA) framework. The PA is the international treaty that governs the multilateral climate change policy from 2020 onwards. The agreement establishes the goal to maintain the average temperature increase well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C with respect to preindustrial levels. The PA also establishes that efforts for climate change mitigation should be based on equity and the “common, but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in the light of different national circumstances” (CBDR&RC) that emanates from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Developing countries, such as Latin American ones, should continue enhancing their mitigation efforts and are encouraged to gradually move towards economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets in the light of different national circumstances. (United Nations 1992, 2015).
The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) are an essential part of the bottom-up strategy of the PA to achieve the temperature goal mentioned before. Every five years, in their NDC, countries should establish the mitigation commitments that will achieve the long-term temperature goals established in the agreement. According to the PA’s article 4, the successive NDCs have to reflect the highest possible level of ambition of every country reflecting their CBDR-RC principle (United Nations 2015). The Paris Rulebook, approved during COP24 in 2018, contains the guidelines that the NDCs should follow to provide the necessary information to ensure their clarity, transparency and comprehension. (4/CMA.1 UNFCCC 2018).
The COP21 (1/CP.21) Paris decisions in 2015 already highlighted the concern that the aggregated effect of the commitments did not fit within the range of the least-cost 2 °C scenarios. Consequently, decisions 23 and 24 urged the PA Parties to update their NDC in 2020 (UNFCCC 2015). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this updating process has not been completed and is assumed to have been extended until the start of the COP26, scheduled for November 2021. Because of this, the result of the Synthesis Report published by the UNFCCC Secretariat on February 26th, 2021, is especially relevant. The report assesses the aggregated effect of the 48 NDCs updated at the end of 2020, which represent 75 Parties responsible for 30% of greenhouse gasses (GHG) emission. The report confirms that the aggregated effect of these NDCs only increases the emissions reduction expected for 2030 by 2.8% compared to their previous versions. Likewise, it remarks that these NDCs will only achieve a reduction of 0.5% of the emissions in 2030 compared to the values of 2010. Moreover, the report also highlights that according to the SR1.5, in order not to exceed the 1.5°C threshold, the anthropogenic CO2 net emissions should decrease approximately 45% by 2030 compared to the level of 2010 (UNFCCC 2021).
Considering the gap between the current NDCs and the long-term temperature goal of the PA, the authors considered it urgent to propose an analysis that could ensure the development of strategies to increase the NDCs ambition in order to close this gap. For example, an analysis of geographic regions integrated by countries willing to cooperate could implement joint mitigation strategies that go beyond individual actions (Alcaraz et al. 2021). Considering the political willingness of the LA region, demonstrated during the last years in response to the climate crisis and the development needs of the region, the analysis of the LA countries’ current NDCs under the climate justice prism is considered of particular interest for the policymakers. Although there are studies that carry out equitable emissions allocations considering one or a few Latin-American countries with high emissions and their NDC compatibility in achieving the PA long term goals (CAT; Climate and Energy College; UNEP; Climate Change Authority 2014; Pan et al. 2017; Robiou Du Pont et al. 2017), there is an important lack of studies that consider the majority of CA and SA countries and integrate a regional analysis that includes such components. The analysis presented in this article aims to discover if the NDCs presented by the countries of LA are fair and ambitious in a mitigation scenario compatible with the 1.5°C global temperature goal. For this analysis, the Model of Climate Justice (MCJ) Alcaraz et al. (2018) will be used. The MCJ applies equality and historical responsibility criteria to distribute the cumulative emissions that could be released to the atmosphere in a future compatible with the 1.5°C global goal. In other words, the MCJ allows us to determine the emissions budget that would be available for each country and for LA as a regional country group. Once the emissions budget is determined, the share of this budget that the first NDC submitted by the LA countries will consume is analysed, and valuations based on their current circumstances and their developmental needs can be made.
Starting from the above description, this article is structured as follows: In Sect. 2, the methodology and the data used for the analysis will be described. Subsequently, in Sect. 3, the results of the analysis will be presented and discussed. Finally, in Sect. 4, the conclusions based on the analysis of the LA countries will be presented.