Laura Farías | PhD in Geography, University of Concepción | Member of the COP25 Scientific Committee | Researcher from the Centre of Climate Science and Resilience (CR2)
Who hasn’t dreamt of public policies designed and based on scientific evidence some time, at least in cases of environmental policies, with the need of protecting public goods like air and the ocean.
Some examples coming into my mind are the Regulation on Fine Particulate Material (PM2) Emissions (Law no. 19.300), which regulates and monitors air quality and care for public health in people; or the most recent one, the regulation that bans plastic bag delivery by businesses all across the national territory (Law no. 21.100), which stops coastline pollution and its serious consequences for marine fauna.
These two laws have a common denominator, the global reach of the problem (borderless atmosphere and oceans) and late action, this means, when the problem is already settled. On the same line, the best of examples for these two situations is climate change: an environmental issue that affects the planet as a whole, with no country exempt from consequences, having different regional expressions or effects.
Regarding this, Chile is a country highly vulnerable to climate change, as mentioned by research done at both national and international levels, and its effects are already being noticed in the national territory.
In December 2019, Chile will host the most important Climate Convention on the planet, named Convention of the Parts in its twenty-fifth version or COP25. This is carried out by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Chilean Government recently created (in April 2019) the COP25 Scientific Committee, appointed by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, to coordinate and articulate, along with the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the contributions from the scientific community to this global meeting.
Support from the committee consists of making a ‘call for evidence’ with all researchers registered on transverse working boards (adaptation and mitigation) and sectorial ones (oceans, water, forest and biodiversity, Antarctica, and cryosphere and cities), with the purpose of bringing supplies and other evidence contributions made in Chile and/or about Chile.
Among others, Environment is considering to review the update to the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario for net greenhouse gas emissions, simulations on sectorial scenarios, specific mitigation measures like capture in forestry, scenarios for Long Term Energy Planning (LTEP), and the carbon neutral scenario by 2050 according to scientific evidence delivered on IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming at 1.5°C (SR1.5) in 2018.
Among actions that working boards are called to contribute to are:
- Review of the Climate Change Framework (set for July-August 2019)
- Review of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan for different sectors such as Fishing and Aquaculture in 2020
- Development of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the Coastline (in folder). Update of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) set for 2020 for all signing countries of the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
- Supplies will become an essential contribution to COP25. Then, the association between the COP25 Scientific Committee and Chilean Government, represents a new way of making community, and it could become the starting point for the development of Evidence Based Policies (EBP), and produce a virtuous association between state, research centres and think tanks.