DEC. 4, 2019

Chilean science plays a leading role at COP25: Scientific Committee presents recommendations for seven climate action areas

Minister Andrés Couve welcomed the report by Chilean researchers, led by climatologist Maisa Rojas, saying it provided unprecedented inputs for the process of designing and implementing public policy to address climate change.

From the Chile Exhibit at IFEMA, climate change expert Maisa Rojas, the coordinator of the COP25 Scientific Committee presented to Chilean Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation Minister Andrés Couve a synthesis of the work that more than 600 Chilean researchers prepared for the world’s most important climate action summit.  

Entitled “Reports from scientific working groups. A summary for policy makers”, the report by the local scientific community synthesizes recommendations and evidence in seven action areas to address climate change: Antarctica, oceans, water, biodiversity, cities, adaptation and mitigation and energy. 

“First of all, I want to thank our scientific community; all those people who accepted the invitation extended by the Science Ministry more than seven months ago. They voluntarily and generously joined the committee led by Maisa Rojas and the coordinators of the seven working groups,” said Minister Andrés Couve at the beginning of his remarks.

After receiving the report, the minister thanked the many researchers, centers and universities that make up the Scientific Committee: “This document we are receiving today was made possible by all of them. The report symbolizes the commitment and unprecedented work by Chilean science to put the evidence about climate change at the service of Chile and world climate action in the light of COP25. This milestone demonstrates how Chile’s creation of a Science Ministry has changed the country’s role in these instances.  Chilean Science has earned a place on the COP25 agenda and set a precedent for future COPs,” he emphasized.

Maisa Rojas, the climate change researcher who led the scientific group’s work and participated on the COP25 Presidential Council, added: “This scientific committee represents unprecedented cooperation between science and policy makers. We hope it will serve as a model for the upcoming processes, which will entail a discussion about the issues that are important to Chile."

After receiving the report, Minister Andrés Couve said, “the next challenge involves our capacity to take this model of participation and incidence and set up an institutional structure that will facilitate regular contributions from the scientific community to public policy making. We also need to move from reports where the evidence is overwhelming to ambitious actions based on this knowledge.” 

 
Seven climate action areas for public policies

The COP25 Scientific Committee’s synthesis for policy makers is divided into sections mirroring the working groups into which the researchers were organized:

  1. Mitigation and Energy Working Group (Coordinated by Rodrigo Palma-Behnke): The report states that mitigation efforts address the causes of climate change through reduction, capture and sequestration of greenhouse gas emissions. In order to achieve this objective, the mitigation working group coordinated efforts for a year to assess the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) issued by the Energy, Environment and Treasury Ministries and to offer recommendations for updates. For example, they suggest creating mechanisms to monitor existing solutions and incorporate nature-based solutions into the strategies. 

  2. Adaptation Working Group (Coordinated by Sebastián Vicuña and Paulina Aldunce): Adaptation addresses the consequences, impacts and risks of climate change. The working group’s recommendations aim to reduce the main shortcomings detected in the area: i) gaps in the capacity to identify adaptation needs in order to implement the necessary measures in a participative and legitimate manner; ii) gaps associated with public policy instruments designed to promote and implement adaptation; iii) gaps in encouraging facilitators and reducing barriers to implementing adaptation; and iv) gaps in identifying transformational measures and other emerging issues that have not yet been entirely incorporated into adaptation processes in Chile.

  3. Water Working Group (Coordinated by Alejandra Stehr): The water working group has made recommendations on four aspects: i) water governance in Chile, ii) water scarcity, iii) water quality, and iv) adaptation of water resources in the face of climate change.

  4. Biodiversity Working Group (Coordinated by Pablo Marquet): The biodiversity working group focused on reviewing evidence on conservation, ecosystem management and restoration and safeguarding biodiversity. The change in land use is the primary motor behind the current decline in biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services. Some of this working group’s recommendations focus on increasing and making available information on biodiversity, increasing protected areas and creating an ecosystem restoration plan.

  5. Cities Working Group (Coordinated by Juan Carlos Muñoz): The cities working group addresses climate vulnerability from the perspective of cities and reducing their contribution to climate change. The issues highlighted in the report include mobility, building, circular economy and green spaces. Some of this working group’s proposals include increasing the alignment between urban planning and sustainable development goals, improving the characterization of climate vulnerability and drafting a law on sustainable urban mobility.

  6. Cryosphere and Antarctica Working Group (Coordinated by Humberto González): The Cryosphere has unique biodiversity that supports a great number of ecological subsystems and vital ecosystem services. This working group’s recommendations focus on improving access to information, monitoring the cryosphere, and harnessing the country’s comparative advantages to make Chile a natural laboratory on climate change.

  7. Oceans Working Group (Coordinated by Laura Farías): The oceans working group proposes an Integrated Observation System for the Chilean Ocean, updating the Climate Change Adaptation Plan for Fisheries and Aquaculture and measures to support the Nationally Determined Contributions from an oceanic perspective.

 

Integrated, sustainable and inclusive development 

The scientific group also remarked on the social context of Chile: “Given the social and political crisis that exploded in Chile in October 2019, it has become clear that the effects of territorial inequality are exacerbated as climate change progresses. From that perspective, and on the basis of evidence collected by the COP25 Scientific Committee, it is now more urgent than ever to review the foundations on which development is based, welcome the knowledge gained, and decisively guide Chile towards comprehensive, sustainable, and inclusive development,” says the report.

The complete COP25 Scientific Committee report is available on the Science Ministry’s website: http://www.minciencia.gob.cl/sites/default/files/tmp/resumen_mesas_23.pdf (spanish)