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14 CCLR 133 (2020)
Latin America and the Caribbean

handle is hein.journals/cclr2020 and id is 149 raw text is: Current Developments in Carbon & Climate Law 1 133 Latin America and the Caribbean Natascha Trennepohl The Covid-19 pandemic has been described by the United Nations Development Programme as the 'defining global health crisis of our time and the great- est challenge we have faced since World War Two'2. It has and continues to impact countries and busi- ness activities in different ways. National health sys- tems and the global economy are being challenged at an unprecedented scale. Governments worldwide are responding to these challenges with a diverse set of economic and social approaches, ranging from stricter (complete lockdown) to softer (recommenda- tions of social distancing) measures. The global health crisis has also impacted the cli- mate change agenda. At the international level, the twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26), initially scheduled to take place this year in Glasgow, has been postponed to November 2021. At the regional level, all 2020 Regional Climate Weeks have been postponed to 2021, including the Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week originally set to take place in the Dominican Republic. Despite this trend, there are several important developments in the region worth highlighting, some of which re- late to the Nationally Determined Contributions (ND- Cs) and others driven by the economic impacts of the current crisis. In CHILE, a Climate Change Framework Bill (Proyecto de Ley Boletin No. 13.191-12 - Ley Marco de Cambio Climdtico) was submitted in January 2020 to the Congress. The bill aims to balance social, environ- mental, and economic dimensions, bringing togeth- er the sustainable development and the climate change agendas. It intends to help the country achieve its ambitious goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. A financial strategy is also mentioned, which DOI: 10.21 552/cclr/2020/2/9 1 Natascha Trennepohl is a Brazilian lawyer and a Ph.D Candidate at the Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. For correspon- dence: <natascha@trennepohl.com> 2 UNDP. Covid-19 Pandemic. Humanity needs leadership and solidarity to defeat the coronavirus. Available at: <https://www .undp.org/content/undp/en/home/coronavirus.html> aims to provide guidance for the public and private sector, as well as incentives for donations to the en- vironmental protection fund (Fondo de Pro teccidn Ambiental - EPA) to support climate change mitiga- tion and adaptation projects. In April, the country en- hanced its NDC and presented intermediate goals for 2030: annual emissions of no more than 95 MtCO2eq, emissions peak by 2025, and a carbon budget for the period 2020-2030 not exceeding 1.10o MtCO2eq. In MEXICO, the NDC review and update process started in late April through a dialogue (Didlogo In- tergubernamental sobre la Actualizacidn de las Con- tribuciones Determinadas a nivel Nacional) with rep- resentatives from state governments, experts from the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC) and the ministry of environment (SEMAR- NAT). Concurrently, yet in stark contrast, the Nation- al Energy Control Center (CENACE) issued a decree suspending pre-operational testing of wind and so- lar power plants, meaning that new projects would not be able to enter commercial operation. The de- cree (Acuerdo para garantizar la eficiencia, Calidad, Confiabilidad, Continuidad y Seguridad del Sistema Eldctrico Nacional) refers to articles 15, 132 and 136 of the Electric Industry Law (LIE) on the legal man- date of CENACE to operate the national electric sys- tem (S EN) and adopt measures to strengthen and en- sure continuity of the power supply. According to the decree, the suspension was a necessary measure to guarantee the safety and reliability of the national power system considering the reduction in consump- tion and shall be in force during the contingency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The decree has been challenged in court by operators and openly criticized bythe Federal Economic Competition Com- mission (COFECE) as a violation of free competition. In May, a competition court suspended its applica- bility to certain projects. In PANAMA, a new national carbon footprint pro- gramme was launched in June, aiming to encourage public and private organizations to reduce their car- bon emissions (Sustainable Panama: Reduce Your Footprint). The programme is expected to cover sev- CCLR 212020

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