Focus on Arts and Ecology

Only Brazil, Uruguay and Ecuador have so far presented their new 2035 climate targets, while emissions continue to grow in most of the region. 

By Fermín Koop, March 5, 2025

Every five years, parties to the Paris Agreement on climate change must submit action plans that increase their level of ambition in meeting its goal: to halt the average global temperature rise at 2C above pre-industrial levels, if not 1.5C. The current slate of submitted plans, which cover targets to be met by 2030, are only sufficient to halt the heat at somewhere between 2.6C and 3.1C.

This year, parties have the opportunity to improve this trajectory, as they submit new plans to the United Nations. These plans are known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and the new batch will look further ahead, to 2035. The submission deadline was February, but so far only 21 parties out of 195 have done so. From Latin America, that number includes only Brazil, Uruguay and Ecuador.

Latin America accounts for less than 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but it is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Responding to these effects and further reducing emissions is a challenge, considering the region receives an average of 17% of the total international climate finance pot per year.

Despite their current NDC plans, emissions in Mexico and Brazil – the two largest emitters in the region – are on the rise, as they are too in Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Paraguay. These emissions are monitored by biennial transparency reports, a mechanism of the Paris Agreement that requires parties to update their emissions information.

“The region’s emissions are still growing and there is no decoupling from economic growth,” says Alejandra López, who directs climate diplomacy at Transforma, a climate action NGO. “The NDCs are an opportunity to rethink development models. Countries will have to consider the actions they will take to become carbon neutral.”

The process of new goals

Building a national climate plan is not simple. Although it is usually led by a government’s environment department, all ministries are involved, as the commitments to be included will involve them directly or indirectly. It also requires securing the necessary funding to put plans into practice.

NDCs reflect the realities of a country, and each one is different. Governments are therefore able to choose how they present their commitments. Although they are not legally binding commitments, NDCs are often associated with laws – for example, Chile’s Framework Law on Climate Change and Uruguay’s Climate Change Policy.

The first two Latin American countries to present their new NDCs, Brazil and Uruguay, did so in 2024. Brazil presented its NDCs during the UN’s 2024 climate change conference, COP29. As the host country for COP30 this November, Brazil’s NDCs were particularly anticipated and scrutinised.

Brazil: “Bad, but not terrible”

Brazil expects to reduce its emissions by 59-67% by 2035, compared to 2005 levels. In its previous NDC, submitted in 2016, the country pledged to reduce its emissions by 37% by 2025, and 43% by 2030. As per Brazil’s latest available data, its total net emissions for 2022 had fallen by 20.4% compared to 2005 levels. At COP29, Brazil’s vice-president, Gerardo Alckmin, described the new NDC as “ambitious but realistic”.

Dialogue Earth spoke with Claudio Angelo, international policy coordinator for Observatório do Clima, a Brazilian climate NGO group. He says the fact Brazil has submitted its reductions as a range betrays that it could have done more: “The target is bad, but not terrible. It is not aligned with the 1.5C target.”

The NDC proposes to “continue working towards zero deforestation”, but does not include President Lula da Silva’s previously announced goal of achieving zero deforestation by 2030. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 7% in 2024 compared to 2023.

It also calls for the “adoption of sustainable agricultural and livestock production models”, and asks developed countries to lead the transition away from fossil fuels.

Adaptation also has a central place in the NDC. Brazil will review its current national adaptation plan and push for local and sectoral adaptation plans to be created this year.

Brazil is proposing a green transformation plan with various financial instruments to finance its NDC, such as tax reforms, sovereign green bonds and carbon markets.

Uruguay: Unchanged with “same excuse”

The emissions-reduction target in Uruguay’s new NDC, presented in December under the country’s previous government, has not changed: it pledges to limit annual carbon dioxide emissions to 9,267,000 tonnes by 2035, methane to 818,000 tonnes and nitrous oxide to 32,000 tonnes. The government has said the goal of its previous NDC was “very ambitious”, and that it would not be appropriate to raise that ambition.

Martina Casas, an Uruguayan biologist and environmental activist, disagrees: “This speaks badly of the people who run politics. You can’t say that because it was already ambitious you keep it the same. It’s the same old excuse: we are a small country and we pollute little. The government is also failing to meet the targets already presented, and future plans to look for offshore oil are not compatible with the NDC.”

Uruguay’s NDC proposes promoting the electrification of transport and energy efficiency, and “assessing the convenience” of using natural gas. Uruguay already draws up to 98% of its electricity from renewable sources. The country also plans to increase its forestry plantation area by 20%, maintain its current native forest coverage, improve carbon sequestration in its agricultural soils, and deploy technology that reduces methane emissions at waste disposal sites.

Like Brazil, Uruguay’s NDC also has a strong adaptation component. The country’s pledges for 2035 include to have implemented tools to prevent and manage drought risks, to have approved 10 watershed and aquifer management plans, to have management plans for all protected areas, and to be generating annual loss and damage reports.

Ecuador: “Unconditional” reductions

Ecuador has also presented its new climate plan. It pledges to cut 7% of its emissions by 2035 based on 2010 levels “unconditionally”. This is paired with another, “conditional” 8% cut across all sectors of the economy (the previous NDC contained differing targets for each sector), which it says is dependent on international financing.  

In its previous NDC, which expires in 2025, Ecuador committed to reducing emissions by 9% in the energy, industry, waste and agriculture sectors. It also pledged to achieve an additional 4% reduction through land-use changes, such as forestation and forest management. In total, the government estimates to have reduced its emissions by 5% overall through its first NDC.

Karina Barrera, Ecuador’s former undersecretary for climate change, says the new targets are more ambitious, despite the financial constraints. “However, it is difficult to say that the target is aligned with the 1.5C goal,” she adds. “What the country is doing is within its common but differentiated capacities and responsibilities. We are still struggling with other development gaps, other priorities in the region.”

Ecuador says it will promote renewable energy, develop sustainable mobility and reduce emissions from industrial processes, such as cement production. It will also implement “sustainable and low-emission” agricultural production systems, increase areas under conservation measures and promote methane capture at landfill sites.

The NDC establishes priority sectors for adaptation – natural heritage, water heritage, health, human settlements, productive sectors and food sovereignty – with measures detailed for each sector. A draft, conceptual framework for loss and damage, and considerations for gender, age and culture are also included throughout the NDC.

Chile: Draft in consultation

Chile has also presented its new NDC, but it is still a draft and currently at the citizen-consultation stage. The finalised version is not expected to be published for at least two months.

In Chile’s draft, the government reiterates its existing 2030 targets: to not emit more than 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent between 2020 and 2030, to reach peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, and to reach annual emissions of 95,000,000 tonnes by 2030. In addition, it adds the new commitment of total emissions not exceeding 490,000,000 tonnes between 2031 and 2035, and annual emissions shrinking to 91,000,000 tonnes by 2035.

Vicente Sepulveda, a researcher at the University of Chile’s Energy Centre and a contributor to the NDC, describes these ambitions as “realistic”. But he also says several of Chile’s assumptions, such as an expansion of green hydrogen and electromobility, are still questionable.

Carolina Palma, advocacy coordinator at the Chilean environmental justice NGO FIMA agrees: “We are being more ambitious than we can deliver. Chile had already committed to making all cars sold zero-emission by 2035, but I don’t see any major changes to achieve that. Also, the [recently announced] decarbonisation plan for the closure of coal-fired power plants is quite flawed.”

The NDC calls for the development of sectoral emissions-reduction plans, which should incorporate measures to protect employment in activities vulnerable to climate change. In addition, it mentions establishing an energy efficiency target, enhancing the recovery of organic waste and promoting a shift to low-emission road, rail and maritime transport.

On adaptation, the plan calls for a national inventory of climate change impacts, including loss and damage. It highlights “significantly” reducing water scarcity and increasing the resilience of the health sector. By 2035, 50% of new public infrastructure will consider climate change at the design stage. Ten thousand hectares of native forests are pledged to be planted per year from 2031.

Chile’s NDC also includes an ocean component. The country has pledged to expand its area of protected terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by at least 1 million hectares by 2030. By 2035, it will have a management plan for 50% of its marine protected areas. Currently, more than 40% of Chile’s maritime territory comes under some category of protection.

The next steps

Colombia, Mexico and Panama are in the process of drawing up their new climate plans, but López says these will not be ready in the immediate future. Argentina’s NDC is not expected until the middle of this year, according to statements made at the COP16 UN biodiversity conference in 2024 by its former undersecretary of environment, Ana Lamas.

For Enrique Maurtua Konstantinidis, a senior climate policy consultant, the vast majority of the Latin American NDCs to be presented this year will be conservative: “While some of them will increase ambition, they will not be the big commitments that one would like. Governments will be cautious. That doesn’t mean that if we add them all up we will not be a little closer to the 2C target, which would be a positive sign.”

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) COP30 will take place in Brazil from 10-21 November. It is hoped that as many NDCs as possible will be in place before this, to facilitate stock-taking. While COP29 was seen as a finance-focused conference – concluding with a new, heavily criticised climate finance target – COP30 will be a conference centred on implementation.

During a visit to Brazil in February, the UNFCCC’s executive secretary Simon Stiell said: “The vast majority of countries have indicated that they will submit new plans this year.” He added that it makes sense for parties to take more time with their NDCs, “to make sure that these plans are first-rate, properly outlining how they will contribute to this effort”.