Tag: Climate Action Tracker

Argentina: New Climate Leader!

“The grand opportunity is not only to leave climate alarmism and forced energy transformation in the dust. It is also to elevate the private and public wealth of Argentina with expanded private property rights and free markets. Let’s go!”

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“The grand opportunity is not only to leave climate alarmism and forced energy transformation in the dust. It is also to elevate the private and public wealth of Argentina with expanded private property rights and free markets. Let’s go!”

The rating of “critically insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker makes Argentina an international climate leader in 2025. President Javier Milei is putting people and greenery ahead of the Climate Industrial Complex in his country, offering a sound example of economic and environmental policy for other countries in the region.

Here is the good news (described as bad) by Climate Action Tracker (CAT):

Under Argentina’s new government, progress in developing and implementing climate policies has taken a step backwards. Among the restructuring and budget cuts in the national public administration, Argentina’s former Ministry of Environment has been demoted to the sub-secretary level, and the continuity of its previous climate policies remains in doubt. Meanwhile, the government continues to invest heavily in fossil fuels, notably a USD 30 billion LNG terminal to export fossil gas out of Vaca Muerta. Overall, CAT rates Argentina’s climate targets and policies as “Critically insufficient”.

Details follow:

Under President Milei’s administration which assumed office in December 2023, Argentina’s national government has been substantially restructured, with a focus on reducing the size of the public administration and cutting expenditure. In this process, the former Ministry of Environment has been reduced to the sub-secretary level, under the Secretary of Sport, Tourism and Environment (EcoNews Global, 2023).

During his presidential campaign, President Milei had stated he does not believe in man-made climate change and that his government will not support climate policies, including threats to leave the Paris Agreement (Colombo, 2023). While his administration later stated that Argentina will not be leaving the Paris Agreement, during COP29, Argentina recalled its delegation only a few days into the negotiations. Overall the outlook is bleak on Argentine increasing climate ambition for the next four years (Larena, 2024; Spring, 2023).

Energy projects for the masses have the green light!

The new government plans to continue developing the Vaca Muerta fossil gas fields, as well as a fossil gas pipeline and the LNG terminal planned by the previous administration. To support these large investments, the government set out an incentive package called RIGI or Incentive Regime for Large Investments (KPMG, 2024).

CO2 emissions are on the go also, doing its part to green the Planet and trash Net Zero.

In 2022, emissions in Argentina rebounded above 2019 levels after a sharp drop in 2020 due to COVID-19. This puts Argentina’s 2030 emissions projections under current policies at approximately 15% above its already unambitious 2030 target. Based on a study by UNICEN exploring energy scenarios (Blanco & Keesler, 2022), if Argentina were to implement additional policies to scale-up low carbon energy sources and reduce energy demand, it could get close to its NDC target. However, to be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, Argentina would need to develop more ambitious policies, especially to stop deforestation and reduce livestock-related emissions.

The past administration put Argentina on a continued-poverty course.

Argentina submitted an updated NDC in December 2021 that sets an unconditional target that is only a marginal improvement on the previous iteration. Argentina’s latest target only achieves a “Highly insufficient” rating when compared to required domestic efforts, and to Argentina’s fair share contribution to global climate change mitigation. With emissions (excl. LULUCF) projected to grow significantly after 2022, Argentina is set to miss its NDC target.

“In the last few months, climate policy has been significantly deprioritised in Argentina,” Climate Action Tracker continued. “However, there have been some positive developments:”

  • After denying climate change and claiming Argentina would exit the Paris Agreement, the Milei administration promised to keep all existing international climate commitments, including both the NDC and long-term strategy (LTS) targets.
  • Subsidies for power and fossil gas have continued to progressively decrease, including plans to mitigate the impact on the most vulnerable groups of the population. However, it is unclear how successful those plans are in protecting these groups.
    New measures were introduced to reform the power market, in an effort to increase competition and private sector investment.
  • New measures were introduced to reform the power market, in an effort to increase competition and private sector investment.

Argentina can follow the U.S. lead and skip COP 30 and further demote the international effort to help defeat it. But Climate Action Tracker dreams otherwise:

There is much that Argentina could do to increase its climate ambition to CAT, including:

  • Re-committing to its existing domestic climate policies and make resources available for their implementation.
  • Phasing out support for upstream oil and fossil gas developments.
  • Setting out a transition plan for the energy sector and revive existing renewables policies such as the RenovAr auction scheme.
  • Setting out a low-carbon transition plan for the land sector, including agriculture, livestock and land use change.

Explicit subsidies for upstream oil and fossil gas development should be eliminated, but more than this, the opportunity for production incentives and wealth democratization should incite subsoil privatization, an idea born by another great Argentinian, Guillermo Yeatts ( (1937–2018). As I have written elsewhere:

The case of Guillermo Yeatts for subsoil privatization should eclipse ‘climate change’ as the number one policy initiative of the 21st century. This friend of private property, free markets, the rule of law, and civil society, a successful entrepreneur in his own right, a thinker and doer, has set up an excellent opportunity for a new political era in his beloved Argentina.

The grand opportunity is not only to leave climate alarmism and forced energy transformation in the dust. It is also to elevate the private and public wealth of Argentina with expanded private property rights and free markets. Let’s go!

Emission Trends in Asia

We are all aware of the continuing increase in China’s emissions of carbon dioxide, which are now 22% higher than in 2016.

Thick clouds emanate from a coal-burning power plant in Baishan, in the Jilin province of China. In an effort to boost its economy, China has recently started greenlighting coal projects that had been on hold.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions

We are all aware of the continuing increase in China’s emissions of carbon dioxide, which are now 22% higher than in 2016.

But we must not forget about the rest of Asia, which accounts for nearly as much as China is emitting. These also continue to rise, 13% up on 2016.

The UK emits as much in a year as Asia does in five days.

Little wonder then that Climate Action Tracker does not impress!

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/philippines/

Mexico’s Emissions Con Trick

Mexico is another country which continues to increase emissions. Even their Paris NDC was explicit about this, as it pledged only to cut emissions from a theoretical Business as Usual scenario. The resulting targeted emissions in 2030 would be higher than they were in 2015!

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/mexico/

While Miliband wants to lead us over the cliff, the rest of the world is just getting on as normal.

Mexico is another country which continues to increase emissions. Even their Paris NDC was explicit about this, as it pledged only to cut emissions from a theoretical Business as Usual scenario. The resulting targeted emissions in 2030 would be higher than they were in 2015!

Since then, Mexico has upped the reduction from 22% to 35%, but as Climate Action Tracker point out, they have also upped the BAU:

Mexico’s climate policies continue to go backwards, as fossil fuel use is prioritised and climate-related policies and institutions dismantled. Mexico’s updated 2030 target (NDC), submitted in November 2022 results in higher emission levels than the targets from 2016, breaching both agreements under the Paris Agreement and Mexican Law – where governments committed to improve their targets over time. The updated NDC lacks transparency and disguises its lack of ambition by counting forests differently in the base and in the target year. Mexico will meet the unambitious target with already implemented policies as emissions continue to rise through 2030. With this update, the CAT’s rating of Mexico’s climate targets and action worsens from “Highly insufficient” to “Critically insufficient”.

While the new target includes a larger percentage reduction it still leads to higher emissions. The NDC update increases the percentage reduction of the unconditional target from 22% to 35% (30% with own resources and an additional 5% from agreed international support) by 2030 and from 36% to 40% conditional on additional international support. But the business-as-usual (BAU) baseline, against which the targets are defined, has been revised upwards. In addition, Mexico expects a higher contribution of emissions sinks in forests to achieving the target. Together this means that the new target can be met even if emissions excluding those of forestry are higher than what they could have been under the old target.

The 2022 NDC update replaces the 2020 update, which became invalid after a Mexican court found that it is less ambitious than the very first NDC of 2016 and therefore a violation of continuous progression of ambition. The 2022 update is less specific on the contribution of forestry to the target, which may make it more difficult to argue its ambition.

Mexico pursues a “gross-net” approach, meaning it counts only emissions sources in its BAU, ignoring sinks from land use and forestry. However, the NDC does intend to use these sinks to achieve the target, highlighting that nature-based solutions are ‘central’ to achieving the targets. In 2019, reported sinks were almost 200 MtCO2e, or about a quarter of Mexico’s emissions excl. land use, land use change and forestry. While technically allowed, this accounting approach has been criticised as in-transparent for over 20 years.

Mexico’s 2022 NDC update removes the target to peak emissions in 2026 and does not mention any net zero nor other long-term targets.

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/mexico

In terms of just CO2, it is evident that Mexico never had any intention of cutting emissions:

BP Energy Review