Around 700 representatives of governments and the private sector, representing 47 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, are meeting in Panama for a three-day forum, ended September 3rd, on climate change.
According to the World Bank, more than 2/3 of these countries are aiming on introducing carbon pricing in order to achieve the objectives defined by the Paris Agreement.
Daniele Violetti, UNFCCC, said that the participants of the meeting in Panama "have been very clear that their future development trajectory must be low carbon and sustainable".
Some results that emerged from the meeting:
- Mexico is preparing to launch shortly a 12-month pilot cap-and-trade scheme and a national carbon market in 2018;
- the number of Brazilian major companies ready to pay a price of CO2 has grown in the last year up to 74% (CDP data analysts);
- Chile is interested in participating in a regional CO2 market;
- several countries, including Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru have identified relevant investment opportunities in the renewable sector and are considering how the CO2 market can support such investments;
- according to the International Finance Corporation, in these regions there will probably be investments in clean energy equal to 1000 billion dollars by 2040, of which 600 billion could become reality already by 2030.
