INCDs And Citizen

Participation In Latin
America

Produced by
Sandra Guzmn, General Coordinator, GFLAC
Mariana Castillo, Research Coordinator, GFLAC

rotection of Human Rights as the Right of Access to Information,

Participation and Environmental Justice, enshrined by the 10th Principle

of the Rio Declaration of 1992, form the basis for environmental governance
and democracy. These rights of procedural type have been recognized by
international law as a fundamental guarantee for achieving other human
rights. Even the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) establishes among its dispositions that States have the duty of
providing training and public consciousness on climate change issues,
allowing public access to information and also encourage the widest possible
participation in this process, including non-governmental organizations and
the general public.
Setting standards on access to information and citizen participation in environmental decision-making is an important parameter that must have been integrated to the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) consultations. For this reason, it is important to analyze how
these rights were exercised in the process of building INDC nationwide, especially considering
that they reflect the vision of the country concerning the construction and direction of national
policies for decarbonization of economies and strengthening the processes of adaptation and
resilience to climate change impacts, because they are the foundation for the climate agreement
in Paris.
On the document prepared by WRI and UNDP entitled Design and preparation of the Intended
Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), it was emphasized that in order to obtain successful
results in the implementation of INDCs, it was fundamental the stakeholders consultation and
the early and permanent commitment with all relevant actors in the public sector, civil society,
private sector, academia and the citizenship, to ensure that INDCs had a legitimated design responding to the needs of the affected parties and that they obtained a long-term support.
Therefore, various organizations of civil society and experts on climate change analyzed through
a survey the INDCs levels of ambition from a non-governmental actors perspective. Participation
levels based on the criteria established by the ECLAC and TAI on the application of the 10th Prin-

ciple of the Rio Declaration of 1992 and the commitments made by the parties in the UNFCCC
concerning the broad participation of civil society in the training processes and public awareness
related to climate change were also observed.

The exercise was carried out through a survey applied in eleven Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and
Uruguay) for which eight criteria for analysis were established:
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Criterion
Criterion

On mitigation measures
On adaptation measures

Criterion

Criterion

Criterion

On access to information

Criterion

On call

Criterion

On consultation and participation

Criterion

Governance

On means of implementation: Financing

On means of implementation: Technology transfer and capacity building.

Overall results

The eleven countries surveyed showed low and middle levels of ambition, access to information
and participation in the design of INDCs. The countries with the best scores were Colombia with
67 and Chile with 61 points from 90, which was the ideal scenario. On their part, countries with
lower ratings were El Salvador (33), Uruguay (40) and Brazil (40), while the rest of the other countries ranged from 43 to 56 points.
This shows that although the countries have submitted their contributions, they were not built
under a rights-based approach and they do not represent an integral vision of the country. In
their majority, they express a government point of view where needs and proposals of vulnerable
groups, and / or ability to support the implementation of mitigation measures and adaptation
comprehensively were not taken into account.
It is important to note that the political contexts in which the INDCs were developed varied from
one country to another, and may lead in some cases the use of best practices to ensure favorable results for most sectors of the population. The case of Guatemala, which was in a process of
political stabilization, is distinguished, as well as the case of Argentina that was in the process of
electing a new government.

Table1

100
90

Overall rating on INDCs and citizen participation in Latin America

90

80
70

67

61

60

53

50
40

46

43

40

56

51

45

40

33

30
20
10

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Br
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SERIE 1

Results by criteria
The results are disaggregated by criteria analyzed:

Criterion

On mitigation measures

All the countries analyzed presented mitigation targets, except El Salvador. Nevertheless not all
countries integrated specific measures to achieve these goals such as Argentina, Peru and Mexico. This means that not in all cases countries are proposing a path of action, making it impossible
to know with certainty whether countries have comprehensive strategies for compliance with
INDCs or if these represent only political announcements.
Likewise according to the survey conducted, it states that mitigation targets are not ambitious
against the potential of most of the countries. Furthermore, some countries integrate actions that
can increase the environmental impacts such as the nuclear projects proposals of Argentina.

Criterion

On adaptation measures

Many of the countries integrated adaptation goals except Brazil, Guatemala, Uruguay and El Salvador. Of the countries that integrated those targets only Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, and
Peru include specific measures to achieve the goals. Nevertheless, in some cases the existence of
such plans in preparation for Brazil and Costa Rica is included.
It is highlighted that according to the degree of vulnerability of the countries the actions proposed are only considered ambitious in Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, where measures are included in all sectors of relevance for adaptation. Countries like Costa Rica, Guatemala, Uruguay, Brazil
and Chile do not have ambitious goals on adaptation, despite the vulnerability of these countries.

Criterion

On means of implementation: Financing

Most of the countries analyzed show unconditional measures referred to those measures that can
be carried out with their own resources, and conditioned measures on the provision of international financial resources. Except for Brazil, which points that will meet their stated commitments
unconditionally, and the case of El Salvador that does not present measures of mitigation nor adaptation; most of the countries speak about increasing the ambition, if counting with additional
resources.
Countries like Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Guatemala integrated the necessity of counting with
financial as a mean of implementation, and mention financial schemes as national funds. In spite
of this, none of the countries examined included amounts and specific financial commitments to
fulfill the goals set and did not included amounts on financing needs.
Overall, INDCs submitted by countries of analysis do not have substantive elements in financing
despite being one of the most important pillars for implementation.

Criterion

On means of implementation:
Technology transfer and capacity building.

It is reported that in most countries no mechanisms for technology transfer were included, not
even for the creation and building capacity, although these media are essential for the implementation of integrated actions in INDCs. Only Chile reported its inclusion and in the case of Colombia, while mechanisms were not included, the need for development and technology transfer is
explicitly recognized.
In general, countries include the need for international support for the development of technologies and technology transfer and innovation to enhance their adaptive capacity, but no specific
mechanisms are mentioned.

Criterion

On access to information

Most of the countries have legal bodies that promote the right to participation and access to
information. However, this was the criterion on which countries of study scored worst grades. It
is noticed that in most of the countries in the process of developing the INDCs, the criteria for access to information was not met. No country presented to the public the information prior to the
execution of the query, nor guaranteed the access to information to the indigenous and Afro-descendant communities who speak other languages by providing official translators, even though
they represent an important percentage of the region population.
More than half of the countries did not hold public consultations and restricting the right to participation, which is a human right that is intertwined with fundamental democratic principles.
Public policies must be developed and implemented based on a wide participation of the people
and social actors affected by them, which in the case of INDCs is the entire population.

Criteria
and

on call, consultation and

participation

The criterion about convene was not fulfilled satisfactorily. In particular, it points out that in no
country the call was done with time in ahead by mass media to guarantee the delivery of infor-

mation and was not done well in advance and accompanied by relevant information on climate
change and the content that would allow INDC citizens have a more effective participation.
This is certainly a big challenge that the countries of the region face, because even in those cases
where the call was made, this was directed to specialized sectors, aside from not being done in
advance and the information provided was too technical, or in some cases inadequate, limiting
the participation of all sectors.
Regarding to the criterion of consultation and participation, the results are poor. In general, it
was reported that there was insufficient time for the public to get informed about the matter, get
prepared and participate throughout the consultation.

Criteria

On governance criteria

The elements summing the criterion of governance are the planning of implementation of the
INDC, monitoring and accountability mechanisms to verify compliance with the INDCs, mechanisms for transparency and participation in the development of INDCS.
As they are fundamental for the implementation process success of the INDCs, it is therefore worrying that Colombia was the only country in the sample to receive the perfect score. While most
countries were negatively qualified in all aspects, in addition to Colombia only Guatemala and
Peru reported the inclusion of criteria for planning to continue the implementation of INDCs, and
Peru established mechanisms for transparency, in participation for INDCs development. Meanwhile countries like Costa Rica, Mexico and Chile although they did not incorporate mechanisms,
the report states the existence of existing mechanisms such as the National System of Climate
Change in Mexico, or in development, such as the Citizens Advisory Council on Climate Change
to Costa Rica.

With the participation of:

Adapt-Chile Chile
Asociacin Ambiente y Sociedad- Colombia
CO2.cr- Costa Rica
Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental, CEMDA-Mxico
Centro Uruguayo de Tecnologas Apropiadas, CEUTA-Uruguay
Derecho Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, DAR-Per
Fundacin Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, FARN- Argentina
Grupo FARO- Ecuador

Yvette Aguilar, experta en cambio climtico de El Salvador

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