GEO-6 Assessment for Latin America and the Caribbean

GEO-6 Regional Assessment for Latin America and the Caribbean

Country Colombia

Dominican Republic

Trinidad and Tobago

Mexico

Brief summary of the INDCs for selected countries

A 20-30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared to business-as-usual. The lower end is unconditional whereas the top end of ambition is subject to the provision of international support. Colombia will also consider communicating a target for 2025, depending on the outcome of the Paris talks.

A 25% reduction in emissions compared to 2010 levels by 2030, conditional upon favourable and predictable support, climate finance mechanisms and corrections to the failures of existing market mechanisms. Includes a five-year review of target. Includes sections on loss and damage, finance, technology, capacity building and youth, and gender.

By 2030, an unconditional 30 % reduction in business-as-usual carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions from transport, power and industry. A conditional 45% reduction is also on the table.

Unconditional 25% reduction in greenhouse gases and short lived climate pollutants from a business-as-usual scenario by 2030, which would rise to 40% subject to the outcome of a global climate deal. For the unconditional pledge, this means peaking net emissions by 2026 and reducing emission intensity per unit of GDP by around 40% from 2013 to 2030.

9. Transboundary air pollution

Transboundary pollution issues have barely been addressed in the region, but the recent reports from the Global Monitoring Plan of the Stockholm Convention may help understanding of the complex problem of transboundary air pollution within and between regions. Intercontinental transport of dust may have long-distance impacts, for example Saharan dust in the Caribbean islands, where links between dust and childhood asthma in Trinidad have been already documented (Gyan et al. 2005).

African dust clouds are regularly carried across the Atlantic Ocean by the North Atlantic trade winds to the Caribbean, the southern states of the USA and the South American mainland. These clouds bring millions of tonnes of dust to these regions – 20 million tonnes of dust particles are estimated to arrive in the Caribbean each year (Schlatter 1995). Most dust particles are less than 1 micrometre in diameter and could potentially reach the smallest of human airways. Small particles of dust, metals and toxic chemical pollutants are moving through the air, across the oceans, and between continents.

A piece of Africa – actually many very small pieces – began to arrive in the Americas in June 2014. On June 23, a lengthy river of dust from western Africa began to push across the Atlantic

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Saharan dust heading west towards South America and the Gulf of Mexico, 25 June 2015

Source: NASA 2015

Ocean on easterly winds. A week later, the influx of dust was affecting air quality as far away as the south-eastern USA.

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