Estimating CO2 abatement and sequestration potentials for Chile

The need for the Chilean government to adopt a position vis-à-vis negotiations at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change prompts a preliminary analysis in this paper of the results of reductions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and their costs for Chile. Basically, two sectors offer possibilities to contribute to the control of CO2 emissions. In the energy sector, CO2 emissions can be abated by either adopting more efficient technologies or switching fuels. In the non-energy sector, CO2 emissions can be sequestered from the atmosphere by afforestation, reforestation and forest management. This work represent the first effort in Chile to estimate the costs of CO2 abatement and sequestration for Chile using a bottom-up approach for the year 2010, which in a global warming context is a short/medium term scenario. In the energy sector, the end and intermediate uses of energy are considered for the transportation, manufacturing and electricity sectors. In the non-energy sector, sequestration costs incurred in forestation on marginal land available in each administrative region of Chile are estimated. Our preliminary results indicate that Chile has a large potential to become a net remover of GHG emissions, with a 176% of CO2 equivalent reduction attainable by 2010 under the upper-bound scenario. A 7% CO2 abatement can be achieved at apparently no cost to society with increased efficiency in the use of energy, and a 114% abatement can be achieved at moderate costs, i.e., less than 11 US$/ton CO2 eq. The major reduction is obtainable through CO2 sequestration by forests.