Climate Change in Latin America - European Commission

2.1. Legal and Institutional
Framework
2.1.1. United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Country representation
Each country has a designated representative for the
UNFCCC, but the focal point is designated in formal
terms. The Ministries of Foreign Relations from Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and the
Department of Foreign Relations from Mexico, are the
focal points recognised by the UNFCCC. The focal
points of the remaining 12 countries are their
environmental authorities (ministries, departments,
national authorities).
In the case of Costa Rica and Cuba, the Ministries
have a double function (Energy, Sciences and
Technology respectively).
In all the countries the environmental authorities
play a fundamental role in developing
this matter.
The origins of these bodies were not the same
throughout the region. Mexico and Venezuela
had already created their Environment
Minis tries beforehand. In some countries,
environmental functions were given to preexisting
bodies (public health, agriculture,
urbanisation, mining, etc.); new organisations
were created in other countries, often as a
result of pre-existing areas of government
being grouped together. After the Summit in
Rio, only Bolivia formed an area of government
that took on the joint responsibilities of sustainable
development and the environment.
Chile is still in the process of transforming
its environmental authority from the National
Environment Commission to the higher rank of
Ministry of the Environment, whereas Peru has
recently made this transformation.
The creation of most of the Environment Ministries in
Latin America coincided with the 1992 Earth Summit
when the Biodiversity Convention and the Climate
Change Convention were signed. The first actions
taken by the Ministries of the Environment were to
control pollution (brown agenda), by passing laws and
regulations based on direct regulation mechanisms.
As the years went by, new functions were gradually
added to the ministries as a response to the need to
strengthen the natural resources protection system
(green agenda) and to meet various international
commitments.
Over recent years, a lot of the Environmental Authorities
have been modernised and are promoting
(i) mechanisms to include environmental aspects in
development and land-use plans and (ii) the use of
economic and tax incentives. This modernisation can
also be seen in the creation of national environmental
funds.
Structure and functions
Different approaches have been used to develop the
structure and hierarchical level of the Convention's
Focal Points in the 18 Latin American countries.
The institutional arrangements that have been made
are as follows:
• Climate Change Units under the command of
the International Relations and/or Environmental
Quality Directorates (Honduras, Chile, Colombia,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay);
• Climate Change Units included as part of the
Directorate and/or Undersecretary for Environmental
Quality and Clean Production (Cuba,
Ecuador);
• Directorates or Climate Programmes with a
variable number of dependencies, which are
coordinated by the different agreements of the
Convention (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica,
Ecuador and Mexico);
• Permanent Inter-ministerial Committees for
supervising and coordinating Climate Change
actions (Brazil, Mexico).
In terms of the restructuring processes of the
environmental authorities there has been an
evolution of the structures and functions of the
Convention's Focal Points.
There is a clear relationship between the
way the Executive Power tackles the matter,
the hierarchical position of the designated
authority compared to the executive power
(or within the respective Ministry) and the
performance of the designated authority.
The influence over promoting policies and
coordinating inter-institutional and inter-sectoral
activities varies depending on the structure of the
government (position of the unit in the Ministry of
Environment hierarchy), as well as the value of the
ministry itself. When the environmental authority is
part of another ministry (planning, energy, science,
development) there is a greater amount of coordination
and better oppor tunities for integrating the issue
of Climate Change into national policies. In all cases
there is a scarce amount of coordination with local
government: the decentralisation processes that were
begun more than a decade ago have taken effect.
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