ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to unfold the coordination between national policies and international commitments of countries for energy efficiency improvements. Across the State Parties to the Paris Agreement, 53 per cent of them submitted NDCs targeting the energy sector, which makes it the most included sector. Simultaneously, countries in the Global South, especially in South America, have started to develop their institutional and policy framework for the energy sector with also objectives related to climate change mitigation. As energy efficiency is considered one of the fastest and most effective strategies to reduce GHG emissions, and thus to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement, there is a global interest in enhancing the energy efficiency improvements. Thus, national governments formulated international commitments, while adopting their national legislation and executive orders. How, then, do national energy efficiency targets align with their NDCs? To answer this question, this book chapter creates an analytical framework to illustrate the relation between international and national commitments for energy efficiency. This is applied to a series of case studies of countries from South America – Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia. By analysing the legislative and executive portfolios of these countries, the author presents a discussion on the policies and targets prior to the submission of NDCs and on the subsequent policy developments, with reference to the climate change mitigation goals established in the NDCs of each country. The policies adopted after the Paris Agreement by the countries under analysis have limited coordination with the submitted NDCs, while quantitative targets related to energy efficiency stem from the NDCs of Brazil only. A general conclusion on the linkages between NDCs and national policies wraps up the chapter.
