Panama Publishes Roadmap for the Mitigation of Short-lived Climate Pollutants

Currently 22% of Panama’s total greenhouse gas emissions come from methane gas, with agricultural responsible for 81.8% of methane emissions. The bulk of Panama’s black carbon emissions come from the energy sector.  

Panama’s Methane Roadmap aims to identify goals and actions to reduce methane emissions in key sectors. It will also support the promotion of cleaner technologies and practices, the generation of green jobs, and improvements in air quality and public health. Panama’s SLCP Roadmap will help plan and execute mitigation actions efficiently within Panama’s context.  

While Panama has already developed a robust methane and greenhouse gas inventory system, this project provided Panama with its first opportunity to develop an emissions estimation for black carbon in the energy sector. Through this process the project was able to enhance Panama’s greenhouse gas inventory by adding black carbon emissions factor data. This will enable a robust analysis of all black carbon emitting sectors.  

In Panama most of the data informing the emissions assessments comes from government entities. Nearly 30 staff from those entities took part in three workshops representing institutions such as the Institute of National Aqueducts and Sewers (IDAAN), the Urban and Home Cleaning Authority (AAUD), the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), Ministry of Health (MINSA), among other entities.

These workshops aimed to strengthen national capacities in monitoring and evaluating SLCPs to support the monitoring compliance of the actions proposed in the Roadmap. They also presented advances in long-term emissions modelling and prioritise and characterise the mitigation actions identified so far.  

The workshops also provided an opportunity for sectoral and policy specialists to evaluate the impact of the proposed actions for their social impact, political and economic viability, sustainability over time, identification of barriers, and the entities responsible for implementation. This approach sought to ensure that proposed actions are realistic, effective, and sustainable. 

This consultation process also looked for existing public policies in each sector which could be advanced or adapted to support SLCP mitigation goals, as using previously implemented policies is more efficient than creating new ones. This prioritisation enabled the roadmaps to promote one or two priority actions from five or six potential actions in each sector. The outcomes of the participatory process, combined with cost and feasibility criteria, identified priority actions in the transport and energy industries, as well as from the industrial processes and product use sector. 

The roadmaps also helped Panama identify coordination challenges across different sectors. For example, in the waste sector municipal governments and national authority for waste and sanitation have overlapping responsibilities which have complicated coordination in the past. This was one area where the roadmap could identify protocols to make existing coordination mechanisms more efficient. The Ministry of Environment is also coordinating horizontally with other ministries and sectoral entities to support them in increasing the sustainability of their existing processes. 

Funding is a consistent challenge for poorer countries looking to implement climate mitigation actions. As a sink country, Panama is looking to develop its carbon markets in the forestry sector through a focus on boosting its carbon sink status through nature-based solutions. The development of the Methane Roadmap and identification of specific projects makes it easier to attract funding however, and Panama is currently exploring funding options for projects in several sectors. 

Panama’s Roadmap for the Mitigation of Short-lived Climate Pollutants, produced as a result of this process proposes in its most ambitious scenario a 12% reduction in methane emissions for the agriculture and livestock sector; for the waste sector, a 31% reduction in methane emissions; for the energy sector, a 28% reduction in black carbon emissions and a 44% reduction in methane emissions; and for the industrial processes and product use sector, a 95% reduction in HFC emissions.

The SLCP Roadmap also highlights the cost-benefit analysis of SLCP mitigation. The measures listed for HFC could imply an increase in sectoral costs of US$298 million, while methane and black carbon mitigation strategies for the waste, agriculture and livestock, and energy sectors could generate a decrease of US$18.078 billion in costs by 2050. Meaning a saving of up to US$17.78 billion by 2050. 

You can download the Panama's SLCP Roadmap here.