Latin America’s Renewable Energy Impact: Climate Change and Global Economic Consequences

Javier Moreno, Juan Medina and Rodrigo Palma-Behnke ()
Additional contact information
Javier Moreno: Central Bank of Chile, Santiago 8340454, Chile
Rodrigo Palma-Behnke: Energy Center, Department of Electrical Engineering, FCFM, University of Chile, Santiago 8380494, Chile

Energies, 2023, vol. 17, issue 1, 1-48

Abstract: In the context of the imperative global shift towards renewable energy to mitigate climate change, Latin America (LATAM) emerges as a region of immense untapped potential. However, there is no formal quantification of the effects of developing this potential. This study analyzes the economic and climate impacts of developing renewable energy in LATAM and the Asia–Pacific region using an integrated economic and climate assessment model (IAM). The key findings are as follows. First, exporting renewable energy from LATAM and the Asia–Pacific region yields economic benefits across all regions. However, this surge in renewable energy exacerbates rather than alleviates global warming. Second, the implementation of policy measures accompanying renewable energy exports, aimed at discouraging the use of polluting energy sources, proves effective in mitigating global warming while sustaining significant economic gains globally. Third, LATAM stands to gain substantially from this development. Fourth, due to the gradual process of capital accumulation, any delays in initiating the development of renewable energy exports not only diminish economic gains during the postponement but also in the years following the commencement of exports. These results are robust to several additional simulations and sensitivity analyses. The results align with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Keywords: general equilibrium models; renewable energy; carbon emission; climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/1/179/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/1/179/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2023:i:1:p:179-:d:1309423

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().