Highlights:

As Colombia navigates a complex path toward a richer and more equitable future, the country faces three critical climate transitions. First, it will need to transit from a climate‑vulnerable to a more climate‑resilient economy. Second, guided by its Long‑Term Climate Strategy (LTS) and strong legal framework, which place it among the climate‑goal leaders of the Latin America region, the country will need to navigate a transition to a net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions economy in the context of its stated goal for 2050. Third, in a world that will demand increasingly less of Colombia's primary exports—oil and coal—and more green products, it will need to engineer a transition in its economic model.

Climate change complicates Colombia’s development ambitions, and in the absence of adaptation, the projected climate impacts will affect poverty and growth. Colombia faces higher risks than comparator countries. Climate‑related disasters have already been increasing in frequency over the last few decades, and climate projections suggest that, in the future, more people will be impacted by floods and landslides, sea levels will rise, and the number of very hot days will rise dramatically. Climate change will reduce GDP by between at least 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent by 2050 in the absence of investments in adaptation.

Colombia is the 32^nd largest emitter out of 193 countries, and its GHG emissions account for 0.57 percent of global emissions. As of 2018, LULUCF represented 40 percent of GHG emissions, energy 31 percent (of which transport was 12.5 percent), and agriculture 19 percent.

The climate action required for Colombia to achieve its objectives will have substantial but not insurmountable costs, and these investments would also generate economic benefits. This CCDR estimates that an integrated package of investment to promote resilience and carbon neutrality by 2050 would require US$92 billion (in 2023 present value) in additional investment relative to a baseline that does not include climate objectives. These additional investments represent 1.2 percent of Colombia’s discounted cumulative GDP over 2030–2050. Such investments would propel a transformation in the way goods and services are produced, and reduce operating and maintenance costs, thus enabling the recovery of about one‑third of the investment.

Focus on LULUCF and Agriculture

Sustainable and Productive Landscapes for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation. With land use, land use change, forestry, and agriculture accounting for 59 percent of Colombia’s GHG emissions, Colombia’s land use sectors are central to climate action. Intact landscapes are also crucial for the provision of ecosystem services that underpin Colombia’s climate resilience. Climate change is expected to further depress already low productivity in agriculture through a combination of heat, extreme weather events, water scarcity, and flooding. Deforestation is the primary driver of emissions in the land use sector and, without drastically reducing deforestation and scaling up restoration and afforestation, achieving Colombia’s 2030 and 2050 climate commitments will remain out of reach.

The following priorities emerge to achieve a transformational shift from extractive to sustainable and productive land use, with a focus on deforestation control and CSA and livestock systems.

• To reduce land use emissions and to retain and rebuild the adaptive capacity of landscapes in line with Colombia’s mitigation goals, deforestation would need to rapidly be curtailed to no more than 37,500 hectares per year (ha/year), and by 2030, 25,000 ha would need to be reforested, 620,000 ha afforested, and 5.8 million ha of land restored. Land use—mostly deforestation control, restoration, and afforestation—will need to make up 52 percent of Colombia’s emission reductions by 2030 and 44 percent by 2050. Achieving this will require institutional and policy reforms that, one, give the national government greater control and deeper reach into the national territory, and two, streamline policymaking and implementation across institutions and layers of government. This would also facilitate actions on multiple fronts that are required to monitor and curb land use change. Focusing on deforestation control, priorities include (i) making law enforcement more effective; (ii) bringing land grabbing in check, focusing on the areas of highest deforestation, (iii) investing at scale in sustainable production and restoration in deforestation hotspots along the agricultural frontier and in environmentally strategic areas; (iv) strengthening the enabling environment for investments in sustainable and resilient land use, including by creating incentives for better decentralized deforestation control performance, and (v) improving institutional and community governance, especially for indigenous peoples and local communities.

• To reduce emissions from agriculture in line with Colombia’s climate goals, by 2030, 16.3 million ha of livestock systems would need to be made sustainable, the expansion of pasture areas and herd growth would need to decline, and an additional 3.2 million ha of agricultural land would need to be sustainably intensified. The livestock sector, which accounts for 14.8 percent of Colombia’s GHG emissions, occupies 91 percent of Colombia’s agricultural land and has major impacts on the adaptive capacity of landscapes. It will be important for both the agriculture sector as a whole, and the livestock sector in particular, to become more climate‑smart at scale. This will involve (i) repurposing agricultural support toward promoting green innovation; (ii) strengthening the agricultural innovation system to mainstream CSA and livestock innovation technologies and practices; and (iii) fostering financial innovation to spur technology adoption and to improve risk management. In addition, land administration and law enforcement are important to prevent increased agricultural productivity leading to greater deforestation.