“The grand opportunity is not only to leave climate alarmism and forced energy transformation in the dust. It is also to elevate the private and public wealth of Argentina with expanded private property rights and free markets. Let’s go!”
The rating of “critically insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker makes Argentina an international climate leader in 2025. President Javier Milei is putting people and greenery ahead of the Climate Industrial Complex in his country, offering a sound example of economic and environmental policy for other countries in the region.
Here is the good news (described as bad) by Climate Action Tracker (CAT):
Under Argentina’s new government, progress in developing and implementing climate policies has taken a step backwards. Among the restructuring and budget cuts in the national public administration, Argentina’s former Ministry of Environment has been demoted to the sub-secretary level, and the continuity of its previous climate policies remains in doubt. Meanwhile, the government continues to invest heavily in fossil fuels, notably a USD 30 billion LNG terminal to export fossil gas out of Vaca Muerta. Overall, CAT rates Argentina’s climate targets and policies as “Critically insufficient”.
Details follow:
Under President Milei’s administration which assumed office in December 2023, Argentina’s national government has been substantially restructured, with a focus on reducing the size of the public administration and cutting expenditure. In this process, the former Ministry of Environment has been reduced to the sub-secretary level, under the Secretary of Sport, Tourism and Environment (EcoNews Global, 2023).
During his presidential campaign, President Milei had stated he does not believe in man-made climate change and that his government will not support climate policies, including threats to leave the Paris Agreement (Colombo, 2023). While his administration later stated that Argentina will not be leaving the Paris Agreement, during COP29, Argentina recalled its delegation only a few days into the negotiations. Overall the outlook is bleak on Argentine increasing climate ambition for the next four years (Larena, 2024; Spring, 2023).
Energy projects for the masses have the green light!
The new government plans to continue developing the Vaca Muerta fossil gas fields, as well as a fossil gas pipeline and the LNG terminal planned by the previous administration. To support these large investments, the government set out an incentive package called RIGI or Incentive Regime for Large Investments (KPMG, 2024).
CO2 emissions are on the go also, doing its part to green the Planet and trash Net Zero.
In 2022, emissions in Argentina rebounded above 2019 levels after a sharp drop in 2020 due to COVID-19. This puts Argentina’s 2030 emissions projections under current policies at approximately 15% above its already unambitious 2030 target. Based on a study by UNICEN exploring energy scenarios (Blanco & Keesler, 2022), if Argentina were to implement additional policies to scale-up low carbon energy sources and reduce energy demand, it could get close to its NDC target. However, to be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, Argentina would need to develop more ambitious policies, especially to stop deforestation and reduce livestock-related emissions.
The past administration put Argentina on a continued-poverty course.
Argentina submitted an updated NDC in December 2021 that sets an unconditional target that is only a marginal improvement on the previous iteration. Argentina’s latest target only achieves a “Highly insufficient” rating when compared to required domestic efforts, and to Argentina’s fair share contribution to global climate change mitigation. With emissions (excl. LULUCF) projected to grow significantly after 2022, Argentina is set to miss its NDC target.
“In the last few months, climate policy has been significantly deprioritised in Argentina,” Climate Action Tracker continued. “However, there have been some positive developments:”
Argentina can follow the U.S. lead and skip COP 30 and further demote the international effort to help defeat it. But Climate Action Tracker dreams otherwise:
There is much that Argentina could do to increase its climate ambition to CAT, including:
Explicit subsidies for upstream oil and fossil gas development should be eliminated, but more than this, the opportunity for production incentives and wealth democratization should incite subsoil privatization, an idea born by another great Argentinian, Guillermo Yeatts ( (1937–2018). As I have written elsewhere:
The case of Guillermo Yeatts for subsoil privatization should eclipse ‘climate change’ as the number one policy initiative of the 21st century. This friend of private property, free markets, the rule of law, and civil society, a successful entrepreneur in his own right, a thinker and doer, has set up an excellent opportunity for a new political era in his beloved Argentina.
The grand opportunity is not only to leave climate alarmism and forced energy transformation in the dust. It is also to elevate the private and public wealth of Argentina with expanded private property rights and free markets. Let’s go!