“The evidence is achieving a change in public policy”

Pilar Moraga, academic and specialist in environmental law, has taken on the challenge of directing the CR2 Climate and Resilience Science Center for the period 2024-2025. Full Professor at the University of Chile and current director of the Environmental Law Center of the Faculty of Law, Moraga seeks to contribute her vast experience and deep commitment to sustainability in this new responsibility. In her career she has played a key role in formulating environmental policies and promoting interdisciplinary research.

Throughout his career, he has stood out for his pioneering work in promoting sustainable development, fighting climate change and promoting renewable energies. Her appointment as director of CR2 comes at a crucial moment, as the center faces new scientific and political challenges. In this period, will lead the preparation of an integrative report on carbon neutrality which directly connects with the contingency of the review of Chile’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), thus marking a milestone in national and international public policy. “Carbon neutrality is a complex and balanced path,” he says.

In conversation with Prensa Uchile, Pilar Moraga shares her reflections on the importance of science in decision-making regarding climate change. Furthermore, it addresses the essential role of the legal framework in this mission, highlighting how laws can drive processes and set guidelines to move towards a more sustainable future. Likewise, the new director of CR2 delves into the relevance of gender equality in the scientific field and her commitment to the development of policies and actions that promote female leadership.

– What are the main challenges that the Center must address this year?

Well, since it is new funding, a proposal was established for 2024 and 2025 that involves several scientific commitments. Among those that I can highlight there is a new integrative report for nations on carbon neutrality. The interesting thing about this report is that it has several peculiarities. The first thing is that it is directly connected to the contingency of public policy, because in these two years of CR2 it also happens that They will be the two years that precede the review of Chile’s NDC, which must be presented at the end of 2025 at the COP, which will take place in Brazil and that it is the ten-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement.

On this occasion, all States parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change must present their revised NDCs towards greater ambition and, therefore, Chile will also have to do so. And this goes hand in hand with the commitments established in the Chilean Climate Change Framework Law, which is also very recent and, therefore, there is a contingency here in which We are going to be working on a report, on a report to the Nation, on an issue that is also going to be very central in national and international public policy.. A particularity is that it is integrative, which is what we call the interdisciplinary themes of the Center in which different disciplines participate in its development. There are various approaches in this writing, which has a lot of research and scientific evidence as its substrate, but which is transformed into a scientific dissemination document and which ends with recommendations for public policies.

The second peculiarity of this report is that it is inserted within a global concern. They are always very focused on very specific problems in the country, such as fires, pollution, mega drought, climate governance, but everything is very national. And now the scientific questions that have been formulated, although their main focus is local, cannot be disaggregated from international and regional objectives. So, this is like a new commitment that CR2 makes towards a more international perspective and understanding and connection with climate change concerns, but at a global level.

– What is, in your opinion, the importance of the impact of science on decision-making?

It’s super fundamental. If we have evidence of future extreme climate events, we can take measures in advance to contain the effects in an adaptive view of the future, but also with a very strong focus on prevention.. For example, on the issue of forest fires, there is a clear example of how evidence is achieving a change in public policy and from a preventive perspective that seems essential to me in this context of climate change. We must anticipate those extreme situations that we are going to experience and be able to adopt appropriate measures.

– One of the goals is carbon neutrality. How can we achieve it?

One of the first tasks of CR2 will be to work on this concept of carbon neutrality because it is confusing. First, we associate it a lot with coal, like removing coal and that is not it, here we are talking about greenhouse gases, and we talk about neutrality because it is not that we absolutely eliminate greenhouse gases, a question that seems impossible, but rather that is to reach a balance between emissions and emissions capture or sequestration. Now, it is a concept that, therefore, we want to work on because it is not very clear either in literature, nor in discourse, nor in public discussion.. We want to go there because there is also not a carbon neutrality model. There are multiple policy options that must be adopted based on a vision of the future. So, we want to propose that this is not as simple as saying ‘we already close all the coal-fired thermoelectric plants or we go 100% to renewables’ because all options have costs, because this is a complex problem.

– Like what type of measures?

One measure is the elimination of the fossil fuel subsidy. That’s carbon neutrality. Because we cannot continue promoting the use of fossil fuels and one way to encourage them is through subsidies. But what happens if we eliminate fossil fuels? What are the social and environmental consequences? Environmental can be very positive, but social can be very negative. Therefore, it is a measure that cannot be adopted alone. We must see how these effects are compensated or mitigated, what measures we adopt so that the price of transportation and with it the price of basic foodstuffs does not rise exorbitantly. So, It is a path that must be thought about, must be defined, must be modeled and that is what we want to work on..

Or if we are going to make green hydrogen in Patagonia, well, how are we going to protect the biodiversity involved in this measure? I mean, All actions and measures have social, environmental, and even economic impacts.. So, how do we define a path that, in that sense, is as balanced as possible? And when I talk about balance, I also talk about equity between territories and communities, society and nature, present and future generations. How do we then put all that into the juicer and come out with something that is more or less suitable for the challenges we have.

– How do laws help in this mission?

I studied Law because I believe that laws do manage to guide certain processes. If we begin with the legal framework that has been imposed from the beginning, it was the international legal framework that has defined guidelines to move forward. In other words, even though we are worse than before and one could say ‘this is useless’, I think that is not the case. Let’s think about today’s world in Chile without the Environmental Impact Assessment System, which has many defects and problems, but could we live today without that environmental management instrument? It seems like not, it would be a disaster.

And that was incorporated into our daily lives thanks to a legal reform, which was in 1994, after the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Conference. Therefore, This entire regime comes from the international, it has defined guidelines in Chile and today we have a legal framework thanks to the Climate Change Framework Law, which clearly defines what the goals are., what is Chile’s goal, what are the sectoral goals, what are the instruments to achieve them, what are the deadlines and those responsible. So, it seems that the current legal framework does have a defined path and the way in which we should do it. Now It is the responsible actors defined in this legal body who now have to do what they are mandated to do..

My answer is forceful: of course. The legal framework will make our task easier – or make it more difficult – to the extent that this is better defined in the legislation with very clear rules, perhaps with sanctions in case of non-compliance.. But then there is all the work and responsibility that the different actors in society have, from the public and private, and civil society, to comply with the mandates that the legislator has indicated to us.

Visions on science and gender

– This Center has been directed by women, mainly. How do you see the female presence in leadership positions?

I don’t think it’s a trend, it’s a circumstantial issue, because in the case of this Center There was a commitment by the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences to put Professor Laura Gallardo at the head of a project like this. This allowed us to open space for many other academics, because Laura intended to achieve a balanced relationship in the leadership.. The second director was Minister Maisa Rojas, in her alternation there was René Garreaud, and then I, who also come from another Faculty, which speaks of this University in very generous, very positive terms, and also with high vision that is It gives space for these leaderships to exist. Now, why do I say that it is occasional? Because this starts with an origin that is Laura and that opens these spaces, but this does not ensure that this will be the case in the future.

Therefore, We are going to work in these two years to develop a gender protocol within CR2. We have a gender policy at the University level, but we told ourselves that it is necessary to intend as an organization to promote leadership in equity or equal conditions between men and women. This is not done alone, it is necessary to intend it with policies and concrete actions. In that sense, we are concerned about how to encourage young researchers to have perspectives within the CR2 organization, but also to help them boost their careers inside and outside, so that they also dare to appear in the press, to be interviewed. , to show the work they do, which is as valuable as that of our male colleagues. I must confess that it is not an easy task. We have already started discussions and there are still different views on the subject, there is no consensus, there is no common vision. And I prefer to say it without shame, because I think it is important to know where we are and understand why we are here, and that if we take a step towards greater equity within the Center, it is because we are convinced that that is what we have to do, but as an organization, not as individuals. I wish male leadership would emerge in this as well. Gender equality is not a women’s issue, it is an issue for entire society..

What I take away is that these discussions can take place here, with a high level of vision. So there We have the objective of being able to move forward in this discussion and to be able to define and support female leadership so that there is renewal, and, therefore, that it stops being something occasional and becomes a trend.. We have many female leaders at the University.