On July 10, 2023, Resolution No. 571/2023 of the Energy Secretariat of the Ministry of Economy was published in the Official Gazette of the Nation through which the “National Energy Transition Plan 2030” (hereinafter “the Plan”) was approved.
The Plan contains the different fields of action and the measures that the Secretariat plans to develop in its energy transition path to comply with the commitments assumed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty signed by the Argentine Republic during the Conference of the Parties No. 21 held in 2015 (COP21).. In Article 4, signatory countries are invited to formulate and present long-term development strategies with low greenhouse gas emissions.
It should be recalled that, in 2019, Argentina passed Law No. 27520 on Minimum Budgets for Adaptation and Mitigation of Global Climate Change, which guarantees the mainstreaming of Climate Change in long-term State policies.
Along the same lines,, at the end of 2020, Argentina presented the “Second Nationally Determined Contribution” (NDC), which established the commitment to increase climate ambition and the decision to achieve a just transition towards comprehensive and sustainable development, including energy transition,, sustainable transportation,, among others, among the implementation axes.
In addition to the above, the SSecretariat of Energy issued Resolution No. 1,036/2021 /2021 approving the first“Guidelines for an Energy Transition Plan to 2030” , which included the content of the previously approved energy and climate plans and laid the foundations for the future development of an Energy Transition Plan.
The purpose of Resolution No. 571/2023 is to define the planning of the policy to be implemented by the Secretariat of Energy regarding the energy transition and its execution in the national territory.
In Article 3, the Resolution orders the Undersecretariat of Institutional Coordination of Energy and the Undersecretariat of Electric Energy to inform the Federal Energy Council and the Federal Council of Electric Energy, and through them all the Provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires of the resolution, and to generate mechanisms so that the National Energy Transition Plan to 2030 can be nurtured by the contributions of each province in view of the challenges of the future.
In turn, the following provisions establish that the Undersecretariat of Energy Planning must be instructed to generate articulation procedures with civil society and the public and private sectors, and to compile the contributions received for future versions of the National Energy Transition Plan to 2030 to be developed and articulate periodic updates of the Plan,, incorporating the evolution of the energy transition policy, with the new programs to be developed.
It is defined thatthe first update must be made before December 31, 2024. Thereafter, a term of five (5) years is granted for the development of the following updates.
Finally, Annex I develop the central objectives of the Plan, the regulatory context, the goals, and the barriers and challenges to be overcome in the scenario projected for the year 2030.
