In Chile, Peru, Colombia and Brazil, climate change remained a policy issue mainly linked to environmental concerns and not fully integrated into national development agendas, either as an important constraint or as an opportunity. Realizing the need to respond to climate change while also being required to define their commitments to the Paris Agreement, the four countries participated in the Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios (MAPS) program, an initiative that grew out of the experience of the long-term mitigation scenarios mandated by the South African government. This case study analyses the process of construction, between 2012 and 2015, of medium- and long-term mitigation scenarios in Chile as part of a South-South collaboration project. It also provides complementary insights from the Brazilian, Peruvian, and Colombian processes, which took place in parallel as part of the same program. The case highlights the relevance of building local skills and knowledge over time in developing countries to enable the design and continuous adjustment of long-term planning and implementation of climate change mitigation efforts.

Those four countries’ experience with the MAPS program is a good practice because it offered the opportunity to build evidence to inform decision-making on climate mitigation policy. All four countries developed the MAPS project with political support expressed in a high-level mandate. Thanks to the program’s methodological approach, they also increased the capacity to build different scenarios and conduct sensitivity analysis. In addition, the MAPS also led to an unexpected, enabling the four countries to add the input to the pathways informing their intended nationally determined contributions (INDC).

Key findings:

• The social interaction process during which the final documents were presented as joint products of both researchers and stakeholders enabled the countries to create communities of practice on climate change mitigation.
• The configuration of technical groups should be adjusted to respond to the changing demands for knowledge encountered throughout the process.
• The fact that the regional collaboration among the four countries worked at different levels offered the potential to generate innovation and a South-driven approach.
• The value of time must be taken into account to satisfy the MAPS program’s expectations of building robust evidence and transforming societal capacities to lead low-carbon development.