Promoting green growth in Colombia: A post-conflict opportunity?

This policy brief addresses the opportunities for and impediments to green growth and energy security in Colombia.

As a result of renewed international activity and high vulnerability to the effects of climate change, Colombia has embraced ambitious green growth objectives and climate change mitigation goals. Rapid economic growth and rising peak demand centres for energy may well go hand in hand with clean energy uptake. Most Colombian citizens are highly aware of the need for a low-carbon growth trajectory and the country has already invested substantially in renewable energy development.

However, dominance of private sector interests within the state, resulting from a powerful transnational alliance of extractive industries, may hamper long-term green growth efforts to succeed. Greening the private sector in a post-conflict Colombia may prove to be one of the crucial steps in consolidating Colombia’s low-carbon growth trajectory.

This policy brief is part of a two-year research project on energy security and green growth in middle income countries by means of political economy analysis. Other project outputs can be found here.