H.E. Ms. Carolina Schmidt
Minister of Environment, Chile
Bachelor of Business from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. In the first government of President Sebastián Piñera (2010 – 2014), she was Minister Director of the National Service for Women and Minister of Education.
In August 2018, she assumed as Minister of the Environment of the Second Government of President Sebastián Piñera with a clear stamp: the only way to achieve sustainable development is by considering the care and respect for the environment. Her message is crosscutting: climate action and economic development do not run on parallel lanes; on the contrary, the Minister states that the only way to achieve true sustainable development is the care of the environment; to achieve this, adaptation and mitigation to climate change are key.
When she took office as Minister, she had to live through one of the greatest environmental crises in the country, the crisis that affected the communes of Quintero and Puchuncaví. It was her priority to make of the process of elaboration of the Plan of Prevention and Atmospheric Decontamination for the communes of Concón, Quintero and Puchuncaví, a broad participatory process. The presentation of this Plan was made in December 2018, which contemplates the control and reduction of emissions to companies in the area, with a permanent oversight of the Superintendence of the Environment, the redesign of the monitoring network and the management of critical episodes throughout the year, among other measures.