COP28: Ecuador is the first country to vote to close an oil exploitation

Ecuador will arrive at the world summit on climate change in dubai (COP28) with the challenge of implementing in the coming months two of the greatest environmental milestones in its history: the closure of one of its largest oil fields by popular mandate and the largest debt-for-nature swap to conserve the Galapagos Islands.

Last August, Ecuadorian society set an unprecedented precedent worldwide by voting with a majority in a plebiscite in favor of the cessation of Block 43-ITT, an important oil field in the country from which the eleven% approximately of national oil production, one of the great pillars of Ecuador’s economy.

The result of the vote, where the ‘Yeah’ won with him 58.9%was celebrated by renowned environmental activists with global impact, such as the American actor Leonardo DiCaprio, as this popular consultation marked a path to accelerate the energy transition through democracy.

And now Ecuador is at the crossroads of leaving underground in the course of 2024 an oil reserve for twenty years with an estimated value of 13.8 billion dollars and spending around US$ 500 million on dismantling facilities whose construction cost about US$2,000 million.

That is the price that, according to official calculations, Ecuador will have to pay to comply with one of the most daring steps in environmental terms, in exchange for not putting at risk a part of the Yasuní National Park, considered the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

An emblematic site

In this area of ​​lush Amazon jungle, Block 43-ITT has been exploited until now since 2016, with no environmental accidents reported so far and with a philosophy of deforesting only what is essential, so that its facilities barely occupy 80 hectares, a 0.01% of the extension of the National Park.

Environmental groups set their sights on it to promote the historic plebiscite that did not involve three other sites that are also located in Yasuní.

“More than a half (52%) of the Ecuadorian Amazon is taken over by oil blocks. “It is for this reason that the democratic triumph of the popular consultation on the Yasuní constitutes a historic event where it was decided to prioritize life, over extractivism.” Paola Maldonado, advisor to the American organization Amazon Watch, says in a statement.

The activist states that “The lives of people in voluntary isolation depend on its immediate implementation.”such as Tagaeri, Taromenane and Dugakaeri, three families of the Waorani indigenous nationality who live within an intangible area of ​​Yasuní that borders the southernmost wells of Block 43-ITT.

For Javier Dávalos, coordinator of the Climate Program of the Inter-American Association for the Defense of the Environment, Ecuador can mark with the implementation of the plebiscite on Block 43-ITT “a successful precedent to take the first concrete step in promoting the necessary energy transition worldwide”.

For his part, the president of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CDES), Julio Prieto, emphasizes the important role “to ensure that the closure of Block 43 is carried out immediately and the best available technology is used.”

Stop mining and protect the Galapagos

At the same time that the popular consultation for the Yasuní was being held, in the capital Quito another one took place with a similar result that prohibited any type of mining in the Chocó Andino, a space of Andean forests that part of it is located within the same area. metropolitan area of ​​the Ecuadorian capital, cataloged as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO.

From the Government, Ecuador has also become a global reference in conservation with the recent debt swap designed with environmental organizations from the United States to allocate an amount of US$ 450 million over eighteen and a half years for the conservation of the Galapagos.

These funds will seek, among other goals, to accelerate the energy transition of the islands, within the national objective that this unique archipelago in the world becomes one of the territories free of fossil energy and its economy based purely on tourism becomes completely sustainable.

At this COP28 in Dubai it will once again have its own pavilion, something it has not had since 2015, a space for the country’s public and private sectors to position the ecological transition before the world.