Latin America attends COP26 without a common strategy

Latin America is one of the regions most vulnerable ante la climate crisis, whipped by hurricanes that devastate entire islands in the Caribbean O increasingly extreme droughts, but without a common strategy and with asymmetric commitments, it faces its role at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow (United Kingdom).

Perhaps the only fair claim is to demand, once again, that the rich countries directly finance the fight against climate change and that they disburse the 100 billion dollars annually to countries with less income that they agreed to contribute to the Paris Agreement.

Brazil and Mexico, the largest Latin American emitters of polluting gases, will be protagonists of the region, in a decisive conference to reverse the unstoppable global thermal rise and maintain it at 1.5 degrees by the year 2100, as recommended by scientists.

However, the Chilean Maisa Rojas, one of the authors of the last report of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Climate Change affirms that “Latin American governments want very different things and that historically there is no common position “.

At this COP26, “not all Latin American countries have registered their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and Brazil and Mexico have not improved their commitments since the Paris Agreement in 2015,” laments Rojas.

According to a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Suriname have the most ambitious commitments. These guidelines are vital as a route against the climate crisis and to monitor what each country does.

Colombia, for example, the second most biodiverse country in the world, promotes reducing 51% of its greenhouse emissions by 2030, achieving 0% of deforestation for that year as well, and carbon neutrality -that is, the balance between emissions. of carbon it generates and captures from the atmosphere – by 2050.

World Carbon Atlas

Mexico and Brazil, the only countries in the region that they have not extended their commitments in these six years Since the Paris Agreement, they are precisely those that emit the most carbon dioxide (CO2) in all of Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the World Carbon Atlas.

Reaching the climate objective happens yes or yes by change the energy model conventional based on fossil fuels, defend all the experts, which collides with the controversial proposal of constitutional reform of the energy sector in Mexico, which relegates wind and solar energy.

Brazil It will arrive in Glasgow without its president, Jair Bolsonaro, and despite being committed to conserving the Amazon, it cannot give up road construction and mining in the world’s largest rainforest, according to Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourao this week.

These tensions are repeated in other Latin American countries. The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, maintains that extractive development projects can be carried out for the benefit of local populations without endangering the environment. But are these programs compatible with the climate fight?

“No, they are not,” Rojas answers sharply. “To believe that this can be compatible with our development and that we still want to develop ourselves and that we have other objectives is not to understand the problem,” he adds.

The debt of rich countries with Latin America

Joseluis Samaniego, director of the sustainable development and human settlements division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in turn emphasizes in an interview with Efe that the energy transition and sustainable change stimulate the economy.

For example, betting on renewable energies makes “not only is each megawatt per dollar invested cheaper, but it also creates more jobs,” he says.

But to promote these projects, investment is needed. Money that has to come from the richest countries responsible for the majority of emissions, as promised in the Paris Agreement.

For the Caribbean Community (Caricom), very vulnerable to the climate crisis, the call for “global solidarity” becomes “urgent” to provide “additional dedicated funds per year to help the Caribbean to respond proactively to the losses and damages already are being produced. “

Bolivia goes a step further and its vice president, David Choquehuanca, calls for the elimination of “unilateral sanctions against third countries” as Venezuela O Cuba, a country that in turn criticizes global expenditures for the arms race, instead of directing them to protecting the environment.

Latin America, which generates 8.3% of global carbon emissions “It has a great opportunity to push for developed countries to materialize their commitments,” concludes Samaniego.