Eduardo Calvo is a Peruvian environmen-tal scientist and vice president of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s working group on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability that is assessing the impact of climate change on socio-economic and natural systems ahead of the United Na-tions climate talks in Cancun, Mexico later this year.

Latinamerica Press collaborator, Ramiro Escobar, spoke with Calvo about Latin America’s role in climate change talks and the need to reach real agreements on emis-sions cuts.

Are Latin America and the Caribbean important in the world debate on cli-mate change?

Latin America and the Caribbean have played a predominant role in the talks, both for having one of the countries most responsible worldwide for deforestation-caused emissions – Brazil – as for having industrialized economies, as is the case of Mexico. This was also the case because it is an economically dynamic region that is seeking development that drives low carbon emissions countries.

Does the region have a real impact in decision making here?

Without a doubt. This was clear when we saw Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica named [on May 17] as the executive sec-

retary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

How is the region approaching green-house gas emissions? Does each country have a different focus for this problem?

Every country in the region recognizes that they are highly vulnerable and that the impacts are serious for each of them. But their mitigation strategies and visions differ. In more industrialized countries such as Brazil and Mexico, or countries with large cattle farming, such as Argentina and Paraguay, there are focuses according to their situations. It also changes according to political orientation. There are countries that lean to the left, or are pro-market. There is also the line headed by countries such as Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela that emphasize the duty of developed coun-tries faced with a historical and ecological debt.

What are the greatest sources of green-house gas emissions in the region?

Just like the rest of the planet, the con-sumption of energy ... but the central prob-lem is deforestation. We have to remember that Latin America is one of the last regions to change their soil use process. In some countries, agriculture is a very large industry, while in countries such as Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela, hydrocarbons production is also a significant source of emissions.

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Interview with Peruvian environmental scientist Eduardo Calvo, member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

“Development needs to be respectful of the environment”

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Climate Change:Survival Is at Stake

“The generation of proposals is the most important thing.”

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Does this create dissent regarding this issue?Yes. The heterogeneousness of development within Latin

America and the Caribbean does not make it easy to reach a consensus, like they were able to in Africa, a more homogeneous region. It is also difficult to reach a consensus because even if we speak mostly Spanish or Portuguese, some countries in the Caribbean communicate in English or French. This creates a small language barrier.

What would be the best way for Latin America to contribute to effective climate change policies?

I think it must continue with its proactive role. The genera-tion of proposals is the most important thing and the lack of them the most negative. Even if some proposals do not coincide, each of them can use aspects that have valuable elements, and finally, we would be able to reach a consensus.

Are we approaching a day when Latin America will have to reduce its emissions?

The largest economies that are part of the G20 are already under pressure to limit their emissions. It is the case of Chile, which has entered the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or Peru, that is experiencing strong economic growth. The rest of the world is asking us to collaborate with emission reductions. And there are countries that do it volun-tarily, like Costa Rica.

Does the debate between the environment and develop-ment need to be resolved before these commitments can be made?

I think most of these countries believe that development must be respectful of the environment. About the level and

form that this is manifested, there are many systems. But I don’t think there is one single country in Latin America and the Caribbean that doesn’t recognize that they have to be putting in the maximum effort.

So, Latin America and the Caribbean will be important in Cancun?

Yes, without a doubt. First because the region will have Mexico at the head of the conference. Mexican Foreign Min-ister Patricia Espinosa will organize the negotiations and put her effort in to advance a global according, even though this is a very complicated year. The presence of China, the crisis in the European Union, the political dynamics in the United States may make it very difficult to reach that agreement. It will require a strong amount of optimism and a lot of luck. In any case, I think that the Mexican government is prepared to get results. And if they can’t, at the very least we have to find the path to it, as soon as possible.

But the problem is getting worse as the years go by.This process has been going on for 18 years, since the approv-

al of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. The first meeting of the [Convention of the Parties] was in 1995 so the meeting in Cancun will be Number 16. At the same time, it will be the sixth Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, which went into effect in 2005.

The debate is as hot as the planet.The debate is going to be very hot, but the global commu-

nity is increasingly clear. There is no country that denies this problem. They diverge on how to take on the issue. But the doubts have been left behind. q

Balancing economic growth with preservation proves a challenge for region.

A cohesive strategy against climate change is proving a challenge for Latin America and the Caribbean, one of the most vulnerable regions to the trend.

The glaciers of the Andes are melting at an alarming rate, endangering the water supply for thousands of campesino farmers and for sprawling metropolises. Floods, cold snaps and droughts have proven deadly and threatened the food supply for countless communities.

But despite the tangible effects of climate change, the region, responsible for a small fraction of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, lacks joint policies to combat it.

Manuel Pulgar Vidal, an environmental law expert of the

Latin American Climate Platform and the Peruvian Society of Environmental Law, says the reason is because “countries tend to respond to their own interests.”

Failed attemptIndustrialized nations are responsible for nearly two-thirds

of all carbon emissions, and attempts to curb the emissions, especially with a push by developing nations who are some of the worst affected, have failed.

At the United Nations Climate Change talks in Copenha-gen in December, industrialized and developed nations failed to reach an agreement on emissions cuts, and the issue is pending in the next round of talks to be held in Cancun, Mexico Nov. 29-Dec. 10, with negotiations riding on China and the United States, the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases.

But their failure to reach an agreement could make it dif-

LATIN AMERICA/CARIBBEAN Milagros Salazar in Lima

No unity against climate change

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ficult to stop the temperature rise of 2°C, the recommendation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Mixed signals at homeBut within the region itself, some governments in Latin

America and the Caribbean, where inhabitants experience some of the harshest and most immediate effects of climate change, do not want emissions cuts to hinder their economic development.

Gerardo Honty a Uruguayan researcher on energy and climate chance at the Latin American Social Ecology Center points to oil-reliant Venezuela and agro-dependent Argentina and Uruguay who have made these industries the major parts, if not the centerpieces, of their economies.

Nevertheless, the Venezuelan-led Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of the America bloc, which includes Bolivia, Ecuador – South America’s fifth-largest oil producer – Nica-ragua and Cuba, has publicly denounced free-market models, and said that wealthy nations only sign agreements that serve to themselves, while fellow Latin American nations Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru de-fend the free-market model.

Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of soy, says it wants to preserve its Amazon rainforest, as long as it can continue to grow its economy. Brazil is one of the so-called BASIC emerg-ing markets countries that also include China, India and South Africa, a bloc that together brokered the final proposal in Copenhagen to cut emissions “as soon as possible.”

What’s happening more because of economic and ideo-logical divides in the region, governments are making alliances about specific issues. Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia have joined up in the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degrada-tion, or REDD, a forest preservation initiative. But indigenous groups have worried that it will be a pretext to kick them off their native lands.

Some actionEven though the last international summit has not solidified

a binding agreement, parties are closer to prioritizing funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation, says Antonio Hill, a climate change expert at oxfam International. In Copen-hague, industrialized nations pledged US$30 billion between 2010 and 2012 and US$100 billion to 2020.

Some countries in the region are turning to Clean Devel-opment Mechanisms, which were established in the Kyoto Protocol, though results are not what were expected. More than 70 percent of the Certified Emissions Reduction credits have been bought by emerging countries like Brazil, Chile and

Mexico, not by the developed countries, which are the main responsible for these emissions.

Indigenous communities also want a say. Some indigenous groups argue that their native teachings and customs and ways of life are eco-friendly, and advocate a balance between nature and human beings, not its indiscriminate exploitation. Honty agrees, adding that the region needs an economically sustain-able system to reduce its own emissions, since maintaining an economic system based on consumption has high costs: the planet’s survival. q

Indigenous peoples call for an end to simple discourse and for communities to take real action.

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A production by Latinamerica Press, a Comunicaciones Aliadas news service.

lpthematicdossier Nº 2 - September 2010Climate Change: Food Security, Water

and Forest Conservation

Latin American and the Caribbean: Hot spots

Source: IPCC/ECLAC

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Native communities eye socialism and indigenous traditions to fight climate change.

Indigenous peoples are trying to actively use their ancient traditions based on respect for the environment and the community to fight climate change and not let their ideals

be reduced to just talk, native groups said at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 19-23.

Native peoples are some of the most affected by climate change, as extreme temperatures and abnormal weather de-stroy their lands and vital resources like water. The melting of tropical glaciers, torrential rains, frosts, droughts are a major problem in the region. one of flagship cases is in the summit’s host nation, where the Chacaltaya glacier, near La Paz, disap-peared last year.

Talk is cheapParticipants called for an end to simple discourse and

for communities to take real action, by pushing a socialist, community based model as the way to fight consumer-based development.

oscar Vega Camacho, an indigenous Bolivian and mem-ber of the group Comuna, said their proposals should not “just remain as an anti-capitalist posture, but advance an alternative project.”

“By just recovering and revaluing our roots, strengthening our cultural practices, our ways of life and our forms of collective organization for the sustainable use of natural resources … we could contribute to humanity to steer the future of the planet,” a docu-ment at the end of the meeting said.

Peru’s Miguel Palacín, president of the Andean Coordinating Group of Indigenous organizations, said that “Buen Vivir” or Living Well, a concept that stresses quality of life instead of economic profits, “is not just a theory

or a discourse … it’s the practice of peoples to maintain balance between human beings with Mother Nature.”

Participants said their traditional knowledge and customs should not only be strengthened but incorporated into climate change research and public policies.

“Buen Vivir and capitalism are not compatible,” Rafael Quispe of the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qul-lasuyu, a Bolivian indigenous group.

Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed a Community Socialism, in which lands, animals, and their products, do not belong to a single person but to the community, to balance out the wealth.

“That’s the new paradigm we’re living in: Saving the Earth to save humanity,” said Morales.

“to ensure that this process deepens and is extended as an encouraging example for the whole continent and peoples around the world, we have to illustrate the existing contradic-tions reflected by social-environmental conflicts,” said one of the participants’ statements.

Fighting the systemQuispe noted that 12 of the some 500 projects of the Ini-

tiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America, or IIRSA, a massive infrastructure project, are affect-ing Bolivia with transoceanic highways and hydroelectric plant that could damage the environment and displace campesinos

Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Carlos Choquehuanca said Buen Vivir is nei-ther socialism nor capitalism, but the stress is on putting nature first “and the human being within” that system.

“We need to go from discourse to action,” said Loyda oliva, leader of the National Confederation of Campesina, Indigenous and Black organizations of Ecuador. “We have a very good constitution in our country, but we need to adhere to it more. We should also reduce consumerism, that is clear. In terms of food, we should fight so it’s understood that the best food is not the biggest or shiniest, but what matters is what they have inside.” q

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LATIN AMERICA Juan Nicastro in Cochabamba

“Saving the Earth to save humanity”

“We need to go from discourse to action. We have a very good constitution in our country, but we need to adhere to it more.”— Loyda Oliva

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