COP16 in Colombia, Environmental Crimes, Peru's Land Grab, and Cuba's Economic Crisis: El Cafecito #3 del 21/10/2024
Your weekend digest of Latin America's top reads this October, this week focusing on environmental challenges ahead of COP16 in Colombia, by Prof. Nicolas Forsans.
As COP16 kicks off in Cali, Colombia this week, the spotlight is on Latin America's growing environmental challenges, with organised crime organisations having the upper hand on governments, and governments facing scrutiny for their handling of illegal deforestation and resource exploitation. In this issue, we also explore the forthcoming trial of mining company BHP in London’s High Court and Cuba’s latest power outage as a sign of deepening economic crisis.
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A Special Focus on COP16 and Environmental Challenges in Latin America
Organized Crime and Governmental Responses: Challenges Facing Latin America
In a report released on Friday, International Crisis Group (ICC) argues that armed groups’ tightening grip on the Colombian Amazon has jeopardised the health of the forest that plays a crucial role in regulating the planet’s climate, adding that “people living under these groups’ yoke have been left vulnerable to the whims of criminals bent on expanding their illicit businesses”.
Following Gustavo Petro's arrival to the presidency in 2022, the dissident group Estado Mayor Central (EMC), formed in 2016 from fighters rejecting the peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), imposed strict limits on logging and pasture lands, threatening fines and community service to those who disobeyed the order. Yet, as peace talks later stalled, the EMC loosened its restrictions, and deforestation rates appear to “have increased sharply in the first half of 2024” and are predicted to rise further when the traditional tree-cutting season begins this month, adds ICC. Meanwhile, the armed group has prohibited environment ministry and National Parks Service personnel from entering protected areas in the Amazon under its control. This was a display of power: by doing so, the EMC demonstrated to the government how much harm it could inflict on the environment, reinforcing its negotiation position at the negotiation table ahead of further peace talks.
As a result, the NGO argues that the drop in deforestation last year was more the result of the influence of organised crime organisations that control the Amazon region, rather than the outcome of government initiatives and development programmes aimed at promoting environmentally friendly practices among land workers.
EMC is currently the dominant group in most of Colombia’s Amazon regions, covering 40% of the country. Joshua Collins of PWS adds that the group is involved in illegal economies such as “coca production, illegal mining, extortion, the clearing of forest lands in protected areas for cattle ranching, illegal timber production, and schemes that allow them to acquire and sell land titles within the Amazon.”
Prompting the Colombian government to “pursue negotiations with armed groups and plot ways to curb deforestation”, the NGO is also calling the government to “assert its authority in the Amazon through development programs fostering livelihoods that do not harm the environment, efforts to combat large-scale environmental offenders and reinforced coordination of security, peace and environment policies”.
The Amazon rainforest in Peril
The WWF’s 2024 Living Planet Report released last week and subtitled ‘A System in Peril’ warns that the world is fast approaching “dangerous irreversible tipping points, including the potential collapse of the Amazon rainforest” which helps regulate the planet’s climate and sustain a wide range of life. Passing these tipping points, they warn, would “pose grave threats to humanity and most species, and would damage Earth’s life-support systems and destabilise societies everywhere”.
Deforestation of the Amazon could lead to a tipping point in 10 years time. “The Amazon is rapidly disappearing, and Colombia is an example of this. Between 1985 and 2023, this natural forest in the country was reduced by almost 7%”.
Home to 10% of all the wildlife species on the planet, the Amazon rainforest has been ravaged by extreme drought and catastrophic wildfires in recent months. Deforestation follows “expansion of livestock farming, agro-industrial crops, the construction of roads and other practices that change land use”. As a result, wildlife species in Latin America and the Caribbean have declined by 95% since 1970.
Experts predict that “if 20-25% of the Amazon is lost, it could go into irretrievable decline”. Yet even before this year’s wildfires, up to 17% of the Amazon rainforest was estimated to have already been destroyed. Ahead of COP16 WWF warn that “what happens in the next five years will determine the future of life on Earth”.
Also worryingly, the report warns that national commitments and action on the ground “currently fall far short of what’s required to meet 2030 targets and avoid dangerous tipping points that will have devastating impacts on people and nature all around the world”.
Heightened security ahead of COP16 in Cali
The COP16 ‘Convention on Biological Diversity’ brings together more than 190 countries, observer organisations, civil society, academia, journalists and the general public. It will “highlight the strategic importance of our region in the world”, says the responsible for the Summit in La Republica. It is estimated the city of Cali will benefit to the tune of US$25 to US$30 million over the next two weeks. “We have one of the most biologically important ecosystems on the planet, but it has not had the international recognition or the necessary investments”.
Yet, the high profile event takes place at a time of heightened security given ongoing security concerns in this region of Colombia. While COP16 is the most important event organised by Colombia in decades, President Gustavo Petro acknowledged its "concerns" about the security of the event, following threats from several armed groups in the country, including the EMC which controls several municipalities in the region to sabotage the event. "We are all nervous so that nothing bad happens because it is the largest event that Colombia has held in the world" (via RCN Radio), a sentiment relayed by the US embassy in Colombia. 11,000 soldiers have been dispatched to Cali.
The focus of COP16 will be on the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Framework, approved at the last summit held in Canada. It aims to protect 30% of the planet and convert it into protected areas by the end of this decade, while restoring 30% of degraded ecosystems. Financing those commitments will be the most difficult part of the negotiation in Cali.
Colombia among the deadliest for environmental leaders
COP16 is taking place as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia released on Thursday a FactSheet on the situation faced by environmental defenders in Colombia. The note warns of the “high risk to the life and integrity” of people who defend the right to a clean environment and advocate for the protection of the land”. Between 2016 — the year of the signing of the peace agreement with the FARC — and last September, the UN documented 248 murders of environmental leaders, of which 44 were recorded in 2023. 90% of them were “indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant people”, who died mainly at the hands of illegal armed groups - the deadliest year on record.
That violence has disproportionately affected men in the departments of Cauca, Chocó and Nariño, located in the Pacific, Amazon and Orinoco regions of the country. These areas witness the greatest presence of FARC dissidents and paramilitary groups, such as the Clan del Golfo. Those assassinated were typically environmental leaders involved in the “defence of the territory, the right to water, sustainable agriculture” or fighting against “pollution and extractive mining in protected ecosystems”.
Most worrying is the territorial expansion of armed groups with interests in natural resources. The ONU report cites a diagnosis by Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), which stated back in 2019 that “the environment ha(d) been a silent victim of the Colombian armed conflict.” Since the signing of the peace agreement with the extinct FARC guerrilla group in 2016, until May 2022, the JEP recorded 283 environmental impacts.
These ONU data are much more cautious than those released by other organisations, because of a different methodology used to validate the data. Last month, the international NGO Global Witness estimated at 196 environmental defenders murdered in 2023 alone. Latin America remains the most dangerous region for environmental and social leaders, with Brazil, Mexico and Honduras at the top of the list.
Mariana dam collapse trial in London
In Brazil, about 620,000 individuals, 46 Brazilian municipalities, 2,000 businesses and 65 faith-based institutions are to claim damages from the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP at a high court trial in London scheduled to be heard from today over 12 weeks, reports The Guardian.
On 5 November 2015 the Fundão dam, near Mariana in eastern Brazil, collapsed, releasing about 50m cubic metres of toxic waste. The claimants argue that BHP, a 50% shareholder in Samarco, the joint venture company responsible for managing the Fundão tailings dam, is liable as they were aware of the risks of the dam collapsing but kept on funding its expansion.
On Friday, Reuters, citing “four sources” reported that Miners Vale, BHP and Samarco are discussing a near $30 billion compensation deal with Brazilian authorities, with an agreement expected to be signed on October 25th. Brazil-based newspaper O Globo had earlier in the day reported the expected date of the deal.
Peru’s Land Grabs: The Struggle Over Resources and Indigenous Rights
The Guardian also reports the Peruvian government is “auctioning off plots of pristine Indigenous reserves for fossil fuel projects”, with campaigners warning of a ‘silent genocide’. Earth Insight adds that “despite legal protections at both national and international levels, 7,500 isolated Indigenous peoples live in highly vulnerable situations, in extreme danger of being pushed from their lands or killed”.
The country’s current and proposed oil and gas blocks overlap with 20% of federally protected reserves for uncontacted Indigenous groups, posing an existential threat to these communities.
According to its assessment, oil activities have “significantly impacted” 41 of Peru’s 65 identified Indigenous tribes.
Approximately 50% of crude oil extracted from the Amazonian regions of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia is exported to California. “The expansion of extractive activities — such as oil and gas exploration and production, mining, and logging — poses a severe threat to the integrity of these reserves and to the rights and well-being of these communities”, adding that “meeting California’s high demand for Amazon oil exacts a high human cost”.
Cuba’s Economic Crisis Worsens: Power Outages and Political Instability
Some electricity was restored in Cuba on Sunday, the Cuban government said after the island nation’s worst blackout in at least two years left millions without electricity for three days, reports AP news agency. Nearly half of the island was plunged into darkness on Thursday evening, followed by the entire island on Friday morning after the failure of the Antonio Guiteras electrical plant in Matanzas, the largest on the island. The national grid collapsed twice in 24 hours as a result.
Yet, Cuba’s capital Havana was still largely in the dark on Sunday evening, as the island waited for the arrival of Category 1 (later downgraded to a tropical storm) Hurricane Oscar. Millions of Cubans have been forced to “endure high temperatures without air conditioning or fans and watch as the food they had stored in fridges became decomposed”, adds BBC News Mundo. The water supply was also affected as it relied on electric pumps.
Most of Havana remained dark on Sunday night despite limited restoration of power in some neighbourhoods on Saturday, with only 500 megawatts in Cuba’s electrical grid compared to the 3 gigawatts normally generated. Full restoration is expected to be a slow process.
Patience is running out. On Saturday night protests were reported. In La Havana, several ‘cacerolazos’ - pot-banging protests common in Latin America - were reported in some neighbourhoods before the protestors got dispersed by security forces, reports Reuters.
Even in a country used to outages as part of a deepening economic crisis, Friday’s collapse was the second worst this year. In March, the country witnessed rare protests as the island has been facing its worst economic crisis for three decades (BBC News). The previous month, the government had asked the UN's food programme for help with food shortages, sending an “unprecedented request for assistance” in providing powdered milk to children under the age of seven.
With no end to the economic crisis, many Cubans have emigrated. More than 700,000 entered the United States between January 2022 and August 2024, according to US officials (France 24).
Cuba's electrical grid and oil-fired power plants are obsolete and crumbling, making the island dependent on Venezuela for fuel shipments - shipments cut in half this year as the country struggled to ensure its own supply, forcing the Cuban government to seek far more expensive fuel on the spot market.
Cuba has long blamed the U.S. embargo which puts strict rules on trade between the two countries, as well as more recent sanctions by former President Donald Trump for its electricity supply issues. “Cuba blames US as power grid collapses for second time in 24 hours”, says The Times while Reuters explains that U.S. sanctions complicate the financing of fuel purchases and spare parts, and scare off many oil tankers, forcing both Cuba and Venezuela to depend on their own obsolete fleet for transportation.
Water shortages
Traffic through the Panama Canal is operating at nearly half-capacity , with further cuts in capacity expected. Yet, Panama is not the only Latin American country currently facing water scarcity. To the contrary, the entire region is in the grips of a dry spell. Latin America is running out of water, claims World Politics Review (WPR) this week in a recent article. Certainly worth reading.
Colombia’s ambitious $40 Billion Energy Transition Plan
An interesting post over at Latinsight on Colombia's plan to abandon oil, a “bold and necessary step in the global push for decarbonization, yet a high-stakes transition that could face economic and political setbacks” argues Martin Dalençon.
That’s it for this edition of El Cafecito, please share this post with friends, colleagues and family and subscribe to receive your weekly digest of the main political and economic developments from across Latin America!
We’re back later in the week.