The dire outlook for Argentina’s renowned higher education system under President Javier Milei, a right-wing populist, was highlighted on April 22 – Earth Day – by Argentine plant ecologist Pedro Jaureguiberry, who was announced as a finalist in the prestigious Frontiers Planet Prize.

​“The current budget for universities in 2024 is insufficient, adding to the fact that in recent years we have only received 20% of the budget we asked for conducting research at our lab,” Jaureguiberry,  an assistant researcher with the Multidisciplinary Institute of Plant Biology at the National University of Córdoba (UNC), told Climate Home.

The 44-year-old scientist, who has spent his entire academic career in Argentina, was shortlisted for the award as one of 23 national champions drawn from science research teams across six continents, in recognition of a study he led on the drivers of human-caused biodiversity loss.

Dr Jaureguiberry conducting fieldwork in central western Argentina. (Photo: Diego Gurvich)

Of the finalists, three international winners will be announced in June in Switzerland, receiving prize money of $1.1 million each for their role in groundbreaking scientific research.

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With annual inflation running close to 300%, this year’s freeze on Argentina’s government budget for universities and scientific research amounts to a spending cut in real terms of around 80%, according to the University of Buenos Aires, which this month declared itself in an “economic emergency”.

On Tuesday, university teaching staff and students, backed by trade unions, will march in Buenos Aires and other cities “in defence of public education”, which they say faces a grave threat from the budget squeeze.

Met office hit by layoffs

Argentine meteorologist Carolina Vera, former vice-chair of a key working group responsible for the latest assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that in four decades of teaching and research she had never seen “such a level of dismantling through the reduction of research grants and programs with such disdain for knowledge”.

“This is very serious for atmospheric and ocean sciences, key to issues such as climate change, placing a whole new generation of meteorologists and climatologists in danger,” she told Climate Home from Trevelin, in the southern province of Chubut.

There has been widespread condemnation of 86 layoffs affecting administrative and other contractors at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), while Vera added that she is concerned about the situation at the National Meteorological Service, where 73 technicians have been let go. That, she warned, would affect the functionality of early warning and disaster prevention systems.

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Climatic and meteorological challenges are increasing in Argentina, from heavy rains due to the El Niño weather phenomenon – which has caused an ongoing dengue epidemic – to extreme heat and wildfires.

A significant drought is forecast for the southern hemisphere summer of 2024-2025, from November to February, as El Niño gives way to an expected La Niña, with the National Meteorological Service having a key role to play in predicting conditions and disseminating information about them ahead of time.

Vera added that the budget restrictions on CONICET would also limit its research capabilities, particularly relating to climate change. “​We hope that this will be reversed soon,” she added.

Greenlight for extractive industries

Milei has branded climate change a “socialist lie” since 2021 and has also questioned public education for “brainwashing people” with Marxist ideology.

Sergio Federovisky, deputy minister of environment during the previous presidency of Alberto Fernández, said Milei is not only disdainful of scientific views on global warming but also on broader environmental protection. For example, Milei – a former university professor and television pundit – said during his presidential campaign that “a company can pollute a river all it wants”.

“Climate denialism is not a scientific position, but rather an argument used to release all types of extractive actions that could be hindered by an environmental policy on the use of natural resources and the concentration of wealth,” Federovisky told Climate Home from Buenos Aires.

Meeting between Argentine President Javier Milei and Elon Musk in Texas, United States, at the Tesla factory on April 12 2024, forging a partnership through which the government is betting on attracting investment to Argentina. (Photo: Prensa Casa Rosada via / Latin America News Agency / Reuters)

In an economic review published on February 1, which unlocked $4.7 billion to support the new government’s policies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expressed its support for investment to increase the exploitation of oil and gas reserves and metals mining in Argentina, in order to boost exports and government revenues.

World Bank head Ajay Banga told journalists before last week’s Spring Meetings that the Argentine economy is going through a “whole economic realignment”. The bank “is supportive of the direction of that economy” and looks forward “to working closely with their leadership to help them as they go forward”, he added.

Yet he also noted that the bank’s latest review of economic prospects for the region highlighted challenges, including the impacts of Argentina’s correction, with regional GDP projected to expand by 1.6 percent in 2024, one of the lowest rates in the world and insufficient to drive prosperity.

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The IMF’s support for Milei’s neoliberal economic policies has been strongly criticised by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which said on Friday that fiscal austerity “is not the answer when people’s lives and their democratic rights are at stake”.

“The IMF is celebrating the budget surplus in Argentina, but it’s indefensible to ignore the human cost of this economic shock therapy,” the ITUC’s General Secretary Luc Triangle said in a statement.

“Pensions have been slashed, thousands of public sector workers fired, public services are on the verge of collapse, unemployment is growing and food poverty spreading.”

Last week the government attempted to head off Tuesday’s protest by announcing a last-minute budget increase for maintenance costs for universities. But that was rejected by a national council of rectors and has not deterred the movement against the austerity measures, with large numbers set to come out onto the streets as planned.

(Reporting by Julián Reingold; editing by Megan Rowling)

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At issue is whether introducing certain large mammals to parts of Argentina will benefit ecosystems and cut emissions or harm local wildlife and threaten human health.

In April, a group of over 100 scientists published an article on the potential pitfalls of reintroducing the wrong kind of animals to the wrong kind of places.

The Rewilding Foundation Argentina (FRA) thought the article accused them of xenophobia and sent a legal letter to the authors, accusing them of slander, a criminal offence which could cost them their government jobs.

One of the scientists feeling threatened was Alejandro Valenzuela from the National University of Tierra del Fuego. He told Climate Home that “rewilding projects could have some minor climate benefits, as healthy ecosystems lock in more carbon.”

“But,” he said, “they have to be done right and scrutinised properly and freely”.

Although independent and based in Argentina, FRA has strong links to a conservation charity set up by American billionaires Douglas and Kris Tompkins, who made their money from the North Face brand of cold weather clothes.

Doug and Kris Tompkins, pictured in 2009 before Doug’s death in 2015 (Photo credit: Doug and Kris Tompkins)

FRA’s funders include companies like Rolex, Toyota and Patagonia, other charities like Turtle Conservancy and the Parrot Wildlife Foundation and several wealthy individuals.

Xenophobia accusations

The battle has played out mostly in the normally sedate pages of the an academic journal called Neo-Tropical Mastozoology.

Last year, an Argentine biologist called Mario Di Bitetti and two colleagues from Denmark’s Aarhus University published an article which was critical of the Latin American scientists.

“Until now, the Latin American scientific community has generally opposed the presence of perceived exotic mammals in natural settings, without even considering their effects are,” they said.

“A xenophobic and nationalist conception has dominated, which has produced a demonisation of exotics,” they added.

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In April 2023, over 100 Argentine scientists hit back in the same journal. They argued that reintroducing animals should not be a goal in itself but a way of restoring ecosystems.

They warned that big grass-eating animals can destroy grassland and that introducing animals in small numbers can leed to inbreeding, which produces weak and infertile offspring which are less likely to survive.

What most angered FRA though was a section which said that “some rewilding projects developed in Argentina propose a single interaction with local inhabitants, mainly through tourism projects, craft manufacturing and/or attention to visitors”.

It then asked: “Is it xenophobic to attempt to control introduced species… or is it xenophobic to ignore our multicultural reality, imposing the agenda of entrepreneurship on the native human populations of America?”

Lawyers get involved

FRA took this as a thinly-veiled criticism of them and reacted angrily. They sent a legal letter, seen by Climate Home, to one of the most high-profile of the article’s authors – the director of the Natural History Museum of Buenos Aires Pablo Teta.

The letter says that xenophobia is a criminal offence and they “will not tolerate” being accused of it.

They go on to accuse Teta and his fellow authors of the criminal offence of slander and demand a retraction “in the same medium in which the slander was poured out, under warning of initiating judicial actions”.

The letter finished by saying: “It is worth clarifying that the Penal Code provides for the accessory penalty of disqualification when the authors of the slander are public officials.” Like many of his fellow authors, Teta is a public official.

The editor of the journal Isabel E Gómez Villafañe declined their request for a public retraction. She said that FRA had not been directly named anywhere in the article and had been repeatedly invited to respond and not taken up the offer.

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Valenzuela told Climate Home that he had been disappointed that “what could have been a rich academic debate turned into a potential judicial dispute.”

He added: “In my own country, I was left feeling intimidated and threatened by censorship by this NGO which works with international funding”.

In a statement, FRA denied this letter was a form of intimidation a threat to freedom of speech. “On the contrary,” they said, “the letter helped to rectify a serious unfair accusation”.

The argument played out on social media too. As FRA posted on X about the “false accusations”, one user praised FRA’s “great work” while another said “what you can do if you don’t like Argentine science is leave our country”.

REWILDING, INVESTIGADORES, XENOFOBIA, FAKE NEWS Y CIERVOS · Respondemos a las acusaciones falsas que circulan por las redes sociales y publicaciones digitales: https://t.co/DBq73qLbgb pic.twitter.com/4jMva7Vqap

— Rewilding Argentina (@RewildingArg) July 8, 2023

Project rejected

At around the same time, FRA was invited to a meeting with the National Parks Administration (APN) to discuss their project alongside scientists, technicians and the health ministry.

On the day of the meeting, FRA legal representatives sent APN a note saying they weren’t going to show up. The experts in the room discussed the project anyway and a few weeks later, the APN rejected the plan.

In a statement, they said it was a risk to public health. Swamp deer can spread a potentially life-threatening disease called human monocytic ehrlichosis and, the APN said, the project lacks a plan to tackle this risk.

New #glamping adventures in El Impenetrable National Park!

La Fidelidad campground in El Impenetrable National Park has expanded! Camping is free and accessible to the public, and there are now a total of 18 camping platforms where tourists can set up their tent or rent one pic.twitter.com/kFiI8da9Pk

— Tompkins Conservation (@tompkinsconserv) July 20, 2023

They added that the deer would be threatened by donkeys, dogs, wild animals, hunting and fire. Marsh deer are already considered vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Ian Convery is the co-chair of the IUCN’s rewilding group. He told Climate Home that rewilding “has to be the right species, right place and right time”.

FRA pointed out that the APN had approved aspects of the project in 2019 and 2021.

They claim it only rejected it in 2023 because it had a new director of conservation called Pablo Berrozpe and he had consulted with scientists critical of FRA whose “ability to objectively evaluate the project was at least compromised”.

Berrozpe disputes this. He says “the project was rejected since it did not meet the minimum requirements” and that FRA are underestimating the Argentine national scientific system.

Lawful right not intimidation

In their statement, RFA said that “technical arguments revealing the limitations of any conservation strategy are always welcome as they help to improve the sorely needed restoration of the world’s ecosystems.”

“But,” they added, “actions must be taken when these criticisms turn into a collection of violent misleading arguments” and “in a
democracy, such actions include resorting to legal tools so the victims of false claims can defend themselves.”

“This defensive strategy is a lawful right, not an action of intimidation”, they said.

A spokesperson for Tompkins Conservation said they supported the statement of RFA, which is their “offspring organisation” although now independent.

This article was amended on 10 November to include a comment from Pablo Berrozpe

The post Argentine rewilding debate descends into legal threats appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Vaca Muerta Sur terminal could bring a surge in Argentina’s oil and gas exports, unlocking the Vaca Muerta field, which holds the world’s second-largest shale gas reserves and the fourth-largest shale oil reserve.

The terminal’s construction site in the San Matías gulf is a hotspot for marine biodiversity and a popular site for whale-watching.

Relevant authorities in Río Negro province support the project, citing economic benefits. They are holding public hearings to approve the terminal’s environmental studies.

Campaigners held demonstrations against the project, accusing the authorities of a lack of transparency and shutting down critics.

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According to the Argentine Institute of Oil and Gas (IAPG), Vaca Muerta could produce three times more oil and gas than it does today. It is limited mostly by a lack of infrastructure and investments. The Vaca Muerta Sur terminal is a key piece of infrastructure to unlock the field’s potential.

The coalition of climate NGOs Global Gas and Oil Network called Vaca Muerta a “carbon bomb”, citing its potential to release up to 50 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere across its lifetime.

The EU, in particular, has shown interest in the Argentina’s gas supplies. In July, the bloc signed an agreement with the country to work on a “stable delivery” of gas from Vaca Muerta to Europe. Brazil has also contributed funds to unlock Vaca Muerta’s exports.

Push from local government

The export terminal is a key piece of YPF’s plan to develop the Vaca Muerta field, which has received overwhelming support across political factions. Regional decision-makers in particular have been instrumental to advance the project.

Provincial regulations have prohibited hydrocarbon projects in the San Matías gulf since the 90s, but in 2022 regulators reversed the provincial legislation to allow YPF to develop the terminal.

Last week, the Sierra Grande municipality held public hearings where YPF presented environmental impact studies for the terminal and the associated 570 km pipeline. 

Cristian Fernandez, from the legal department at the Argentine Foundation of Natural Resources (FARN), criticised the environmental studies submitted by YPF. He said there is no contingency plan for pipeline leaks and oil spills.

Protesters on the coast of Río Negro during the Second Plurinational Encounter, which took place in March 2023. (Photo: Carolina Blumenkranc)

But local authorities defended the project, and claimed to have risks under control. Sierra Grande’s mayor, Renzo Tamburini, said the project would help develop the region.

Dina Migani, Secretary of the Environment and Climate Change of Río Negro province, also voiced her support for the project and played down concerns, despite the project’s proximity to whale transit routes.

“In the survey of the entire trace there are no indigenous lands, and the oil monobuoy is 7km away, near the route where the right whales (Eubalaena australis) transit, as happens in Chubut below Puerto Madryn,” Migani told Climate Home.

Shutting down opposition

Fabricio DiGiacomo, a resident in the neighbouring Las Grutas community registered at the public hearing, voiced his opposition to the project, but was not allowed to enter the session. 

“Vaca Muerta has had, on average, about five (oil-spilling) accidents per day since it began its operations, so I do not see how they are capable of defending it”, added DiGiacomo, who rejected the public audience for being “fraudulent”.

The Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers said in a statement they would submit a legal challenge to the process, which they claimed lacked open access to information and left opposers out of the hearings in an “unjustified” way.

They also claimed that, during the hearings, demonstrators received threats and intimidation from police and supporters of the project.

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Pablo Lada, a local activist from the neighbouring province of Chubut, says that other nearby communities were left out of the conversation on the San Matías gulf, San José gulf and Golfo Nuevo — which all encompass the Valdés Peninsula, a World Heritage Site.

Dina Migani, from Río Negro’s provincial Ministry of the Environment defended the process and said registrations were open to all residents of Sierra Grande.

Fragile site for biodiversity

The Vaca Muerta Sur terminal is meant to connect the Vaca Muerta shale fields through a 570 km pipeline to the sea. This would allow for Argentina to enter the international market as a major oil and gas exporter.

But the export terminal needed for this to happen is located in a fragile site for biodiversity, according to experts. 

Marine species such as right whales, dolphins and killer whales could be affected by oil spills and shipping traffic, said Raúl González, marine biologist from the National University of Comahue.

Southern Right Whale specimens tracked by scientists in the San Matías gulf. Organised by name and colour, they are Aguamarina (red), Zafiro (yellow), Topacio (green), Fluorita (light blue), Coral (blue) and Turquesa (pink). Source: Siguiendo Ballenas.

The impacts to biodiversity, González said, depend on the contingency plans for oil spills and the routes selected for shipping transit.

The Argentine Association of Whaling Guides called for the cessation of the project, citing Argentina’s commitment to the Cop15 biodiversity pact to protect 30% of oceans by 2030.

In a letter sent to provincial legislators, a coalition of environmental NGOs said pushing the terminal “is to condemn the present and future of current and future generations”.

This story was edited on August 31, 2023, to amend Fabricio DiGiacomo’s residence.

The post ‘Carbon bomb’ in Argentina gets push from local government appeared first on Climate Home News.

As the country gears up for election season, all the leading candidates and even some young environmentalists support the building of the Néstor Kirchner pipeline — a key piece of infrastructure that would allow for record gas exports from the Vaca Muerta “carbon bomb”.

Fossil fuels’ opponents have been villified with state-owned oil company YPF hiring a consultancy who advised them to ridicule environmentalists who opposed offshore oil drilling, as well as attaching the project to “nationalistic” views.

Pipeline for a “carbon bomb”

Ten years ago, gas was discovered in the Vaca Muerta shale fields of Argentina’s far west.

Despite this bounty of energy though, Argentina is still shipping in expensive foreign gas, as moving Vaca Muerta’s gas to eastern population centres by truck is prohibitively expensive.

To overcome this, successive governments have tried to build a pipeline from the gas fields to the country’s capital Buenos Aires, to provide energy to its 15 million consumers and to export gas abroad, earning the country much-needed foreign currency.

Hoy, en una jornada histórica, comienza el llenado del Gasoducto Presidente Néstor Kirchner, la obra de ingeniería más importante de los últimos 50 años y un hito trascendental en la gestión del ministro @SergioMassa. pic.twitter.com/0GH0CUm6DU

— Flavia Royon (@FlaviaRoyon) June 20, 2023

The project was held back by economic crisis then pandemic but today a section of it was finally inaugurated.

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Wearing a hard hat near gas workers waving the Argentine flag, energy minister Flavia Royon called the pipeline “the most important engineering work of the last 50 years and a transcendental milestone”

The pipeline is named after former president Néstor Kirchner, deceased husband of the current vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Election campaign

With presidential elections scheduled for October, all the leading candidates support the pipeline.

With unpopular president Alberto Fernández not running for re-election, the most likely candidate from the current ruling faction is economy minister Sergio Massa. He has called the pipeline a “turning point” and was at today’s ceremony.

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (left) and Sergio Massa (right). (Photo: Victor Brugge/Wikimedia Commons)

The right-wing opposition’s leading candidates –  Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Patricia Bullrich and Javier Milei – all support the pipeline too.

Support goes further than the political class. Even the Argentinan branch of Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement is supportive.

Recently, Bruno Rodriguez, a leading figure from Youth for Climate Argentina said that Argentina “must develop” and producing gas “is a step in that direction”.

Asked about this, Thunberg said: “I don’t know these parts of the movement so I can’t speak on behalf of them but our general message – at least in the part of the climate movement I’m in – is that we need to move away from all fossil fuels and all false solutions”.

#SB58 | Le pregunté a @GretaThunberg cuál es su opinión sobre el hecho de que algunas organizaciones de juventud climática están apoyando la explotación del gas en nombre “del desarrollo” y en nombre de que “es un recurso para la transición”

Su respuesta: pic.twitter.com/63AlY4TjAH

— Tais Gadea Lara (@TaisGadeaLara) June 14, 2023

Martín Álvarez is a researcher at Observatorio Petrolero Sur, based in the city of General Roca, not far from the gas fields.

He told Climate Home that the Buenos Aires-based Youth for Climate has been able to “be interlocutors with real power due to the lack of federalism that exists in the country”.

He said that the strength of the environmental movements lies in different provinces of Argentina “not in the youth of the urban middle class, who never understood what is happening [outside of the big cities]”.

Leaked document

Environmentalists that oppose oil drilling off Argentina’s eastern coast, which the government approved in 2021, face a state campaign to discredit them.

Last June, Extinction Rebellion Argentina leaked a document which proved that YPF hired a consultancy called Eonia to train supporters of the pipeline in government and the oil industry to influence public opinion and build a “social license” for the project.

 

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A post shared by Rebelión o Extinción Argentina (@xrargentina)

In a slide labelled “rejection of ridicule”, the manual says that many people join a cause because it is fashionable, a sense of belonging or a desire to be part of something bigger and positive.

“We must turn this fashion into a deep fear of being ridiculous,” the slide says, “tying it with the most insane claims and with the most uncomfortable forms”.

Alongside the text are pictures of Extinction Rebellioin protesters throwing soup and paint over artworks, like a Van Gogh painting in London. The painting was unharmed.

One of its slides is titled “nationalist acceptance” and says the oil drilling should be framed as a way for Argentina to go from energy importer to exporter and “make the dollars that Argenina lacks”.

The first offshore driling is expected to start before the end of the year, with Norwegian firm Equinor given the contract.

Protesters in Mar Del Plata march against offshore oil drilling last January (Photo credit: Diego Izquierdo/Greenpeace)

Álvarez said he had “great concern” because it is the state that is carrying out these policies, as the government has a majority stake in YPF.

Environmentalists face harassment and threats on social media too. With twitter users calling them “traitors to the homeland” and declaring “with the bones of the environmentalists, we will build the foundations of the refineries”.

In Argentina’s 40th year of democracy, Alvarez said, environmentalists should not be marginalised and stigmatised or there will be no progress towards a fairer society.

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