Leaders will be meeting next month at the Amazon Summit in Belém, a city also due to host the Cop30 climate talks in 2025, to discuss the 45-year-old Amazon Cooperation Treaty for the first time in several years.

The final guest list is not yet clear, but nations across Latin America are expected to be represented as well as some from Europe.

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has rebooted the summit in the hope of using it to build support for his commitment to end illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2030, but curbing fossil fuel extraction does not appear to be on the agenda.

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However, a grassroots campaign led by Indigenous groups and civil society argues such a move is essential to combat climate change, and to protect biodiversity and the Indigenous people that live there.

The campaign builds on an existing effort to get a global pact for the permanent protection of four-fifths of Amazonia by 2025. Focusing specifically on oil and gas, it calls for an Amazon exclusion zone where no fossil fuels can be exploited, in line with the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) warning that there can be no new fossil fuel projects if the world is to stay under a 1.5°C warming threshold.

Domestic exploitation

A number of South American countries in which the Amazon rainforest lies have been trying to boost domestic oil and gas exploration and extraction in recent years. 

Peru is proposing to place 31 oil blocks over 435 indigenous communities, while Bolivia recently finalised an ‘Upstream Reactivation Plan’.

Meanwhile, the result of a forthcoming Ecuadorian referendum about oil exploitation in the Yasuní rainforest will be hugely significant for that part of the Amazon but will also send a wider message about the region’s priorities.

In Brazil, a far-right Congress is proposing to gut the powers of both the ministries of the environment and Indigenous peoples, throwing Lula’s deforestation pledge into doubt. 

The Brazilian president’s own ambitions of positioning himself as climate leader have also been called into question over his stance on an oil drilling project at the mouth of the Amazon river. He recently said he found it “difficult” to believe that oil exploration in the Amazon basin would damage the region’s rainforest.

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Ahead of the Amazon Summit, Indigenous groups will be meeting in Brazil to share fossil fuel resistance strategies, with the support of campaign group 350.org. 

“From this we hope will come a very powerful document that will inform the discussions of the presidents in Belém,” said Ilan Zugman, 350.org’s Latin America managing director. “Hopefully it will have some very strong messages saying no new fossil fuel projects in the Amazon.”

Petro’s lead

Zugman said Colombian president Gustavo Petro had been a “very loud voice” in support of this idea. In January, Petro announced a halt in all new oil and gas exploration contracts, keeping 380 currently active contracts. 

In a recent opinion piece for the Miami Herald, Petro called on Amazon countries and their partners in the Global North to follow him on ending all new oil and gas exploration in the Amazon.

He said that, while ending deforestation was “fundamental”, it had to be accompanied by “an ambitious transnational policy to phase out fossil fuels”. Oil, gas and coal accounts for about half of all Colombian exports.

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Petro said some countries, like Colombia, could allocate a “substantial amount of resources” to protect the Amazon. 

But he stressed that curbing oil and gas exploitation would have a big economic impact on poorer South American nations and called on countries like the US to help with financial mechanisms such as debt-for-climate swaps, a multilateral fund that funds environmental protection services by inhabitants of these territories, or the kind of financial reforms being progressed by the Bridgetown initiative. 

At a recent meeting, the Colombian and Brazilian presidents pledged to cooperate to protect the Amazon but the latter did not appear to make any concessions on oil and gas.

“We need to convince other presidents like Lula.. to step up as well and really play this leadership role,” said Zugman, “to not allow fossil fuel exploration in one of the most important places of the world.” 

Banking spotlight

Campaigners are also stepping up pressure on financial institutions to stop financing oil and gas projects in the region.

A report, published today by NGO Stand.earth and the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), shows that US$20 billion has been provided to explore and exploit reserves in Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador over the past 15 years.

More than half of this (US$11 billion) came from just eight banks: JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Itaú Unibanco, HSBC, Santander, Bank of America, Banco Bradesco and Goldman Sachs.

Six of these banks are either headquartered in the US or act through their US subsidiary and operate in deals across the region, while the two Brazilian companies – Itaú Unibanco and Banco Bradesco – are highly connected to specific oil and gas projects in that country. 

The report is accompanied by a database of all the banks involved in Amazon oil and gas through directly traceable and indirect financing, for example by providing loans or underwriting bond deals for upstream and midstream development and transport of oil and gas in Amazonia. 

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JPMorgan Chase tops the list, having directly provided US$1.9 billion in direct financing to oil and gas in the region over the past decade and a half.

Together with HSBC, it was a major backer of Petroperú’s Talara refinery expansion project, which is driving the exploitation of oil on Indigenous land in the Peruvian Amazon.

JPMorgan Chase has ruled out support for the highly controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline project, but made no such commitment on oil and gas activity in the Amazon or wider fossil fuel expansion. 

The Stand.earth report says an Amazon exclusion for financial institutions is an “essential strategy” to protect the region from oil, gas, and other extractive industries.

Although no banks have completely ruled out funding fossil fuels in Amazonia – the geographic region around the Amazon basin – the report does praise some companies for starting to recognise the risks involved. 

Exclusion policies

 In May 2022, BNP Paribas pledged to no longer finance or invest in companies producing from oil and gas reserves in the Amazon or developing related infrastructure, becoming the first major bank to adopt a geographical exclusion of oil and gas in this area.

And in December 2022, HSBC amended its policies to exclude all new finance and advisory services for any client for oil and gas project exploration, appraisal, development, and production in the Amazon Biome.

The EU-Mercosur trade deal will harm Brazil’s indigenous communities

Stand.earth says these two companies, along with some others, are “sending important signals” that banks should be willing to review their relationship to Amazon destruction and take steps to manage that risk.

These also go some way towards the Exit Amazon Oil and Gas principles devised by international advocacy groups including Stand.earth and Amazon Indigenous leaders.

Clear boundaries

Angeline Robertson, lead researcher of Stand Research Group, said efforts to restrict fossil fuels should cover the wider Amazonia area “to avoid confusion or allow banks to define the exclusion zone themselves.

This was an issue with Arctic exclusions, where banks used different boundaries in their policies.”  Standard Chartered’s and BNP Paribas’ exclusions, for example, cover the ‘Amazon’ or ‘Amazon Basin’, while Société Générale and Intesa Sanpaolo’s policies include only the Amazon regions of Ecuador and Peru.

Zugman said both governments and financial institutions had a big role to play in protecting the region. “Governments need to step up first. And banks… should be there by their side to support these bold decisions and to help accelerate the just energy transition.”

He added that banks could play an important role in the Amazon by supporting a just energy transition. “Energy access is still a big deal in the Amazon and banks could, in consultation with communities, be helping them have clean access to energy instead of investing in businesses that are going to destroy their lands.”

Zugman said the Belém summit was vital because it would inform about protection of the Amazon at Cop28 in December as well as the next G20 meeting which Brazil is due to host. “We’re really pushing together for this moment.” 

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There is “abundant proof” current head Jose Miguel Linares, who took up his post in 2013 after serving as vice-president of legal, and Augusto Jimenez, who headed the company’s Colombia operations between 1990 and 2012, conspired to finance a paramilitary group, the prosecutor said in a statement.

“Linares Martinez and Jimenez Mejia, between 1996 and 2001, increased the value of a food provision contract with a provider company to obtain additional resources and use them to cover previously-agreed illegal obligations with…the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC),” the statement said.

The effort was a bid to protect assets and ensure the free operation of Drummond’s mine in Cesar province, the statement added.

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Drummond rejected the accusations, saying in its own statement that they are the product of “a cartel of false witnesses.”

“These accusations are not backed up with credible proof and are based, principally, on false declarations by convicted criminals, who receive payments for testimony,” the company said, without providing further details.

The company is confident evidence will demonstrate Linares’ and Jimenez’s innocence, it added.

The case is a “moral triumph,” said Joris van de Sandt of Dutch non-governmental organization PAX, which has campaigned to raise awareness over alleged wrongdoings by Drummond, which the company has always denied.

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Drummond – Colombia’s largest producer of thermal coal – has three mining contracts in the country and also holds a port concession on the Caribbean coast.

It expects to export around 30 million tons of coal this year, Linares said this week.

Paramilitary groups emerged in the 1980s, funded by landowners, merchants and drug traffickers to defend themselves from attacks by leftist guerrillas.

Paramilitary groups – accused of murders, rapes, torture and other crimes – demobilised under a peace deal in the 2000s, though many members later formed crime gangs.

Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental activists, with at least 33 dying in 2021, according to Global Witness’s research.

Last year, Colombian anti-fracking activist Yuvelis Natalia Morales told Climate Home that unidentifiable armed men had held a gun to her head, resulting in her fleeing abroad.

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Exxon has held eight exploration and production contracts in Colombia, including the fracking pilot. All either have been or are being ended, suspended or liquidated, Colombia’s National Hydrocarbon Agency (ANH) told Reuters.

The company had planned to develop the Platero pilot project for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, eyeing an investment of $53 million, under a contract awarded two years ago.

Colombia’s congress has been preparing to pass a fracking ban backed by leftist President Gustavo Petro, who took office nearly nine months ago.

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The proposed bill would ban development of non-conventional energy projects including fracking. It has already passed the Senate and is expected to get final congressional approval in the coming months.

The law would leave companies with few options to recoup investments, according to the text of the proposal, including options such as the chance to transfer their investments elsewhere or be awarded rights over other conventional blocks.

Exxon is “reviewing the mechanisms to reach a solution regarding the investments for exploring unconventional” energy resources it has in the country, an Exxon source in Colombia told Reuters.

“We will continue to have constructive dialogue with the Colombian government on a comprehensive assessment of our unconventional investments,” Exxon spokesperson Michelle Gray told Reuters.

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The term “compensation” does not exist in technical or legal terminology used by the ANH in its processes, the agency said, but Exxon is advancing an “accreditation” process regarding the Platero pilot project.

“The procedure is currently being studied,” the ANH said. It did not respond to follow-up questions about what an accreditation process could include.

After winning separate approvals to develop fracking pilot projects in Santander province, Exxon and Colombia’s majority state-owned oil company Ecopetrol said they would team up, with Ecopetrol as operator for both pilots.

The fracking projects in Santander inspired mass protests. The leaders of those protests were threatened with violence. Yuvelis Natalia Morales told Climate Home last March that armed men put a gun to her head and she fled the country as a result.

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Also last year, the state-run company asked the ANH to temporarily suspend both licenses, citing uncertainty over their future. The two companies mutually agreed to end their alliance in November, an Ecopetrol spokesperson said this week.

Ecopetrol’s new CEO Ricardo Roa said this week he would analyze that company’s fracking contracts “with a magnifying glass.”

Exxon most recently decided to withdraw from its 70% participation in the VMM-37 block it shared with a subsidiary of Sintana Energy in Colombia’s Medio Magdalena region, it confirmed to Reuters this week.

Exxon said it continuously evaluates and prioritize investments, including those in Colombia.

The company will continue in the country through its petrochemicals and marketing businesses, the people said.

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The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) will lend Colombia $70m at a low interest rate so that it can invest in its transition from dirty to clean energy.

The funds are aimed at infrastructure which helps get renewable electricity to communities and businesses including batteries to store renewable electricity, transmission lines to move it around and facilities to make green hydrogen with it.

The money comes from a $300m pot made up of one-off donations from the governments of the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Switzerland. 

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Other countries set to benefit with up to $70m each are Kenya, Mali, Fiji and Ukraine.

If rich nations give more, the next developing countries on the priority list are Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkiye and Costa Rica.

An official told Climate Home “there is an active fundraising campaign underway to draw in more resources from donors and support additional countries”.

The Colombian government expects the $70m will mobilise $280m more from multilateral development banks and carbon finance markets.

It predicts the spending will save a total of 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. That’s about 1% of the greenhouse gas Colombia produces every year.

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Colombia gets about three-quarters of its electricity from hydropower dams, a zero-carbon source. The rest is mostly from fossil fuels.

The Colombian government plans to use the money for loans and guarantees to green projects.

Red tape challenge

The government says that delays to environmental permits could threaten some projects’ success, especially after the government approved the Escazu agreement which protects environmental defenders.

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Colombian environmentalist Martin Ramirez told Climate Home that the social and environmental licenses to build transmission lines are “almost impossible to get fast”.

He added: “There is a lot of bureaucracy and red tape in Colombia, it’s getting harder and harder” and that officials can demand bribes to approve projects.

Green hydrogen facilities are often easier than transmission lines, he said, because they only cover a small area and so only one community has to be consulted.

Another risk, the government’s plan acknowledges, is political instability. Colombian presidents get only one four-year term so left-wing environmentalist president Gustavo Petro will leave office in 2026.

The Climate Investment Funds was set up in 2008 and has received $11 billion from 14 countries. It works from the same building as the World Bank in Washington DC. It recently dedicated $500m to Indonesia’s energy transition.

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Petro, a former rebel and the country’s first left wing president, was sworn into office on Sunday 7 August in a historic shift for the South American country.

In his first speech as president, he addressed the need to mobilize resources to protect Colombia’s rainforests. In 2022, the country experienced the highest fiscal deficit in recent years and its external debt accounted for half of the country’s GDP.

“I propose to humanity to exchange external debt for internal expenses to save and recover our jungles, forests and wetlands,” said Petro during his inauguration speech. 

As the Covid-19 pandemic led to an increase in debt in Latin America, several nations turned to debt swaps to meet their climate goals.  

Under this scheme, developing countries get their debts cancelled or reduced in exchange for commitments to finance green projects.

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Ecuador, for example, significantly expanded the Galápagos marine reserve and financed it through this mechanism. Colombia’s previous government called for a similar measure in 2021, but didn’t announce new agreements.

After the pandemic and the war in Ukraine exacerbated debt in developing countries, debt for nature swaps —if done appropriately— can become a realistic opportunity to get relief, said Sejal Patel, environmental economist at the International Institute for Environment and Development.

“If they’re structured well, then debt swaps can be a way to redirect payments to the national climate and nature objectives,” said Patel.

At the same time, climate funds have not flowed as needed. Analysis by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showed developed countries fell $17 billion short of a target to mobilise $100 billion in climate finance annually by 2020.

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There are precedents in the early 2000s where debt swaps made by the United States where counted as climate finance, Patel said. For this scheme to work, however, there must be accountability on both sides.

The projects selected by developing nations should align with their national climate plans, and they should also provide transparency on how those plans are made, the IIED economist said. Creditors should not impose onerous conditions and should allow flexibility to the developing countries, she added.

In countries like Colombia, climate action has been limited by the dire economic situation, said Jhoanna Cifuentes, a local activist and co-founder of the local climate NGO Climalab.  

The country committed to a 50% emissions reduction by 2030, most of which is conditioned to external financing. To achieve this, the country pledged to reduce deforestation from the current 174,000 hectares per year to 50,000 in 2030. 

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Locating fresh funds to achieve this will be part of the challenge, Cifuentes said. “There is a big climate finance limitation in Colombia, as in the rest of the region. Right now, Colombia depends mostly on the fossil fuel industry,” she said. Crude oil and coal are the country’s biggest exports.

The US, one of the region’s top creditors, shared positive views of the debt swap idea during a press conference on Monday. USAID administrator Samantha Power said the new government’s commitments to environmental action represented a “huge opportunity”.

In addition to the debt cancellations, Petro called for a “global fund to save the Amazon” and said “speeches won’t save” the rainforests. 

The South American country, home to about 7% of the Amazon basin, the largest rainforest on the planet, was one of the signatories of the COP26 pledge to end deforestation by 2030.  

However, Colombia’s previous approach to control deforestation through military force bore little fruit. The country lost an area of forest larger than the city of London each year between 2017 and 2020.

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Instead, militarization brought a spike in violence in rural areas, which has made Colombia the deadliest country for environmental activists, said Cifuentes.

The Amazon basin, in particular, has been a major hotspot for deforestation in the country. More than half of Colombia’s forest loss in 2020 occurred in the Amazon region, official data shows.

Petro, on his part, proposed a more community-centered approach during his inauguration. “We can turn the entire population of the Colombian Amazon into a population that cares for the forest, but we need the world’s funds to do it,” he said in his speech.

The Colombian National Indigenous Organization —a coalition of 50 indigenous associations in most of the country’s departments— welcomed the new government’s approach and said in a statement they “firmly believe that the new social pact must combat the legacy of exclusion” towards indigenous communities.

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From Puerto Wilches, a town on the Magdalena River in Colombia’s northern Santander province, Morales grew up on the doorstep of one of the most pristine natural habitats on Earth.

“This area is possibly the most biodiverse in Colombia, where there’s the most water, most animals, and most green zones,” she said. “And it’s also the area with the most armed militias.”

Despite relatively small reserves, Colombia is heavily reliant on oil revenue. Although fracking was outlawed nationally in 2018, the ban does not cover pilot projects. 

When, in 2020, a legal bid to block those projects failed, Colombia’s National Hydrocarbon Agency (ANH) assured environmental groups that the pilots would only be allowed in two regions: the Cesar-Ranchería Basins in the country’s extreme north and the Middle Magdalena Valley, where Puerto Wilches sits.

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Local energy company Ecopetrol began its pilot in the Magdalena Valley in late 2020. “They started doing this like they were running a race,” says Morales, now 21. 

“They started approving things day after day. There wasn’t time for anyone, for the community, to do anything. Everything started happening very fast.”

Fearing the project would lead to environmental devastation, Morales founded Aguawil (Comité para la Defensa del Agua, la Vida, y el Territorio), to bring fellow local land defenders together, and joined the Alliance to Keep Colombia Free from Fracking.

“This committee is quite special and is very important in Colombia as it’s a youth committee. We are all between 18 and 25 years old,” Morales tells Climate Home. 

“Once we started organizing, they started to threaten us.”

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Morales says that she was first threatened publicly by local officials during a debate in Puerto Wilches. But she persisted, helping in December 2020 to organise a carnival march where at least 3,000 people protested against the projects. 

“This was a milestone because normally this doesn’t happen as people are very afraid,” she says. 

“However, we did it and people went into the streets to say we don’t want fracking in our territories, that this is bad politics.”

After the march, the threats began to come more frequently.

“They would call our phones, come to our houses, threaten our parents, saying they would take away their jobs,” Morales says. “They started to persecute them, calling them ‘guerrillas’.  In Colombia, when they label you a guerrilla, this means death.”

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Morales says she had a member of the army contact her with a warning: “Why are you getting involved with this fucking fracking? They are only going to kill you.”

Then, one night in January 2021, “some armed men came to my house and trapped me,” she says. “They put a gun to my head.”

Morales helped organise a carnival march against fracking in Puerto Wilches (Photo: Alianza Colombia Libre de Fracking)

Morales fled her home, first to the capital Bogota, then out of the country. 

According to Global Witness, Colombia is the world’s most dangerous country for environmental activists, with 65 killings of land defenders recorded in 2020. In April 2021, Peace Brigades International Colombia said that members of Aguawil and other environmental groups had been subject “to death threats, assassination attempts, forced displacements, and gender violence”.

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Morales stresses that she did not know which organisation the people who threatened her were acting on behalf of, but says her attempts to report the intimidation to the authorities fell on deaf ears.

“They never tell you anything,” she says. “I wanted them to investigate but they never did.” 

Once she reached safety, Morales connected with other national and international anti-fracking organisations. She says doing so made her realise that her case was far from isolated. 

“This is very serious because at the time I was 20 and there were others who were only 17,” she says.

“We learnt that there are many children from certain areas who are against fracking, who they are threatening with death and labeling as guerrillas and who, like me, are having to flee their homes and countries because with the threat of fracking comes the threat of death.

“Protesting fracking in Colombia is like putting a bullet in your head, at any moment they could kill you, just like what almost happened to me,” says Morales. “It’s really bad there.”

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“And this is why there are many others who have also had to flee. We have two options: flee Colombia or shut up,” says Morales. 

“We can’t say anything because it’s also not a safe place to report anything, because the more we say the faster they will kill us. They’ll accuse us, disappear us or put us in prison.”

Despite her harrowing experience, Morales says she will continue to fight fracking and keep trying to raise international awareness on the plight of her fellow land defenders. 

“I want my home to be in peace and that we can live in peace, so that the children of Colombia can raise their voices without them ever being extinguished,” she says.  

“I want there to be no more fracking in Colombia. And I want them not to kill us for being activists.”

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That is the stark finding of an investigation by NGO Carbon Market Watch and the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism published on Wednesday.

It shows how two projects to protect forest in the Amazon issued millions more credits than the true volume of emission reductions.

A Colombian government insider, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue, told Climate Home News the findings were “worrying”. Bogus carbon credits could jeopardise the country’s ability to meet its recently improved climate goal to halve emissions from business as usual by 2030.

Under the government’s carbon tax policy, fossil fuel companies can buy credits from carbon-cutting projects in Colombia instead of paying a carbon levy of $5 a tonne of CO2.

The rule only delivers a climate benefit if the credits help Colombia reduce its emissions. By allowing companies to buy “hot air” credits, Colombia has lost an estimated $25 million in tax revenue and stands to lose millions more, according to the research.

“This scandal is yet another striking example of carbon market standards failing to uphold environmental integrity of offset projects,” said Gilles Dufrasne, policy officer at Carbon Market Watch.

While saying finance for conservation is urgently needed, Dufrasne added: “We hear time and again that the voluntary carbon market helps countries go beyond their existing climate commitment, but here it has actually undermined national efforts.”

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The exposé looks at two large-scale forest protection schemes in Colombia’s Amazon called Mataven and Kaliawiri.

The schemes, known as Redd+, create carbon credits for preventing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation compared to a historical baseline and projected forest loss.

The investigation found that both projects used inflated baselines to calculate avoided emissions and are overstating their climate impact by millions of tonnes of CO2.

In 2018, Colombia’s ministry of environment introduced legislation requiring Redd+ projects to be consistent with a national baseline for calculating emissions reduction from deforestation, known as a forest reference emission level. But these reference values were not used by either project.

The Mataven project, the country’s largest Redd+ project, adopted a baseline nearly five times higher than what the government estimated the rate of deforestation could be for the entire Amazon biome region between 2013 and 2017.

In total, the projects generated 12.4 million more credits than they would have done if they had adopted the national baseline when the government introduced the regulation.

Of those, 4.9 million have been used, mostly by fossil fuel company Primax Colombia, to avoid paying the carbon tax- resulting in a $25m revenue shortfall for the government.

If all 12.4 million credits were sold to companies, the government stands to lose $62m.

A spokesperson for Primax Colombia said the company “fully and strictly complies with all the requirements established by current regulations for the non-causation of the carbon tax”. It added that “the validation and verification bodies are the entities that must guarantee that the projects fulfill the environmental purpose for which they were created”.

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The government insider told Climate Home the ministry had been let down by the voluntary carbon market as the checks and balances that were supposed to ensure the environmental integrity of the credits failed on both projects.

“The lesson for the government is that it cannot rely on the system as much as it thought it could, they said, adding it would be “very difficult” for the government to verify all of the projects’ credits.

And this could be the tip of the iceberg. As of May this year, 75 other Redd+ projects were registered to sell credits for use under the Colombian carbon tax system.

“The problem could be much bigger,” said the insider, warning this could be “detrimental for Colombia to meet its climate commitments if the issue is not fixed”.

Isabel Cavelier, a former Colombian climate negotiator and co-founder of think tank Transforma, described the findings as “a wake up call” for the Colombian government to better regulate its domestic market.

“Integrity is central to any carbon market. Setting the highest integrity standards and absolute regulatory clarity to provide true environmental integrity is overdue. Without it everyone loses. Colombia, its people, and the atmosphere,” she said.

The Colombian government did not formally reply to Climate Home’s request for comment.

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For Dufrasne, of Carbon Market Watch, the findings point to wider failure of the market’s oversight.

“The validation bodies are looking the other way, the standards are looking the other way and the ministry is not enforcing its own regulation,” he said.

Carbon Market Watch has called on the Mataven and Kaliawiri project developers to stop selling the credits and on Verra and ProClima, the standard-setters which respectively issued the credits, to suspend the projects from their registries.

“If we can’t trust the standards, they have no reason to exist,” Dufrasne said.

In a strong rebuke, Verra said allegations the Mataven project overestimated its emission reductions was “methodologically flawed” and that the baseline was “a more precise estimate of the expected deforestation in the project area” than the national average.

It added that because Colombia’s national baseline is still being assessed by UN Climate Change, “conclusions about Mataven’s baseline are premature”.

Verra said all its projects are validated by independent third-party auditors. It said the Mataven project had enabled millions of dollars to flow to 17 indigenous communities for forest conservation.

ProClima told Climate Home the accusations against the Kaliawiri project were “false and irresponsible” and the project was aligned with government regulation.

The story was updated 20/08/2021 to include Primax’ comment. 

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With more than half of its territory covered by tropical forests, Colombia has made halting deforestation and restoring nearly one million hectares of forested ecosystems a pillar of its plan to cut emissions 51% from a business-as-usual baseline by 2030.

The new and tougher target announced at the end of 2020 and in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic is a significant hike from Colombia’s previous 20% target.

It was set following extensive intra-governmental and public consultation and aims to establish carbon budgets from 2023 and put the country on a path to carbon neutrality by 2050 .

“In order to comply with those commitments, we definitely need to protect the Amazon and fight deforestation,” Colombian president Iván Duque Márquez told Reuters Next conference this week, calling for a nature-based approach to addressing climate change.

But the task at hand is enormous. Deforestation accounts for around a quarter of Colombia’s total emissions. The 2016 peace agreement which ended more than 50 years of civil war between the government and the rebel group Farc led to a spike in forest clearance.

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During the conflict, the Farc operated strict deforestation control to conceal guerilla movements in the forest and preserve their revenue streams from illegal mines and coca plantations, used to make cocaine.

After the group disarmed, illegal land grabbing for cattle ranching, timber or coca production surged in areas that are difficult to police.

Cielo Gomez grows coffee on her land in southeast of Nariño territory, Colombia. The land was restituted to her family by the government after being illegally occupied during the civil war (Photo: UN Women/Flickr)

Data from Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Ideam), which monitors deforestation in the country, shows deforestation soared to its highest level in 2017 with 219,552 hectares of forest cleared – up from just under 124,000 in 2015.

“What is happening on the ground is not compatible with what Colombia has just committed to,” Estefania Ardila, country engagement specialist for Latin America at the NDC Partnership, which supports developing countries willing to raise their climate ambition, told Climate Home News.

“It’s ambitious. And it’s going to be tremendously difficult to achieve,” she said, describing development challenges with high levels of inequality and unemployment.

To design its climate goals, the government calculated the carbon budget it has to 2030 to stay on a pathway to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

“That requires that after 2030, we have no net deforestation,” Ivan Valencia, former coordinator of Colombia’s low-carbon strategy who led the mitigation side of the NDC update, now an independent consultant, told Climate Home.

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As a signatory to the New York Declaration on Forests, Colombia committed to halving natural forest loss in 2020 and net zero deforestation by 2030, which means any forest clearance needs to be offset by replanting native trees.

By 2019 deforestation levels had dropped to less than 160,000 hectares of land cleared that year. But 2020 goals were missed, as forest clearance nearly doubled in the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2019.

To save carbon-rich forests and create jobs to reboot the economy from the pandemic, Colombia is working to provide alternative livelihoods for people who live in and around forests.

In its submission of its climate plan to the UN, measures to tackle deforestation account for a third of Colombia’s efforts to meet its 2030 goal. Together with ecosystems restoration, actions related to nature represent more than half of the country’s carbon-cutting effort.

“Unless Colombia complies with its deforestation target and pathway to achieve it, they will not be able to meet their [climate goal] and would have to make a gigantic effort in other sectors to compensate,” said Carolina Jaramillo, Colombia country representative for the Global Green Growth Institute.

Avoiding further deforestation and preserving forest ecosystems provides Colombia with some of the cheapest ways to reduce its emissions, Jaramillo told Climate Home.

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To achieve its goal, Colombia is planning to restore more than 960,000 hectares of land by 2030, plant 180 million trees by 2022 and reduce deforestation by 50,000 hectare per year from a business as usual baseline by 2030.

Additional emissions reductions from reduced deforestation could be sold as credits under the carbon market mechanism established by the Paris Agreement and help to finance other carbon-cutting measures, the plan states.

Financial incentives are being created for farmers to restore ecosystems that store more carbon by raising livestock more efficiently so they need less grazing land, for example.

Agroforestry initiatives for coffee and cocoa production and the development of sustainable forest plantation for timber are among others.

La Chorrera indigenous community and WWF-Colombia, conduct an ecosystem service assessment of the forest surrounding in the Predio Putumayo Indigenous Reserve to help protect it (Photo:
Luis Barreto / WWF-UK)

A recent government strategy for deforestation control supports increasing production of non-timber products, such as natural rubber, fruits and seeds, to protect forests while diversifying the country’s income stream away from a dependence on oil exports and mining revenues.

The development of a bio-economy, which adds value to natural products for medicinal or cosmetic purposes for example, could contribute up to 10% to Colombia’s GDP by 2030 up from less than 1% currently, Jaramillo said.

France and UK lead push for climate finance to restore nature

“How are we going to finance all this in the Covid context? That remains a big challenge,” said Valencia, adding that not all measures had guaranteed funding, leaving a role for the private sector.

And the cost of addressing deforestation will be “difficult to meet” without international cooperation.

In recent years, Norway, Germany and the UK have been supporting Colombia’s efforts to end deforestation through a payment-by-results scheme, under which it received $85 million since 2015. The partnership was renewed in 2019 with a commitment from European countries for an additional $366m to be paid by 2025 for achieving deforestation reduction targets and to implement policies.

“We need to call the whole world to protect that lung of humanity,” Duque said this week about the Amazon, calling for global cooperation in findings ways to finance forest protection through carbon credits and private sector involvement.

While the focus has been put on preserving and restoring Colombia’s forests, campaigners have accused the government of being inconsistent when it comes to its energy policy.

Green growth champion: Focus on jobs helps poorer nations raise climate ambition

President Duque promised a recovery package to Covid-19 that focuses on the energy transition, clean growth and environmental protection – but measures include ‘greening’ the fossil fuel industry with no plans for its managed phase-out.

So far, the country has spent $374million on supporting fossil fuels and just $4.4million on clean energy as part of its recovery, according to the Energy Policy Tracker.

This includes measures to reduce fugitive emissions in the oil sector and improve energy efficiency in refineries. Reeling from a fall in global oil prices, Colombia is turning its attention to fracking to plug a revenue shortfall. The labour ministry has been tasked to present a transition strategy for workers in fossil fuel sectors by 2023.

Santiago Aldana, a climate campaigner based in Bogotá and member of the advocacy group Climalab, welcomed his government’s ambition on cutting emissions, while improving livelihoods and preserving ecosystems.

But he warned the recovery package had exposed “inconsistencies” between the economic strategy and Colombia’s climate ambition, with fracking likely to further increase the country’s emissions.

“Climate action touches upon the most sensitive aspects of the country such as social inequality, poverty and violence,” Aldana told Climate Home. And to achieve its goal, the government will need to continue to engage with civil society to ensure social and climate justice, he said.

The post Colombia banks on forest economy to deliver climate ambition leap appeared first on Climate Home News.

That was the charge put by campaigners as the Green Climate Fund approved $103 million of funding to Indonesia at a virtual board meeting this week.

A letter to GCF board members signed by 85 civil society groups, including 15 from Indonesia, called it “shameful” for the board to reward governments “that continue to heavily engage in and promote large-scale deforestation”.

The UN-backed programme known as Redd+ incentivises countries to conserve forests, which limit global warming by drawing carbon dioxide out of the air. Under a “payment-by-results” mechanism, nations retrospectively get cash for avoiding emissions from forest loss and degradation during a set period of time compared with an agreed baseline.

In recent years the GCF, which was created to help poor countries curb their emissions and cope with the impacts of climate change, has accepted bids for money under the scheme.

Civil society groups and some GCF board members warned countries have been allowed to cherry-pick data to make the results on paper look better than the reality on the ground.

Indonesia: Forest destruction spikes under coronavirus lockdown

A pilot funding window for Redd+ projects has so far paid out nearly $230 million to Brazil, Ecuador, Chile and Paraguay. In each country, deforestation has risen following the claim period, according to Global Forest Watch data.

The payment to Indonesia approved on Wednesday was based on 20 million tonnes of avoided carbon dioxide between 2014 and 2016, compared to historical rates of forest destruction. The proceeds are to support decentralised forest governance.

Yet deforestation in Indonesia has recently spiked under the cover of Covid-19 lockdown and the government is seeking to roll back environmental regulations for businesses.

Board members expressed “serious concerns” about the Indonesian proposal, including the methodology for calculating avoided emissions and the implementation of safeguards to protect local communities and indigenous people.

A separate decision on paying $28 million to Colombia was suspended twice during the GCF meeting, which runs until the end of the week. Members were considering payments for the period 2015-16, despite a sharp rise in deforestation in 2017.

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Board member Tobias Von Platen-Hallermund, of Denmark, noted both countries had recently seen an increase in deforestation. He added the GCF should focus on countries “that have been successfully keeping deforestation rates low during the [GCF’s] reporting period to claim payments” which runs from 2014 to 2018.

Hans Olav Ibrekk, of Norway, said that although he welcomed Indonesia’s past efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation, “the project has some characteristics that in our view affect the environmental integrity of the results”.

He cited inconsistencies in the way the baseline has been calculated for funding bids through different organisations.

Norway, in a bilateral deal with Indonesia to curb deforestation, uses a 10-year baseline 2006-2016 to calculate emissions reductions.

The bid to the GCF measured avoided emissions against the average over 20 years from 1993 to 2012 – a period Ibrekk said was too long. A third and even longer baseline is used by UN Climate Change, covering the period 1990-2012.

In technical guidance, the GCF recommends choosing a baseline period of 10-15 years and not exceeding 20 years.

Big oil need not apply: UK raises the bar for UN climate summit sponsorship

Jutta Kill, a researcher at the World Rainforest Movement, told Climate Home News, countries were allowed to “pick and choose” a reference level to calculate emissions that would “maximise funding flows” rather than “present a reasonable reflection of emissions that have been avoided… That is unacceptable,” she said.

Addressing the meeting on behalf of civil society, Erika Lennon, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, questioned the validity of the baseline. She added the scheme “did not address the real drivers of deforestation”.

The civil society letter noted the governments of Indonesia and Colombia had chosen both the period for which they claimed emissions reductions and the baseline against which to compare emissions.

“This opens the door for skilful manufacture of calculations that will result in an outcome that is favourable to the respective country. What is shameful is that the GCF accepts such games and allows governments to ignore the overall far more complex dynamic of the deforestation process in time and space,” it said.

Angola ratifies Paris Agreement promising more ambitious climate plan

Responding to civil society concerns, the UN Development Programme, which is supporting the Redd+ programme in Indonesia, insisted the baseline used was “valid” and “complete”.

Scrutiny over the effectiveness of Redd+ comes as the GCF is due to start a consultation process at the end of September to decide whether to continue its Redd+ pilot funding programme beyond 2022.

A number of board members expressed their support for Redd+, describing it as a fundamental tool for climate action. Others were more cautious.

“More than ever we should be guided by funding proposals with the highest possible impact and environmental integrity,” warned board member Paola Pettinari, of Italy. Otherwise the GCF will be faced with “huge reputational risk,” added Stefan Schwager, of Switzerland.

For Kill and a number of other NGOS, the GCF should stop approving Redd+ funding requests altogether. “GCF is dishing out money for a concept that is not working,” she said. “Funding that should be available for countries to deal with the changes that climate chaos demands is wasted for paying for emissions reductions that exist on paper only.”

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Yet up until now, the companies that extract, refine and sell fossil fuels have not been held financially responsible for the impacts of climate change.

A new wave of legal activism is working to change that. Eager to stop new coal mines, oil fields and supporting infrastructure, and to raise funds to support people affected by climate change impacts, climate activists are increasingly taking legal action against fossil fuel producers. Cases against coal and oil companies are now pending in the Netherlands, in Peru, in Pakistan and New Zealand, in the Philippines and the United States.

Legal action is an important strategy because it creates an opportunity to change the rules of the game, by reshaping the law or how it is interpreted. This means legal action can have a bigger impact than, for example, protests or blockades.

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

But even if they have major implications for the climate, many legal actions against fossil fuels extraction projects actually focus on issues that are more important to local communities, such as water and food insecurity, impacts on farming, public health, and ethnic or human rights.

Colombia is a good example. In February 2016, the Constitutional Court decided to limit the areas accessible for fossil fuels and minerals extraction to protect the delicate páramo ecosystems of the Andean highlands, which are crucial to the water supply.

Some of the plaintiffs in claims against fossil fuel companies are ethnic communities defending their legal rights.

Between 2013 and 2015, indigenous groups and people of African descent filed 11 “acts of enforcement” claiming that they had not been properly consulted on oil extraction-related activities, and demanding compensation for environmental and cultural impacts.

In February 2016, the Constitutional Court suspended the operations of the company Pacific E&P in Quifa (Meta department) and of Ecopetrol and Petrominerales in Orito (Putumayo department) for failing to consult with ethnic communities as required.

Comment: Closing the gap between Paris goals and fossil fuel production

Legal activism in Colombia is also shifting the political economy of the extractive sector. Historically, the sector has kept a low profile, advancing its interests through lobbying and by taking advantage of ambiguities in the law and poor enforcement.

This strategy was aided by the fact that fossil fuels extraction is often concentrated in remote areas, where the state has been traditionally mostly represented by the military, not regulatory agencies (see for example this excellent analysis of coal in the Santa Marta Valley). Under these conditions, local people have little recourse to protect their rights and interests.

Civil society groups have gotten stronger and more organized, however, and new information technologies have bolstered their efforts. In the past five years, they have not only won legal battles, but also tarnished the extractive sector’s image in Colombia.

With its longtime strategies not working anymore, the sector is trying a new, higher-visibility strategy, with official statements from the Colombian Association for Mining, for instance, calling for “clearer rules of the game”. This would have been inconceivable just a few years ago.

Analysis: Why the new climate math is a declaration of war

Still, there are limits to the power of legal activism. Although legal strategies are effective, they also require significant financial resources and technical knowledge that many people do not have access to. Indeed, those most directly affected by the extraction of fossil fuels tend to have very limited means to voice their concerns and defend their interests.

Civil society groups – including both domestic and international NGOs – play a crucial role in ensuring that even poor, disenfranchised, geographically isolated populations can have their voices heard. The Coal Action Network, for instance, has been advocating against coal extraction in Colombia and elsewhere based on both its global climate impacts and on its local environmental and socio-economic impacts.

But as noted above, local people’s concerns about fossil fuels extraction may have little to do with the climate – and some of the remedies sought may not benefit the climate, such as improved revenue-sharing, or better accommodation of local needs.

If global climate activists want to tap into local resistance to help keep carbon underground, they will need to follow the Coal Action Network’s example: find ways to connect their global cause with local priorities, and listen to and advocate for their allies.

Claudia Strambo is a research associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute. The post is based on her presentation and discussions at the International Conference on Fossil Fuel Supply and Climate Policy, held 26–27 September in Oxford.

The post Fossil fuels in court: lessons from Colombia appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Flickr/Alejandro Arango)

By Camila Bustos

Countries around the world will meet in Paris at the end of this year to negotiate a global agreement on climate change.

For the first time in the history of these negotiations, all countries are expected to present a contribution where they outline their domestic plans for reducing emissions.

Colombia presented its contribution to the Paris agreement on 7 September, where it committed to reduce its emissions by 20% based on a business-as-usual scenario by the year 2030.

Although Colombia’s electricity matrix is relatively clean, the country’s second most important export is coal. Responsible for one-third of all CO2 emissions, coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, contributing to one third of total global emissions.

The coal industry is a double-edged threat, not only because coal is a main driver of rising temperatures, but also because its extraction and transport lead to serious human rights violations.

Report: How peace with rebels sculpts Colombia’s climate pledge

In the past 15 years, the Colombian government has positioned mining as the centerpiece of economic growth.

Colombia is planning to expand its production by 2019, hoping to sustain its place as 5^th largest coal exporter in the world. The Santos administration has argued that “responsible mining” is crucial to development.

The question is, has coal ended poverty? The two departments that produce most of Colombia’s coal are La Guajira and Cesar.

After thirty years of mining, 65% and 76% of their population respectively find their basic needs unmet.

The situation in La Guajira is so severe that 3,000 children have died in the last six years due to lack of sanitation, malnutrition and poor health infrastructure – most of which belonged to the indigenous communities.

Ironically, the expansion of the coal industry has hindered the growth of alternatives, limiting the diversification of local economies and cleaner choices.

Rethinking development

While Colombia exports 92% of the coal it produces, its heavy reliance on fossil fuel exports (oil and coal account for 42% and 14% of total exports) begs the question of how economically sustainable this model really is.

A recent report by Moody’s Investors Service found that half of the world’s coal output is unprofitable, further signalling the decline of the industry. This should be a warning sign for Colombia and other coal dependent countries to rethink their export base.

Colombia’s government is aware that coal is not sustainable in the long-term, yet transformation will not happen overnight.

The country is stuck with inertia, which deepens conventional wisdom and slows progress towards cleaner engines of growth. Seemingly paradoxical, environmental and climate governance have improved in Colombia.

Citigroup: Coal mining sector running out of time

Colombia’s contribution to the Paris agreement acknowledges that if the country truly wants to achieve its development, peace, equity and education objectives in the long-term, it will need to identify and leverage different opportunities to increase competitiveness, productivity and efficiency while still reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

Colombia’s contribution does not only propose a reduction in emissions, but mentions the projected reduction in fugitive emissions from coal and oil exploitation.

It also seeks to protect its people, presenting a serious proposal on a system of national indicators to measure adaptation efforts. In fact, Colombia seeks a new balancing between mitigation and adaptation in its climate policy.

In line with the plan’s objectives, the next phase for Colombia’s climate and energy policy should promote a diversification of exports.

It will not be enough for our electricity to be relatively clean. The economy will need to break or at least reduce its dependence on coal exports revenues and move beyond its antiquated and unsustainable extraction.

Analysis: Latin America needs stronger climate pledges

Colombia embodies the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s stories. On the one hand, it is a middle-income country that is rich in biodiversity and natural resources.

It is expected to formally enter the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the next couple of years. And yet the country still struggles with environmental conflict, human rights violations and one of the highest internal displacement rates in the world.

The Colombia that is highly dependent on coal exports co-exists with another one that is striving to improve its environmental and climate performance by reducing deforestation, increasing energy efficiency and by innovating adaptation solutions.

The Paris agreement creates the opportunity to foster an internal debate about the political economy of Colombia and its high dependence on coal.

From 2016 onwards, we will need to implement our climate plans while reflecting on how to transition towards a cleaner economy in which fossil fuels do not make more than half of the country’s exports.

The road to Paris provides a significant opportunity to rethink which of these two Colombias we want to live in.

Maria Camila Bustos is a lead researcher at Nivela. She wrote a larger article on coal’s human rights implications for the Center for the Study of Justice, Law, and Society (Dejusticia).

The post Colombia must reduce its dependence on coal exports appeared first on Climate Home News.

Demonstrators hold an anti-FARC march. The Colombian government and FARC are undergoing negotiations to end the internal conflict (Flickr/ Xmascarol)

By Alex Pashley

Reconciliation with Latin America’s strongest left-wing rebel group, the FARC, will test Colombia’s resolve to see through its climate policies, the government said on Monday.

Colombia became South America’s first country to submit its contribution to a UN global warming pact, setting out how it will slash greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to extreme weather.

The pledge outlined a 20% cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 from a business as usual projection. That could rise to 30%, conditional on international cash to aid the mitigation effort.

But it warned the end of decades-long conflict, while welcome, could bring increased pressure to clear forests, jeopardising climate goals.

In its communication to the UN, the government said it had considered the “potential impacts” of “post conflict scenarios in different regions”.

“In the past, peace processes elsewhere in the world have been associated to negative impacts on the environment, due to, among other things, migration patterns that increase pressure on natural resources in the most vulnerable areas, often resulting in increased deforestation.”

But its climate strategy, such as better use of water resources, had “the potential to facilitate the consolidation of peace territories,” it said.

Colombia INDC Unofficial Translation English

President Juan Manuel Santos has staked his legacy on ending the brutal conflict that has killed more than 260,000 people since 1958 and displaced around 5.7 million.

Two-year-old peace talks with the FARC appear to be nearing their final stages, following deals on land reform and severing the group’s link with the illegal drug trade.

Though the freighted issue of transitional justice could still scupper a deal, with the rebels regularly breaking unilateral ceasefires, as they resist jail time for members.

Emissions pledge

The management of Colombia’s forests is key to its “intended nationally determined contribution” (INDC). Agriculture, forestry and other land uses made up 58% of its emissions in 2010 – some 130 million tonnes of CO2.

Forest covered over half of its territory in 2011, with 14.1% classed as biodiverse or carbon-rich, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization.

Between 1990 and 2010, it lost an average 101,000 hectares a year, or 0.16% of the total.

“The lack of property rights has had a negative impact on conservation,” said Jorge Restrepo, director of the Conflict Analysis Resource Center in capital Bogota.

“It’s one reason large swathes of the country are used for illegal crops like heroin, coca, or cannabis. Growers move along the landscape – a constant and permanent destruction of nature.”

A US-funded anti-narcotics push has seen Colombia’s share of the global cocaine market fall from 90% a decade ago to around 50%.

Yet with stability comes a new threat: large scale agribusiness.

Post-conflict state

As peace talks grind on, Restrepo was certain that Colombians had “turned the page” on conflict and would make a slow return to security.

But Astrid Milena, at NGO Ambiente y Sociedad feared large groups like the FARC and smaller Marxist group the National Liberation Army (ELN) would fracture into smaller groups.

That could see renewed involvement in illegal mining and drug trafficking.

“Colombia has a very serious institutional weakness. The intentions are good but to carry out widespread monitoring is difficult,” Milena told RTCC.

In its plan, the government is projecting an average 3% economic growth rate up to 2050. Lifting people out of poverty – with 44% falling below the line in the countryside – is a priority.

So too is building resilience to climate impacts: weather phenomenon La Nina visited losses of $6 billion in 2010-11.

As for energy emissions, the plan is to avoid dirtying one of Latin America’s cleanest electricity systems. Hydropower meets the bulk (68% in 2010) of its electricity needs, though coal mining and oil production is rising. The country’s 0.5% share of global CO2 is perhaps small for its 48 million citizens.

For Eduardo Behrentz, an academic who has advised the government’s climate policy since its inception in 2010, Colombia was doing the unprecedented.

“We importantly have the political will to make carbon reductions. Everything starts from here,” the University of the Andes professor in Bogota tells RTCC.

“It’s a learning curve, though we hope it consolidates the economy in its developmental state.”

The post How peace with rebels sculpts Colombia’s climate pledge appeared first on Climate Home News.

Miguel Arias Cañete, is a Spanish former environment minister (Flickr/ EU in Peru)

By Megan Darby

The EU is expecting Brazil, Indonesia and Colombia to submit climate pledges to the UN “in the coming weeks,” according to commissioner Miguel Arias Canete.

Speaking at a press conference following a meeting of EU environment ministers, Canete urged all countries to produce their “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs).

“If the Marshall Islands have been able to come forward with a very ambitious INDC, then other countries can also do it,” he said.

To date, 47 countries covering 59% of global emissions have entered climate plans, including China, the US and EU28.

Paris tracker: Who has pledged what for 2015 UN climate pact? 

That is already an improvement on the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol, Canete pointed out, which only covers 13% of emissions.

INDCs will lay the foundations for an international climate pact to be struck in Paris this December.

Canete said: “All countries on the basis of their capacities have to contribute.”

He added parties were converging on some key elements of a Paris deal, including a five-year cycle for reviewing pledges, a long-term goal and transparency measures.

The two co-chairs of the UN climate talks are due to release a streamlined negotiating text on Friday.

The post Brazil, Indonesia climate pledges due within weeks – EU commissioner appeared first on Climate Home News.

Plaza de Bolivar, Bogota (Flickr/Marcelo Druck)

By Megan Darby

Colombia is targeting greenhouse gas emissions cuts of at least 20% by 2030, President Juan Manuel Santos announced on Tuesday.

That could increase to 25% or 30% with international support, under plans being drawn up by the climate change ministry.

The full document, expected by the end of the month, will outline measures to put the brakes on deforestation, promote renewables and clean up industry.

“This commitment by Colombia implies a transformation of the national economy,” said Gabriel Vallejo Lopez, the country’s environment minister, in a statement. “It will drive innovation and technological development.”

It was not quite clear from the statement what baseline South America’s third most populous country will use. RTCC understands it will be measured against a business as usual projection from 2010 data.

Colombia is Latin America’s third largest oil producer, and the seventh highest exporter of crude to the US. Hydropower supplies the bulk of its electricity, according to data from the US Energy Information Agency.

Its target will be submitted to the UN ahead of a critical summit in Paris this December. There, negotiators aim to strike a global pact to limit warming to 2C.

To date, 47 countries have declared their intended contributions to this accord. These cover measures to adapt to a changing climate as well as curb emissions.

The post Colombia targets minimum 20% emissions cut by 2030 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Farmer Luiz Tiberio Gutierrez tends his plants

By Fabíola Ortiz in Colombia and Panama

Colombia is infamous as a battleground of the global “war on drugs”. Now, it is climate change, not the cocaine trade, that poses the greatest threat to ordinary Colombians.

The northern province of El Cesar, near the border with Venezuela, is one of the poorest regions in Colombia and was one of the most violent.

Conflict has receded, but changing weather patterns and coal mining are bringing a new set of problems.

Luiz Tiberio Gutierrez, a 53-year-old farmer, tells RTCC that some years ago, “the major problem for people living in rural areas was violence and now the biggest threat is the climate change”.

Gutierrez, or Mr Lucho as he is known in his community, descends from the indigenous Arawak and has grown up his entire life in the region. He grows cocoa, avocado, banana, corn, cassava and bean on his 34 hectare piece of land.

His village of 70 families sits in the huge mountain range of Gran Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a nature reserve and world heritage site populated by many criminal gangs and armed militias.

This farmer and his family survived the wave of armed violence promoted by gangs and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Nowadays life is quiet, said Gutierrez. “There’s no more violence. To be honest what we face now is the climate issue.”

Food crisis

Changing weather conditions are taking their toll on rural communities living in Colombia, especially in El Cesar. Over 40% of the land in El Cesar has turned to desert and the province is suffering a severe food crisis due to lack of rain.

On top of this, the groundwater and river basin are getting contaminated with waste from coal mining. The region has coal reserves of more than 3 million tonnes – one third of Colombia’s total and 60% of its exports.

This toxic combination means El Cesar produces only 10% of the food consumed by its 11 million citizens. Malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency or “hidden hunger” are widespread.

Adriana Tofiño, a researcher from the Colombian Agricultural Research Cooperation (Corpoica), is on the case.

She is working on an approach called biofortification, to enrich staple crops with nutrients such as iron, zinc and vitamin A. As well as being more nutritious, these crops are proving more resilient to climate change and extreme weather.

“At the root of all these problems we are considering growing biofortified beans as an option to recover degraded soil. We want also to mitigate the effects from mining and enhance food security,” said Tofiño.

Corpoica has focused its work on biofortified food on the Caribbean coast, where malnutrition rates are highest, particularly among indigenous communities.

This is reflected in the infant mortality figures. Out of every 10 children born in the area, three die before the age of one.

Biofortified beans can restore degraded soil and improve nutrition

The Caribbean Observatory recognised biofortified beans in 2011 as one of the best ways to achieve food security in the Caribbean region.

This year, the budget in Colombia includes US$420,000 for beans and over US$400,000 to improve scientific knowledge in growing biofortified cassava and potato.

As well as preventing chronic diseases, biofortified bean varieties are pest and drought-resistant, leading to higher yields.

“Weather has changed over the last four years and since 2009 has had a completely shift on the rainfall regime. We don’t know what’s happening. There has also being a tremendous overheating. Since the beginning of this year it has rained very little,” said Gutierrez.

“We’ve noticed this bean is good for consumption and for growing.”

Miguel Lacayo, environmental management expert at the Central American University in Nicaragua, said the farmer’s findings were backed up by results elsewhere.

“In Central America for instance we’re living a huge drought due to El Niño phenomenon,” he said at an international conference on biofortification in Panama last month.

“We look for increasing micronutrients but also enhancing productivity and tolerance to water shortage.”

“When there’s less rain the sources of water are also affected. This impacts on small pieces of land where farmers depend on the rivers nearby. It is not only beans, we can also target other crops like corn, rice and cassava. All of them may be resistant to weather changes.”

Despite its potential to improve health, agriculture and climate, biofortified food in Colombia lacks investment. It only survives thanks to the efforts of teams of scientists that make partnerships with countries like Brazil and Panama, where it has become part of public policy.

And across Latin America, biofortified seeds and techniques reach only 10% of farmers.

But with political will, it could boost food security and climate resilience across the continent, Lacayo said. “We’re still in the initial phase and already saw positive results. It could be implemented as a public policy in Latin American countries like it has been done in Panama. We’re looking for a long term effect.”

The post Cocaine wars to climate crisis: can fortified crops save Colombia? appeared first on Climate Home News.

PIc: Pedro Szekely/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

Colombia is drafting a new climate law that could put the country at the forefront of Latin American efforts to tackle climate change.

The first draft of the law is expected to be completed by November, so that the government can present it at a UN climate conference in Peru in December.

The law will set out targets for the country on reducing greenhouse gases, adaptation and finance, although exactly what these targets will be remains under wraps.

“The law will show what we’re trying to accomplish here, that we want to be an example to the world. It will help a lot in Paris 2015,” said Mauricio Umaña, director of GLOBE Colombia, who is working on the law.

Passing its own flagship climate law would put Colombia on a par with its Latin American neighbours, such as Mexico, which passed its own legislation in 2012, and Costa Rica, which is in the process of drawing one up.

Currently, Colombia has agreed to generate 77% of its energy from renewables and reduce deforestation in the Amazon to zero by 2020.

International boost

Colombia is already suffering from the impacts of climate change. A severe drought in Casanare in April this year, which killed 20,000 animals, spurred Colombia’s environment minister Luz Helena Sarmiento to invite Congress to start work on a climate law.

Those spearheading the process are now raising funds to hire international consultants, hoping that a solid first draft will invite strong, cross-party support in Congress when it comes to be presented.

“What we’re trying to do is take our own time so you cannot deny what’s in the law; you will never have the private sector denying it because we have already had the agreement from the government, civil society, and NGOs,” said Umaña.

As well as boosting Colombia’s credibility within the UN climate talks, new climate legislation could also support the country’s ambitions to gain OECD status, said Maria Camila Bustos, a Latin America analyst at Nivela.

“There are definitely environmental conditions attached and I think they will have to step up their game to appear a country focused on sustainable development and climate resilience,” she said.

Clean energy law

On 5 August, Colombia launched a clean energy law, aimed at boosting new sources of renewables and reducing dependence on oil exports.

“The results will gradually appear in society so Colombians can have a better picture regarding this law on the environment, the people’s economy and the possibilities of providing energy by unconventional ways and in appropriate times,” said Senator Jose David Name Cardozo, author of the bill.

But doubts remain over whether Colombia will live up to its environmental promises.

Despite being focused on clean energy, the new law continues to refer to Colombia’s fossil fuel development, including provisions to “Establish a cycle of rapid assessment for projects concerning hydrocarbons”.

Meanwhile, the government has come under fire for reducing the budget allocated to the environment ministry by 12.1%, even as a looming El Niño threatens to plunge Colombia into further drought.

Bustos added: “I would ask the government why are we putting this rhetoric forward across Latin America, but at home we’re not really implementing the processes.”

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Latin American leaders are building on the Rio+20 earth summit in their search for green growth (Pic: UN)

By Gilberto Arias and Guy Edwards

In a bid to protect future prosperity from serious climate change impacts, Latin American countries are attempting to balance climate action with economic growth, through domestic policy and at the UN climate talks.

Latin American countries are challenging the conventional wisdom that confronting climate change undermines economic growth by arguing that climate action provides an opportunity to leapfrog traditional development, while delivering low carbon, sustainable development.

Following the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change’s principal conclusion that taking action now to reduce emissions is cheaper than dealing with climate impacts later, these countries strongly back an ambitious global regime to avoid these future costs.

The Inter-American Development Bank says these costs could reach US$100 billion annually in the region by 2050, even under a 2˚C average global temperature increase.

Examples from Brazil, Mexico and the Dominican Republic suggest that climate policies do not necessarily undermine economic growth, while an example from Ecuador reveals how climate-related policies run the risk of being sidelined by the need to use natural resources.

Brazil has established a national greenhouse gas reduction target of roughly 36 percent of projected emissions by 2020. Brazil’s greenhouse-gas emissions fell nearly 39%, with a 76% drop in cumulative emissions from deforestation, between 2005 and 2010.

Brazil attributes the dramatic improvements in forestry protection to a raft of policies implemented in 2004. However, research also points out that decreasing prices for agricultural products also led to a reduction in deforestation.

As Viola suggests reducing emissions does not necessarily mean compromising economic growth. From 2005-09 Brazil dramatically reduced its carbon emissions while maintaining economic growth at 3.5% annually.

New legislation

Mexico was the first developing country to create a comprehensive climate change law in 2012 with targets to reduce GHG emissions by 30% by 2020 and 50% by 2050.

The law also states that 35% of energy should come from renewable sources by 2024. Investments in renewable energy in Mexico grew from US$352 million in 2011 to US$1.9 billion in 2012, highlighting the opportunity to combine clean energy and job creation.

The Dominican Republic recently presented a voluntary pledge to reduce 25% of absolute 2010 emissions by 2030. The plan, protected by law, is projected to add 100,000 permanent jobs while expanding the DR’s renewable energy capacity and integrating low-carbon development in the tourism sector.

Climate-related policies can be undermined by the need to use natural resources for economic growth. Ecuador’s Yasuní-ITT Initiative seeks compensation for roughly half the estimated value of certain untapped oil deposits, in order to leave these resources untouched.

The funds are earmarked to protect national parks and promote renewable energy. However, the plan has so far raised less than US$500 million, leading President Correa to announce a re-evaluation of the initiative and its limits on oil extraction.

Competitive edge

Latin American countries are fast growing economies with growing middle classes with substantial development and infrastructure goals. They can take advantage of the opportunities and competitive advantages arising in a future carbon constrained world through the early introduction of climate policies for carbon-efficient economies.

The region will be required to almost double its installed power capacity to roughly 600 GW by 2030, yet the Inter-American Development Bank says Latin America can meet its future energy needs through renewable sources including solar and wind, which are sufficient to cover its projected 2050 electricity needs 22 times over.

Investments in sustainable development in the region are increasing, delivering climate-resilient economies while avoiding emissions. This drive has led to the introduction of cross-ministerial policies, but climate policy across the region suffers from weak implementation.

Trade-offs between climate action and economic interests are inevitable, however, these trade-offs appear less significant than the major economic costs associated with climate impacts.

Climate policy is becoming a fixture on Latin American political agendas, including the recognition of vulnerability to climate impacts and that early action on reducing emissions will avoid greater costs later.

Latin American countries are attempting to promote a new narrative that early climate action is compatible with low-carbon, sustainable prosperity. Successful experiences in Latin America can also positively feed into the UN climate change negotiations and help push for higher ambition and strengthen the discourse that climate change action is compatible with economic growth.

This article first appeared on Intercambio Climatico

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