Raging fires, expanding mineral extraction and land clearing for agribusiness are not only destroying Amazonian lands and biodiversity, they are also eradicating fundamental knowledge on land stewardship. Climate diplomacy has a key role to play in protecting archaeological sites that preserve lessons from the past that could help the Amazon recover in the future.
Evidence from existing programs shows that climate change adaptation interventions can contribute to peacebuilding, and peacebuilding can have significant adaptation benefits.
To fight illegal coca plantations and conflict actors’ income sources, Colombia’s president wants to loosen the ban on aerial glyphosate spraying. However, considering the dynamics of organised crime, the use of toxic herbicides will not only fail to achieve its aim, it will have many adverse effects for the environment and human health, fundamentally undermining ways to reach peace in the country. International cooperation and national policy-makers need to account for this peace spoiler.
In some areas of the world, including Central America, rising sea levels and declining agricultural productivity due to climate change are expected to trigger major migratory flows, especially within countries. The role of policy-makers is it to promote local solutions while engaging in regional cooperation for a preventative approach.
Jair Bolsonaro, Brasil’s current de facto presidential frontrunner, says he would withdraw Brazil from the Paris Agreement if he wins the October election. The withdrawal of such an important developing country, home to the world’s largest rainforest, would deal a blow to international climate cooperation. Bolsorano’s opposition to the international pact has drawn criticism from the UN’s environment chief.
In May 2018, the Brazilian Institute for Climate and Society and the German Embassy in Brazil hosted an event on international climate and security in Rio de Janeiro. The meeting, joined by experts from the public sector, civil society and international think tanks, reflects Latin America’s increased interest in the international dimension of climate fragility risks.
Internal climate migrants are rapidly becoming the human face of climate change. According to this new World Bank report, without urgent global and national climate action, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America could see more than 140 million people move within their countries’ borders by 2050.
Natural resource extraction in Latin America leads to blatant human rights violations and conflict. Dawid Danilo Bartelt, book author and Director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Mexico explains in an interview with ECC why resolving commodity-related conflicts will be impossible without a strong civil society, and points to a special responsibility of European consumers.
Diplomacy has an important role to play in creating an economy compatible with the target of staying below 2°C warming, agreed in Paris in 2015. At the climate conference in Marrakech (COP22) from 7 to 18 November 2016, dubbed the “implementation conference”, many new initiatives strengthened the impression that low-carbon transformation had gone mainstream.
On 1 December 2016, adelphi researchers and the former Minister of Environment of Peru, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, discussed the challenges and opportunities of a low-carbon transition during the closing event of the ECC Exhibition at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP).
This brief summarises the insights of the regional workshop on Foreign Policy Contributions to Climate Economy in Latin America that was organised by adelphi, Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA) and the German Embassy in Lima as part of the climate diplomacy initiative. It aimed to promote regional dialogue on the climate economy and brought together representatives from foreign ministries and other line ministries, civil society and the private sector from across Latin America, in particular the Andean countries.
The Closing Event for the exhibition “Environment, Conflict and Cooperation” (ECC) in Lima takes place on 1 December 2016 at the Pontifica Universdad Católica del Peru (PUCP). The ECC exhibition visualises the growing impact of global environmental change on our world and, in particular, on South America.