IPS-English PERU: Summit Discusses Climate Change as Glaciers Melt
 
Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 15:20:38 -0700

 
Ángel Páez

LIMA, May 15   (IPS)  - Peru is one of the countries most vulnerable
to climate change, which is already having perceptible effects in
this country. According to a report by the National Environment Council
(CONAM), the area of glaciers in the Andes has shrunk from 2,042 to
1,596 square kilometres in just 25 years.



In the latest issue of its publication ”Economía y sociedad”, devoted
to the subject of climate change, the non-governmental Economic and
Social Research Consortium (CIES) says the retreat of the glaciers
means the loss of seven billion cubic metres of fresh water, which
will affect water supplies in coastal towns and the capital, Lima.

”Another consequence of climate change is the potential increase
in cholera, malaria and heat stress, as well as lower agricultural
yields,” the CIES publication reports.

”The poor are most vulnerable, since they have a more reduced capacity
to cope with emergencies due to their limited assets, and because
their voices are seldom heard in the upper echelons of power,” it
adds.

At the May 16-17 Fifth European Union-Latin America and the Caribbean
(EU-LAC) Summit, heads of state and government from the two regions
will sign the Declaration of Lima, which will include a set of initiatives
to mitigate the consequences of global warming, with a special emphasis
on curbing poverty.

”We are going to do our best to make sure that the Lima Summit is
not just another summit, but one that makes a commitment to cooperation
between Latin America and Europe,” said the president of the European
Commission, José Manuel Durao Barroso, after a meeting with Peruvian
President Alan García. 

”We are going to reach concrete conclusions about the fight against
climate change,” he announced.

Barroso said climate change was ”a global menace for future generations,”
and mentioned the EU's commitments to tackle global warming, such
as cutting greenhouse gas emissions and expanding the use of clean,
renewable energy sources.

For his part, García said the creation of a brand new Environment
Ministry showed that Peru was committed to achieving economic growth
while respecting the environment.

He also said he had told Barroso about his proposal for a global
reforestation fund, to be financed by a tax on oil and gas. ”The fund
could pay for reforesting 10 million hectares a year,” said García.

But the Peruvian president's environmental policies have come under
fire from critics.   

”It has been clearly demonstrated that the García administration
has no concrete commitment to protect the environment,” Mario Castro,
a former executive secretary of CONAM and author of one of the studies
on climate change published by CIES, told IPS.

”In the previous government (of President Alejandro Toledo, 2001-2006),
the General Law on the Environment was passed and the National Environmental
Management System was set up. But unfortunately, in the present administration,
valuable time has been lost,” he said.

”I hope the creation of the Environment Ministry will lead to the
recovery of lost opportunities,” Castro said.

Another study, by Elsa Galarza, an expert at the University of the
Pacific Research Centre (CIUP), warns that Peru is particularly exposed
to the effects of climate change due to the high rates of urbanisation
and poverty, especially in the Andean highlands and Amazon jungle
regions.

People in rural areas are just barely scraping by, and therefore
are less able to adapt to climate risks, Galarza said.

CIES executive director Javier Portocarrero said countries in the
Andean region are not making the most of mechanisms created by the
EU to carry out clean development projects, aimed at reducing climate
change.

”Of course, it's important to increase the funding available for
clean development projects, but it's also true that the Andean countries
submit few well-founded proposals,” Portocarrero told IPS, ”so Europe's
task is also to provide technical help to these countries for preparing
projects for submission.”  

In his view, raising the incomes of the rural population, which in
Latin America makes up 30 percent of the total, compared to just three
percent in Europe, ”is the best shield against the negative effects
of climate change.”

Two researchers at the non-governmental Institute of Peruvian Studies
(IEP), Roxana Barrantes and Rosa Morales, said the National System
for Public Investment (SNIP, the body that approves or turns down
major infrastructure projects) does not consider vulnerability to
climate change and its impacts in its decisions.

”Climate change has certain characteristics that must be taken into
account in planning public investments, above all the uncertainty
that it brings to any analysis,” says their report.

”Neither the person formulating the proposal nor the person evaluating
it can know when an act of nature, such as rain, frost or drought,
can affect works of infrastructure, nor the intensity of its effects,”
they say.

In 2007, the SNIP approved projects with a total cost of 5.7 billion dollars.

Meanwhile, some European officials think the Peruvian government
sees the present EU-LAC Summit as less important than the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, to be held in Lima in November.

The Peruvian coordinator of the organisers of the EU-LAC Summit,
businessman Ricardo Vega, an adviser to President García, complained,
using an idiomatic Spanish expression meaning literally ”we have to
dance with the ugliest girl.”    

At an international seminar for journalists from Latin America and
the Caribbean, organised by the European Commission, EU official Francisco
Acosta referred to Vega's comment, saying ”we may not be the prettiest,
but we aren't the ugliest either.”

Shortly afterwards, the European Commission's Deputy Director-General
of Trade Karl Falkenberg added: ”It takes two to negotiate, and to
tango. We only dance with those who want to dance with us.”

The Peruvian government indicated that it would like to negotiate
a separate free trade agreement with the EU, rather than in combination
with its partners in the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), Bolivia,
Colombia and Ecuador.

CAN Secretary-General Freddy Ehlers proposed a summit meeting of
the four Andean heads of state.

”We need to agree on a joint position for negotiations with the EU,
and decide whether we are going to continue together as a bloc,” Ehlers
said.

On the possibility that Peru and Colombia might decide to negotiate
separate treaties, Ehlers said ”that will only happen if the countries
don't reach an agreement, because the Europeans want to negotiate
with the entire bloc.”


*****
+ LATIN AMERICA: Big Debates Over Small and Medium Enterprises (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42333)
+ LATIN AMERICA: European Corporations on Trial (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42372)
+ More IPS Coverage on Confronting Climate Change (http://ipsnews.net/climate_change/)
+ Fifth Summit of Heads of State and Government of Latin America,
the Caribbean and the European Union, EU-LAC (http://www.vcumbrealcue.org/website/index.php?lang=en)
+ Consorcio de Investigación Económica y Social, CIES - in Spanish
(http://cies.org.pe/)


(END/IPS/LA EU IP IF EN KP IB MD CS/TRASP-VD-SW/AP/DCL/08)


 
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