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ENVIRONMENT-LATIN AMERICA: Glass
Half Empty
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY (IPS) - The countries of Latin America
have made progress in terms of access to clean water and
sanitation, but have failed to curb greenhouse gas
emissions and deforestation, says a new United Nations
report.
"We should put a suitable price tag on the environment,"
Alicia Bárcena, executive secretary of the Economic and
Social Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),
told IPS at the launch of the report in Mexico City
Wednesday.
"Public spending (on the environment) in the region is
low, equivalent to just under one percent of GDP, and
this issue has not been sufficiently addressed by public
policy," she said.
The regional U.N. agency's new report "Millennium
Development Goals: Advances in Environmentally
Sustainable Development in Latin America and the
Caribbean" assessed the region's progress in meeting the
seventh of the eight goals that were adopted by the
international community at the U.N. Millennium Summit in
2000.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include a 50
percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger;
universal primary education; promotion of gender
equality; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; a
three-quarters cut in maternal mortality; combating the
spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring
environmental sustainability; and developing a
North-South global partnership for development.
The goals are to be met by a 2015 deadline, from 1990
levels.
The targets included in the seventh MDG - ensuring
environmental sustainability - are to halve the number
of people without access to safe drinking water and
sanitation by 2015; integrate the principles of
sustainable development into public policies and
programmes; reverse the loss of environmental resources
and biodiversity by 2015; and achieve major improvements
in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by
2020.
"There has been progress in protecting the ozone layer
and in expanding coverage of clean water and sewage
services. But deforestation must be curtailed, the use
of alternative energies must increase, and more
adaptation to climate change is needed," Mara Murillo,
acting regional director of the U.N. Environment
Programme (UNEP), told IPS at the presentation of the
report.
The study, coordinated by ECLAC with the support of a
dozen other U.N. agencies, says the total surface of
protected areas grew 120 percent in the region between
1990 and 2005, while consumption of ozone-depleting
substances declined by 85 per cent.
The Earth's ozone layer protects life from the sun's
harmful radiation, but human activities have damaged the
shield, and the reduced protection from ultraviolet
light leads to higher skin cancer and cataract rates, as
well as crop damage.
In the same period, coverage of drinking water and basic
sanitation rose by 10 percent and 17 per cent,
respectively, in the region, and the proportion of the
urban population living in slums shrank 31 percent, the
report points out. It adds, however, that "over 100
million people in Latin America and the Caribbean are
still living in unacceptable conditions," out of a total
population of nearly 600 million people.
Nearly 21 percent of the total surface area in Latin
America now has the status of protected natural areas,
and there are 102 biosphere reserves - established to
protect the biological and cultural diversity of a
region while promoting sustainable economic development
- distributed among 19 countries.
But although countries in the region have adopted
policies and measures for biodiversity conservation,
"their biological heritage is threatened by the loss of
natural habitats. This is occurring mostly in high
mountain areas, tropical drylands, desert ecosystems,
cloud forests and tropical moist forests," the report
warns.
Latin America and the Caribbean are home to 40 percent
of the world's plant and animal species, approximately
40 percent of tropical forest species and 36 percent of
the world’s industrial forests and those cultivated for
food.
But the region lost some 69 million hectares of forest
from 1990 to 2005, equivalent to seven percent of the
total forest cover, which is double the global average
deforestation rate, says ECLAC.
The worst scenario was seen in "Meso-America", an area
covering southern Mexico and Central America, where 10
percent of forest cover has been lost.
But it is Brazil and Mexico that have the highest
deforestation rates and emit the largest quantities of
greenhouse-effect gases.
Greenhouse gases grew 41 percent in the region between
1990 and 2005, with South America showing the highest
growth: 55.7 percent.
The report was released at a time of intense drought and
heat waves in parts of Mexico, Central America and
northern areas in South America, severe flooding in
central Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, and heavy rains and
flooding in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.
"The loss of forests is a problem linked to poverty
levels," said Mexican Secretary (minister) of the
Environment and Natural Resources Juan Elvira. "If we
want these resources to be protected, that will only be
achieved by means of social development."
The fight against deforestation is one of the central
focuses of the negotiations on a new international
climate change treaty, which could be signed in Mexico
in late November, at the 16th Conference of the Parties
of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (COP 16), after the failure of COP 15 in
Copenhagen in December 2009.
"The lack of progress shows that the development model
has failed to overcome the region's problems of poverty
and social exclusion, and has not managed to curb the
process of environmental deterioration," said Bárcena,
who called for "a proactive vision" and a move in the
direction of "less carbon intensive economic growth."
Elvira mentioned the benefits of payment schemes for
environmental services, where forest dwellers are
rewarded by governments for good environmental practices
as they make sustainable use of forests.
In Mexico, 1.2 million hectares are under environmental
services payment schemes, and the goal is for a total of
25 million hectares to be protected under such plans by
2012.
"As the region also possesses one third of the world’s
forestry biomass and two thirds of the world’s tropical
forestry biomass, it has major potential to help
mitigate global climate change through the CO2 retention
services its forests provide," the report says.
A new global environmental treaty would put a price tag
on standing trees and deforestation, according to the
executive secretary of ECLAC.
The study's release coincided with a two-day meeting in
the Mexican capital of the U.N. Regional Coordination
Mechanism for Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss
the MDGs, climate change, the political situation in the
region and the U.N.'s contribution to regional
cooperation.
The Regional Coordination Mechanism, which emerged in
1998 and is coordinated by the U.N. regional commissions
and chaired by the U.N. deputy secretary-general, aims
to promote the consistency of U.N. activities in each
region. |
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