A Fragmented Continent: Latin America and the Global Politics of Climate Change

299 Pages·2015·1.922 MB·English

by  Guy Edwards, J. Timmons Roberts

000
A Fragmented Continent
Politics, Science, and the Environment
Peter M. Haas and Sheila Jasanoff, series editors
For a complete list of books published in this series, please see the back of
the book.
A Fragmented Continent
Latin America and the Global Politics of Climate Change
Guy Edwards and J. Timmons Roberts
Foreword by Ricardo Lagos, President of Chile (2000–2006)
and UN Special Envoy for Climate Change (2008–2010)
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information
storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Stone by the MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United States
of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-262-02980-3
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Series Foreword vii
Foreword by Ricardo Lagos, former President of Chile (2000–2006) and UN
Special Envoy for Climate Change (2008–2010) ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xv
1 Paradoxes of a Neglected Region 1
The New Engineers of Consensus 1
An Acutely Vulnerable Region 4
A Low-Carbon Continent? 8
Four Factors for Understanding Climate Politics in Latin America 13
Nature: Natural Resources and Vulnerability to Climate Impacts 16
Development: Economic Growth and Competing Development Models 19
Foreign Policy: Regional Integration, International Alliances, and Trade 21
Civil Society: The Gap between Climate Concerns and Action 24
Four of Many Factors 26
The Shape of the Book 28
2 Latin America’s Emerging Leadership on Climate Change 33
Looking beyond Latin America’s Decade 33
A Continent of Blocs 37
A Rift Emerges in Stockholm 41
Blame It on Rio 44
Is the G77 Disintegrating? 48
The Double Edge of Big Hydro 52
Inadvertent Pioneers 57
A Region’s Emerging Clout 62
vi Contents
3 Brazil: Climate Leader or Spoiler? 65
Brazil’s Moment? 65
Brazil’s Bewildering Behavior at the Negotiations 69
Joining Club BASIC 75
The Quest for a Seat 79
Fewer Chainsaws, More Forest 83
Do We Have Lift-Off? 89
An Uncertain Future 94
4 “A Flea in the Ear”? The Emergence of ALBA 101
Standing Up for Climate Justice 101
What Is a Bolivarian Alliance? 105
ALBA’s Role at the Negotiations 106
Cochabamba and Bolivia’s Shifting Climate Policy 110
Ecuador’s Proposal to “Keep the Oil in the Soil” 117
Oil and Venezuela’s Mercurial Climate Posture 122
Assessing ALBA’s Impact and Future 130
5 The Revolt of the Middle: Mexico and AILAC 135
Latin America’s Other Path? 135
Bridging the North-South Divide 137
Mexico “Saves Climate Multilateralism” 139
AILAC’s Green Shoots in Doha 148
Costa Rica’s Oil Refinery and Carbon Neutrality Goal 152
Peru Walks the Tightrope 157
Less Talk, More Action 164
6 Sustainable Action? 167
A Decisive Region? 167
A Puzzle and Four Factors 170
One Voice or Many? 175
Making a Mark in Lima 179
Toward a New Research Agenda 182
Building a Lead 184
Notes 191
References 223
Index 261
000a
Series Foreword
As our understanding of environmental threats deepens and broadens,
it is increasingly clear that many environmental issues cannot be simply
understood, analyzed, or acted on. The multifaceted relationships between
human beings, social and political institutions, and the physical environ-
ment in which they are situated extend across disciplinary and geopolitical
confines and cannot be analyzed or resolved in isolation.
The purpose of this series is to address the complex questions of how
societies come to understand, confront, and cope with both the sources
and manifestations of present and potential environmental threats. Works
in the series focus on matters political, scientific, technical, social, or eco-
nomic. They all look at the intertwined roles that politics, science, and
technology play in the recognizing, framing, analyzing, and managing of
environment-related contemporary issues, and they all share a manifest
relevance to the increasingly difficult problems of identifying and forging
environmentally sound public policy.

Peter M. Haas
Sheila Jasanoff

000a
Foreword
Ricardo Lagos, former President of Chile (2000–2006) and UN Special
Envoy for Climate Change (2008–2010)
Good government stands on three legs. To achieve prosperity, a country
needs democracy, economic growth, and social equity. Take away one of
these components, and the tripod topples over. Fortunately, Chile has made
excellent progress over the last two decades. Democracy flourishes, and
poverty and social inequality have been drastically reduced. The Organi-
sation for Economic Co-operation and Development holds up Chile as a
leading global example in poverty reduction. Across Latin America, similar
progress has also been made.
Chile’s success lies partially in its exports and sound fiscal management.
It is the world’s largest producer of copper, which accounts for around a
third of government revenue. During the 2008 financial crisis and its after-
math, Chile managed to ride the waves of the global meltdown due to a
countercyclical policy and a fiscal stabilization fund that generated long-
term savings from the copper boom. In 2005, we began to use some of
the savings from the levy on mining and created the Competitiveness and
Innovation Fund to invest in innovation, human capital, and science and
technology. These policies allowed us to save for a rainy day and man-
age the systemic risk posed by the 2008 financial crisis by investing in our
future without counting on natural resources such as copper indefinitely.
However, the threat of climate change presents a major challenge to
Chile and the nations of Latin America and the world. If we fail to act now
and prepare for the likely impacts, the rug could be pulled out from under
the already fragile tripod.
Like the rest of Latin America, Chile is vulnerable to the impacts of cli-
mate change. Mean annual temperatures are predicted to increase by 1 to
4 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. Glacial melt, sea-level rise,
droughts and desertification, natural disasters, and air pollution in urban