Building renewables plants across the Global South is a preferable alternative to generate fewer emissions — but the international community has to date been unwilling to provide the substantial funding needed to construct this type of additional generation capacity at the level developing countries require. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS
Opinion by Philippe Benoit (washington dc)
Inter Press Service
Unfortunately, the UAE and other Gulf states can’t easily export their solar resources to developing countries. However, they can export their natural gas to support affordable low-emissions power production in poorer countries if combined with donor-financed carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS)-equipped gas-fired power plants.
The lead-up to COP 28 provides an opportunity to explore this mechanism to support low-emissions economic growth in poorer countries — a “gas for poverty and climate” power proposal.
As I noted in an earlier opinion piece, the decisions by the G-7, China and others to halt overseas financing for coal power plants serve important climate goals but do not eliminate developing countries’ need for more electricity at affordable prices. According to a February Reuters report, the Pakistan government has decided, in the face of high and volatile natural gas prices, to pivot from building gas-fired plants to more affordable coal-fired ones notwithstanding the higher emissions.
The decision to build more coal power plants reflects the difficult dilemma faced by many poorer countries: They are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and yet they do not feel they can afford to forestall investing in affordable power generation and the shorter-term economic benefits it provides, even if this means building high-emitting coal power plants.
The upcoming COP 28 context might provide a way out, one that leverages the hosting of the event in the gas-rich Gulf region, with the stated interest of wealthier countries and multilateral development banks to support poorer countries in the energy transition.
The proposal has two basic elements: an undertaking by a Gulf producer to provide natural gas at a preferential low price to new “low-emitting” gas-fired power plants built with concessional climate finance in partnering developing countries.
The subsidy embedded in this structure would be recognized as a financial contribution by the gas-supplying country to both international development and global climate efforts. This structure could potentially also be used by wealthy gas countries from other regions, such as possibly Norway, interested in simultaneously supporting development and tackling climate change.
The second element is the use of this natural gas in gas-fired power plants equipped with “carbon capture, utilization and storage” technologies to produce “low-emissions” electricity.
CCUS is one tool to substantially further reduce these emissions by 90 percent or more. The potential result is CO2 emissions per kWh that are so low they might even be termed “near-zero emissions.”
Although CCUS technologies have been developed and tested for many years on power plants, they have yet to be deployed at a large scale. One reason is that they are expensive per ton of reduced CO2 emissions. Consequently, their cost would undermine a developing country’s electricity affordability objective.
To overcome this hurdle, the CCUS-equipped gas-fired plant would need to be financed in large part through highly concessional climate funding, to be provided notably by the international donor community. There may also be an opportunity to tap into carbon markets to fund both capital and operating expenditures given the lower (i.e., avoided) emissions from the CCUS-equipped plant as compared to the alternative of a new coal-fired power plant or a gas-fired one without CCUS.
There are, of course, additional complexities to explore. For example, the plant would need to be able to access reasonably priced options for CO2 use or storage. In addition, the greenhouse gases (including methane) emitted in producing and delivering the natural gas to the plant would need to be limited to ensure the produced electricity remains “low emissions” when considering the full value chain.
Further analysis would also be needed on the pricing and other terms to make this structure attractive for the natural gas supplier, the donor community funding the CCUS-equipped plant and the developing country’s electricity consumers.
Building renewables plants across the Global South is a preferable alternative to generate fewer emissions — but the international community has to date been unwilling to provide the substantial funding needed to construct this type of additional generation capacity at the level developing countries require. And, as noted earlier, the technologies don’t yet exist for the Gulf states to export their abundant solar power resources, notwithstanding current discussions about green hydrogen.
The hosting of COP 28 in the Gulf provides an opportunity to think creatively about how to mobilize the gas resources of that region (and elsewhere) to better support both the development needs of poorer countries and the global climate effort. This COP 28 “gas for poverty and climate” power proposal might provide some elements.
Philippe Benoit has over 25 years of experience working in international energy and sustainability, including prior management positions at the World Bank and the International Energy Agency. He is currently adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and research director at Global Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050.
BP’s recent journey points to the need for instruments that influence profits specifically, and notably reconsideration of the controversial price control tool: a climate-driven price cap on oil. Credit: Bigstock
Opinion by Philippe Benoit (washington dc)
Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 13 (IPS) – BP, the oil company that previously brought us “Beyond Petroleum” and more recently robust corporate climate goals, has announced a return in emphasis to its traditional business of producing oil. Drawn by the inescapable appeal of oil’s latest high profits, has BP rebranded itself as “Back to Petroleum?”
This type of shift highlights the importance of stronger market incentives for reducing emissions so that companies interested in decarbonizing see their financial interest align with that course. BP’s recent journey points to the need for instruments that influence profits specifically, and notably reconsideration of the controversial price control tool: a climate-driven price cap on oil.
These record profits — driven in part by high gas prices resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — also point to a major vulnerability for any market-driven climate effort. With the lure of these type of returns from the traditional petroleum business, it is difficult to see or sustain financial motivation to shift away.
Indeed, as BP made clear in announcing its ambitious 2022 climate targets: “bp is committed to delivering attractive returns to shareholders” — and petroleum, with its upside, is uniquely placed to deliver the potential of a high return. So long as there are big profits to be made from oil, these companies will continue to be drawn to their petroleum activities, notwithstanding any stated desire to shift to renewables.
However, this also points to what needs to be a focus of an effective climate policy for oil: reducing its profitability. Over the years, think tanks, academics and others have put forward carbon pricing as the most efficient emissions reduction instrument, but this discourse has failed to deliver significant results in practice, especially when it comes to oil companies.
As emissions continue to rise and the carbon budget shrinks, the time has come to explore other solutions. One tool that merits consideration — more precisely, reconsideration — is a cap on oil prices.
This “climate oil price cap” would be designed to increase the relative profitability and so financial appeal of renewables by limiting the upside on oil activities specifically (something a customary windfall profits tax set at the corporate level wouldn’t accomplish). It would thereby support and encourage BP and other oil companies to transform themselves from a traditional petroleum company into an “integrated energy company” (BP’s own term), one that can generate significant profits from renewables and other low-carbon products relative to its petroleum activities.
Oil price controls are, of course, not new and have a checkered history (e.g., President Nixon’s effort in the US 50 years ago). But the climate emergency presents a new threat that merits re-examining this instrument. Importantly, a price cap could also help energy-importing developing countries, as well as vulnerable households there and elsewhere, avoid the harmful impact of the high oil prices experienced in 2022 (another potential advantage over a windfall profits tax ).
Any effort needs to consider the lessons from the failed efforts of the past. For example, the cap should be set at a sufficient level to attract the desired supply – including to energy-importing developing countries — even as it precludes the type of record profits the oil industry saw last year. It should also build on the experience with the current Russian price cap.
While, admittedly today there isn’t sufficient support for aggressive climate policies, the prospect for strong action will likely increase over time as heat waves, flooding and other extreme weather events wreak havoc exacerbated by climate change. This in turn can be expected to increase the willingness of politicians and policymakers to be more ambitious down the road in taking climate action.
In anticipation of this changing landscape, creative options beyond traditional carbon pricing mechanisms should be explored and put before these decision-makers by think tanks, academics and others.
In this regard, the combination of BP’s recent record profits and shift in corporate policy points to the appropriateness of considering a price cap on oil as a possible tool to fight climate change by improving the relative profitability of low-carbon investments.
The Sami people protested in the centre of Oslo against the Fosen wind farm, in the north of Norway (Jannicke Totland/ Natur og Ungdom)
by Karlos Zurutuza (rome)
Inter Press Service
ROME, Mar 09 (IPS) – There are 151 wind turbines and more than 130 kilometres of connection routes and power lines on the Fosen peninsula, 530 kilometres north of Oslo. Norwegian judges say that they should not be there, and the owners of those lands since time immemorial do too.
But it is not a mirage.
“The wind farm crisscrosses areas of winter pasture that can no longer be used because the reindeer will never come near the windmills. Thus, an ancestral migration route that is crucial for us has been destroyed,” says Maria Puenchir, a 31-year-old human rights activist who is well-known in the region, and presents herself as “queer, Sami and disabled”, told IPS over the phone.
The Sami, also known as Lapps or Saami, are a people spread across the northern borders of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, in a territory they call Sápmi.
Puenchir spoke from her native Trondheim, very close to the peninsula where the wind complex stands today under scrutiny. Its construction began in 2016 despite numerous calls for its suspension, including one from the United Nations, citing its potential impact on the way of life of local communities.
Five years later and one after its completion, the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled unanimously among its eleven judges that the installation was illegal and violated the rights of reindeer herders to develop their culture.
“The ruling is clear, but it does not explain what to do with the wind turbines. Not only have they not been dismantled, but they continue to function,” laments Puenchir.
On January 30, Amnesty International launched a campaign asking that the judicial resolution be respected and “a continuous violation of human rights be stopped and repaired.”
It was on February 23 when a group of young people dressed in traditional Sami costumes decided to wrestle with the Norwegian state. After occupying the offices of the Ministry of Oil for four days, they were evicted by the police, but managed to block several other ministries before a crowdy sit-in in front of the Royal Palace, on March 3.
One of the six wind farms installed in Fosen. They remain active even if the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled, in 2021, that they were illegal and violated the rights of Sami reindeer herder communities. Photo: StatKraft
“The initiative arose from an Instagram campaign among the Sami youth. They began to count the days that passed without any finger being lifted since the Norwegian Supreme Court ruling. When the account reached 500, they took to the streets,” Puenchir recalls.
She did not hesitate to fly to Oslo to join the group, nor did Greta Thunberg. The well-known activist for the defense of the climate this time joined a protest against a “green” energy project.
“I had the chance to come and show my support to this struggle. All those who have a possibility to support local struggles like these should do so,” Thunberg explained to IPS, by phone from the streets of Oslo.
“All over the world we are seeing the continuation of land grabbing and exploitation of indigenous land, but we can also see that the resistance is continuing and growing,” claimed the activist before calling for “the end of the colonization of Sápmi.”
On March 2, the Sami heard an apology from the Norwegian Government delivered by Terje Aasland, the country’s minister of Oil and Energy
“They have spent a long time in a difficult and uncertain situation and I feel sorry for them,” Aasland said, after meeting with the president of the Sámi Parliament, Silje Karine Mutoka
For the moment, Oslo has repeated a mantra that the wind power project can coexist with reindeer herding. A firm decision is lacking on the future of the controversial infrastructure, however.
“I had the chance to come and show my support to this struggle. All those who have a possibility to support local struggles like these should do so” Greta Thunberg told IPS during the protest against the Norwegian wind farms in Sami territory (Jannicke Totland/ Natur og Ungdom)
From north to south
According to data from the International Energy Agency, 98% of Norway’s electricity supply comes from renewable energy. The six wind farms in the Fosen complex produce more energy than all the wind farms built in the rest of the country combined.
Although Fosen’s turbines are the work of a multi-company conglomerate with Swiss and German participation, 52% of the investment remains in the hands of Norway’s Statkraft.
Responding to questions posed by IPS, Statkraft stressed that the Supreme Court ruling “does not mean that the licenses for the wind farms have lapsed and it did not conclude what should happen to the turbines.”
The operation of the Fosen wind farm, the company adds, “can be maintained without irreparable damage to reindeer husbandry as long as there is an ongoing process to clarify the necessary mitigation measures necessary for a new licensing decision that does not violate the rights of the Sami.”
The company claims it is “working actively to contribute to reaching a solution that enables the Sami people to continue their cultural practice in line with international law.”
On its website, Statkraft claims to be “Europe’s largest renewable energy producer and a global company in energy market operations.” Their figures point to 5,300 workers in 21 countries.
The protest started on February 23 by blockading the Ministry of Oil and Energy for four days before spreading to other ministries. (Jannicke Totland/ Natur og Ungdom)
Complaints and legal rulings against the Norwegian energy giant have also come from other continents.
On February 23, Chilean police violently repressed a demonstration against the Los Lagos power plant project Statkraft is building on the banks of the Pilmaiken River, 370 kilometers south of Santiago de Chile.
“It is a place of great importance for the Mapuche people with a ceremonial complex and a cemetery. According to ancient beliefs, the Pilmaiken river is where souls travel after they die so that they can continue their cycle,” Fennix Delgado, a 35-year-old construction worker active in the Pilmaiken support network told IPS by phone.
All across Sápmi
“Both in Chile and in Norway we are witnessing the plundering of indigenous ancestral territory without the consent of the affected communities or any respect for their cultural realities.”
That´s the take of Eva María Fjellheim, a member of the work team of the Sami Council — its largest civil society organization. She spoke to IPS by phone from Tromso, 1,100 kilometres north of Oslo.
“Although the Sami Council supports efforts to combat the climate and ecological crisis, these cannot be implemented at the cost of fundamental rights,” explains 38-year-old Fjellheim.
She combines her work for the council with her research for his PhD at Norway’s Arctic University on “green colonialism” and Sami resistance to the development of wind power on pasture lands.
Ancestral knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples, she believes, “could be considered as part of the solution and not as an obstacle.”
The researcher also points out that, in addition to Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia are promoting similar wind projects across Sami territory.
“The Nordic countries tend to defend their image as leaders in terms of respect for rights and sustainability, but their reaction to the Supreme Court ruling on the Fosen case is the latest proof of very much the opposite,” says Fjellheim.
“It’s as if human rights violations only occurred in other regions, and not in a democratic welfare state like Norway.”
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Mar 06 (IPS) – Putin’s regime recently suspended Russia’s participation in a nuclear arms agreement with Washington. After the decision Putin declared that the move was a retaliation for the US’s, France’s and Britain’s “targeting” of Russia with nuclear weapons. He was forced to take action to “preserve our country, ensure security and strategic stability”:
“the West lied about peace, but was preparing for aggression, and today it admits it openly, no longer embarrassed. And they cynically use Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia.”
Such rhetoric finds fertile ground in Latin America and Africa, which suffer from a long tradition of Western exploitation carried out under the false flag of peace keeping, democratization and progress. On 26 February, Putin added that a:
“new world is taking shape, being built only on the interests of just one country, the United States. I do not even know if such an ethnic group as the Russian people will be able to survive in the form in which it exists today.”
The statement is part of a recurrent discourse suggesting that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an act of self-defence, an answer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization/NATO’s expansion. In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were added to NATO; in 2009 they were followed by Albania and Croatia, in 2017 by Montenegro and in 2020 by North Macedonia.
In 2014, after Ukraine’s corrupt president Viktor Yanukovych had been ousted, pro-Russian unrest erupted in eastern and southern parts of the country. Unmarked Russian tanks and troops moved into Crimea, taking over government buildings, strategic sites and infrastructure. Meanwhile, armed pro-Russian separatists seized government buildings in the Donbas region.
In 2014 the Donbas was the industrial heartland of Ukraine with 35 per cent of the country’s mining, 22 per cent of its manufacturing industry, providing 20 per cent of energy supply and 18 per cent of water supply. Recently vast amounts of natural gas have been detected underground.
The separatists received considerable support from Russia and Ukrainian attempts to retake separatist-held areas were unsuccessful. In October 2014, Ukraine’s new government made joining NATO a priority. Putin at once declared that the Russian involvement in Crimea and Donbas was a reaction to NATO’s threatening expansion.
Part of Putin’s discourse, repeated by influencers all over the world, is that during a summit in 1990 when Mikhail Gorbachov accepted the reunification of Germany within the framework of NATO, he was given an assurance that NATO would not expand further. The Historian Mary Elise Sarotte has recently tried to disentangle the thorny issue, underlining that no written document of the promise exists. Gorbachov later declared that:
“the topic of NATO-expansion was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. was that NATO’s military structures would not advance in the sense that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR, after German reunification. Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
During a 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin declared himself to be a stout defender of democracy, nuclear disarmament and international solidarity. Contrary to the US, which had “promised” that NATO was not going to expand beyond the borders of Germany. Putin stated that:
“unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. a situation in which countries that forbid the death penalty even for murderers and other, dangerous criminals are airily participating in military operations that are difficult to consider legitimate. And as a matter of fact, these conflicts are killing people – hundreds and thousands of civilians! As Franklin D. Roosevelt said during the first few days that the Second World War was breaking out: “When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.” I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself, or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: Against whom is this expansion intended?
The answer is beyond doubt. However, as a proverb states “Evil cannot with evil be defended.” Can Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine actually be defended by alluding to the encroachment and support to brutal dictatorships that “democracies” like the US, France and Britain have been guilty of around the globe?
Putin repeatedly refers to “history”. He labels Ukrainian leaders as Nazis, while stating that Ukraine has always been part of Russia. Glaring exaggerations – if not outright lies.
History tells us that Russia’s past, like that of other nations, has its hidden skeletons. In 1939, the Soviet Union annexed more than 50 per cent of Polish territory. From 1939 to 1941 about one million Polish citizens were arrested, or deported; including approximately 200,000 Polish military personnel held as prisoners of war; 100,000 Polish citizens were arrested and imprisoned of whom approximately 30,000 were executed. The total loss of lives was 150 000.
On 30 November 1939 the Soviet army attacked Finland. The war ended after three months. The Soviets suffered severe losses and made little headway. To avoid more bloodshed Finland ceded 9 per cent of its territory. In spite of superior air force and heavy tanks the Soviet losses had been considerable – 168 000 dead or missing. The Finns lost 26 000 dead or missing.
In the previously independent Baltic States the Soviets had during 1940-41 carried out mass deportations. They became even more extensive after Soviet Union finally conquered the area. In March 1949, Soviet authorities organised a mass deportation of 90,000 Baltic nationals. The total number deported from 1944 to 1955 is estimated at over half a million: 124,000 from Estonia, 136,000 from Latvia, and 245,000 from Lithuania. The estimated death toll among Lithuanian deportees had between1945 and 1958 been more than 20,000, including 5,000 children.
When the Soviet Union fell apart and archives were declassified it was revealed that, between 1921 and 1953, 799,455 executions had been officially recorded. Approximately 1.7 million prisoners had died in Gulag camps, some 390,000 were reported dead during forced resettlements in the 1930s, and during the 1940s at least 400,000 persons died during deportations.
After World War II, the Soviet Union subdued several nations in Eastern Europe, introducing a political system aspiring to gain total control of all citizens and backed by an extensive, repressive apparatus.
Opposition was initially essentially liquidated, while steps towards an authoritative communism were enforced. The General Secretary of a nation’s Central Committee became the most powerful figure, while a Politburo held sway over a party machine lacking a popular foundation, since it in accordance to Leninist ideology favoured a group of three to fourteen per cent of a country’s population. Members of this exclusive group enjoyed considerable rewards, like access to shops with a selection of high-quality foreign goods, as well as special schools, holiday facilities, well-equipped housing, pensions, permission to travel abroad, and official cars with distinct license plates.
Suppression of opposition was a prerequisite for retaining power. Citizens were kept under surveillance by political police with raw power and violent persecution of dissidents. In East Germany were Stasi, Volkpolizei, and KdA, in Soviet Union the KGB, in Czechoslovakia STB and LM, in Bulgaria KDS, in Hungary AVH and Munkásörség, in Romania Securitate and GP, in Poland Ministerstwo Bezpiecze?stwa Publicznego, S?u?ba, and ZOMO. Nevertheless, people occasionally revolted.
During one day in 1953 an uprising took place in Berlin. It was violently suppressed by tanks and soldiers of the Soviet German forces. More than 150 persons were killed, or missing.
In 1956, a two day protest in Polish Poznan resulted in more than 100 deaths. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers under the command of the Polish-Soviet general Popalavsky suppressed the demonstration. Among the dead was a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzalakowski, eventually hailed as a patriotic martyr.
During two weeks in November 1956, USSR troops killed 2,500 revolting Hungarians, while 200,000 sought political refuge abroad. Some 26,000 Hungarians were put on trial by the Soviet-installed János Kádár government, of those 13,000 were imprisoned.
During the night between 20 and 21 August 1968, a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia came to an abrupt end when Eastern Bloc armies under Soviet command invaded Prague. The invasion comported with the Brezhnev Doctrine, compelling Eastern Bloc states to subordinate national interests to a Soviet right to intervene. A wave of emigration followed, with a total eventually reaching 300,000.
The pattern of Soviet invasions of neighbouring states has continued, for example in Georgia and Moldova. In 1991 Tjetjenia declared itself independent and in 1994, 40 000 Russian soldiers invaded the recently proclaimed Tjetjenien Republic. After a year of harsh fighting the capital Grozny was conquered, but another war erupted in 1999. The rebels were vanquished after an effective but exceedingly brutal war. Tjetjenia is now governed by a Moscow-allied clan leader.
Estimated losses of the two wars are 14 000 Russian and 16 000 Tjetjenien soldiers killed, while at least 25,000 civilians were killed and 5,000 disappeared.
One month before the Russian attack on Ukraine, Kazakhstan plunged into political unrest. At the request of President Tokayev, Russian forces headed an intergovernmental Eurasian military alliance, CSTO, which invaded the country. After “pacifying” the protests, CSTO forces evacuated the country after a month.
Considering this history, paired with the Russian destruction of Syrian and Ukrainian towns, it is somewhat difficult to consider Russia as threatened by NATO’s expansion. It is actually not so strange that Russia is feared by its neighbours and that Finland and Sweden are seeking membership in NATO.
The Swedish government is currently supporting an expansion and restoration of Sweden’s once comprehensive, but now neglected network of nuclear shelters, introducing obligatory conscription of youngsters fit for military service, and strengthening the defence of Gotland, a strategically important island located in the middle of the Baltic Sea.
After World War II, the Soviet Union usurped an enclave which actually ought to have belonged to either Poland or Lithuania – Kaliningrad, situated by the Baltic coast and equipped it with the highest density of military installations in Europe. It became headquarter of the large Russian Baltic fleet. In Kaliningrad, Russia has recently built up a formidable military presence encompassing nuclear weapons and tens of thousands of soldiers.
Not being a supporter of policies and actions United States has exercised in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, cannot overshadow the fear that most Europeans nurture while facing the powerful giant of the East, which, admittedly, does not have an impressive record when it comes to protecting human rights.
Some sources: Putin, Vladimir (2007) Speech delivered at the MSChttp://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/copy/24034 Sarotte, Mary Elise (2022) Not One Inch: America, Russia and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pucci, Molly (2020) Security Empire: The Secret Police in Communist Eastern Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Mangroves in Tai O, Hong Kong. Coastal wetland protection and restoration is an example of the kind of multifunctional solution that is needed to address multiple global crises together. Credit: Chunyip Wong / iStock
Opinion by Paula Harrison – Pamela McElwee – David Obura (bonn)
Inter Press Service
BONN, Mar 02 (IPS) – When global crises are interlinked, they overlap and compound each other. In such cases, the most effective solutions are those that work at the nexus of all these challenges.
In September, almost every Government on Earth will gather at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York to take stock at the halfway mark of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of what has been achieved and what remains to be done.
Despite some progress, global development efforts have been hamstrung by unprecedented environmental, social and economic crises, in particular biodiversity loss and climate change, compounded of course by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tackling these interlinked challenges separately risks creating situations even more damaging to people and communities around the world, and exacerbates the already high risk of not meeting the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This is especially true because the myriad drivers of risk and damage affect many different sectors at once, across scales from local to global, and can result in negative impacts being compounded. For example, when demands for food and timber combine with the effects of pollution and climate change, they can decimate already degraded ecosystems, driving species to extinction and severely reducing nature’s contributions to people.
The global food system offers another example of this negative spiral of interlocking crises – where food that is produced unsustainably leads to water overconsumption and waste, pollution, increased health risks and loss of biodiversity. It also leads to excessive greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change.
Yet policies often treat each of these global threats in isolation, resulting in separate, uncoordinated actions that typically address only one of the root causes and fail to take advantage of the many potential solution synergies. In the worst cases, actions taken on one challenge directly undermine those needed to tackle another because they fail to account for trade-offs, resulting in unintended consequences, or the impacts being externalised, as someone else’s problem.
This is why almost 140 Governments turned to the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – requesting IPBES to undertake a major multiyear assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health in the context of the rapidly-changing climate. This ‘Nexus Assessment’ is among the most complex and important expert assessments ever undertaken – crossing key biophysical domains of climate and biodiversity and elements central to human wellbeing like food, water and health. It will also address how interactions are affected by energy, pollution, conflict and other socio-political challenges.
To fully address this ‘nexus’, the assessment is considering interactions across scales, geographic regions and ecosystems. It also covers past, present and future trends in these interlinkages. And, most importantly, it will offer concrete options for responses to the crises that address the interactions of risk and damage jointly and equitably – providing a vital set of possible solutions for the more sustainable future we want for people and our planet.
One example of the mutifunctional solutions that will be explored is nature-based solutions – such as coastal wetland protection and restoration. When coastal wetland ecosystems are healthy – whether conserved or where necessary, restored – they are a refuge and habitat for biodiversity, improving fish stocks for greater food security and contributing to improve human health and wellbeing. They can also sequester carbon, helping to mitigate climate change, and protect adjacent communities and settlements from flooding and sea level rise.
To develop and implement these kinds of multi-functional solutions, responses for dealing with the major global crises need to be better coordinated, integrated, and made more synergistic across sectors, both public and private. Decision-makers at all levels need better evidence and knowledge to implement such solutions.
Work on the nexus assessment began in 2021 – with the final report expected to be considered and adopted by IPBES member States in 2024. A majority of the 170 expert authors and review editors from around the world are meeting in March in the Kruger National Park in South Africa to further strengthen the draft report, responding to the many thousands of comments received during a first external review period.
The assessment will also include evidence and expertise contributed by indigenous peoples and local communities – whose rich and varied direct experiences and knowledge systems that consider humans and nature as an interconnected whole have embodied a nexus approach for generations.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the recently-agreed Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework provide the roadmaps for tackling the climate and biodiversity crises. The IPBES nexus assessment will offer policymakers a practical guide to bridge the vital interlinkages across the two challenges, to other relevant frameworks, and link to the sustainable development agenda.
For more information about IPBES or about the ongoing progress on the nexus assessment, go to www.ipbes.net or follow @ipbes on social media.
Prof. Paula Harrison is a Principal Natural Capital Scientist and Professor of Land and Water Modelling at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, United Kingdom.
Prof. Pamela McElwee is a Professor in the Department of Human Ecology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA.
Dr. David Obura is a Founding Director of CORDIO (Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean) East Africa, Kenya.
Zimbabwe is losing 262 000 hectares of forests destroyed every year. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
by Jeffrey Moyo (harare)
Inter Press Service
HARARE, Feb 28 (IPS) – In New Ashdon Park, a medium-density area in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, at new homes that have replaced a once thriving forest, makeshift fireplaces have become common sights as residents solely depend on firewood for energy.
City dwellers like 34-year-old Neliet Mbariro, a married mother of four, live in a house that has not yet been connected to electricity.
Like many of her neighbors, Mbariro has had to depend on cutting down some trees just across an unpaved road near her home.
“We cut the few remaining trees you see here so we can make fire for cooking every day. We can’t do anything about it because we have no electricity in this area,” Mbariro told IPS.
Hundreds of trees that used to define Mbariro’s area, where homes have fast emerged, have disappeared over the past two years since construction began.
As building structures rise, vast acres of natural forests are falling as construction of dwellings and indigenous industrial facilities gather pace in Zimbabwe.
Arnold Shumba (32), a builder operating in New Ashdon Park, said with his team working in the area, they have had to do away with hundreds of trees to build homes for their clients.
“I remember there were plenty of trees; in fact, there was a huge forest area here, but those trees are no more now because as we worked, we cut them down. You only see houses now,” Shumba told IPS.
According to environmentalists, the impact of deforestation is problematic.
“Very soon, towns and cities will have no more trees left as buildings take their place,” Marylin Mahamba, an independent environmental activist in Harare, told IPS.
For instance, as Mahamba notes, Harare is no longer the same, with scores of open urban spaces taken over for construction and trees uprooted.
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, is even worse, with Mahamba claiming the city has been pummeled by deforestation left, right, and center as more residential areas rise.
Yet it is not only the rise of more buildings across towns and cities here that has led to deforestation but electricity deficits, according to climate change experts.
“The Zimbabwe Power Company is also to blame for failing to provide enough electricity. Gas is expensive, and many people can’t afford it. They opt for firewood because it is cheaper, and that’s why more urban trees are now vanishing,” Kudakwashe Makanda, a climate change expert based in Zimbabwe, told IPS.
But Makanda also pinned the blame for urban deforestation on rural-to-urban migration.
“There is now excessive expansion of towns in Zimbabwe. Obviously, this does not spare the forests. By nature, people would want to settle in urban areas, and by virtue of people wanting to settle in towns, people cut down trees establishing homes,” said Makanda.
Makanda also blamed local authorities for fueling urban deforestation, saying, “the town councils are to blame. They allow people to occupy land not suitable for occupation resulting in trees being felled.”
With joblessness affecting as many as 90 percent of Zimbabwe’s population, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Makanda said in towns and cities, many have switched to firewood for livelihood.
“People are making a livelihood out of firewood, meaning more trees are disappearing in towns as dealers sell firewood which has become a source of income for many who are not formally employed,” said Makanda.
But for areas like New Ashdon Park with no electricity and with many residents like Mbariro having to depend on firewood while other areas contend with regular power outages, Makanda also said, “power cuts are causing deforestation in towns, especially in areas with no power connection, people rely on firewood.”
Yet stung by joblessness, Makanda said urban dwellers are clearing unoccupied pieces of land to farm in towns and cities, but at the cost of the trees that must be removed.
To fix the growing menace of urban deforestation in Zimbabwe, climate change experts like Makanda have said, “there is a need for incentivizing alternative power sources like solar so that they become affordable in order to save the remaining urban forests.”
Denis Munangatire, an environmentalist with a degree in environmental studies from the Midlands State University, claimed 4000 trees are getting destroyed annually across Zimbabwe’s towns and cities.
According to this country’s Forestry commission, these are among the 262 000 hectares of forests destroyed every year in Zimbabwe.
Like Makanda, Munangatire heaped the blame on local authorities in towns and cities for fueling deforestation.
“Urban councils are responsible for the disappearance of trees in towns and cities because they are leaving land developers wiping out forests, leaving few or no trees standing in areas they develop,” Munangatire told IPS.
Former White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci emerged from his home Monday, one day after a bombshell report revealed that the Energy Department has concluded that COVID-19likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
Fauci, who retired after more than five decades as a federal employee at the end of 2022, didn’t make any comments about the revised assessment by the Department of Energy, which reportedly was included in a recent intelligence report sent to the White House and top-ranking members of Congress.
Dr. Anthony Fauci outside of his home a day after a Department of Energy report concluded that COVID-19 likely leaked from a lab in China.Julia Nikhinson – CNP
The 82-year-old has repeatedly dismissed the so-called “lab leak” theory — insisting that evidence shows that the virus passed naturally from animals to humans.
Republicans have argued that Fauci has rejected the theory to cover up his former agency’s involvement in funding so-called “gain-of-function” research, in which scientists make viruses more transmissible and harmful.
The Biden administration defended Fauci Monday, with press secretary Karine-Jean-Pierre saying the attacks by Republicans “have been counterproductive, they have not been helpful.”
Fauci did not comment on the DOE report about the origins of COVID.Julia Nikhinson – CNP
Opinion by Hsiao Chink Tang, Anne Cortez (beijing, the people’s republic of china)
Inter Press Service
BEIJING, The People’s Republic of China, Feb 21 (IPS) – Digitalization is a key driver of competitiveness and development. As the world takes the path to unprecedented digital advancement, Asia continues to be a powerhouse of digital transformations in a wide range of areas from microchip manufacturing to electric vehicles, from digital currency to e-commerce.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has accelerated digital transformations, but not all countries have benefitted equally. For example, rural farmers in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were able to take advantage of existing digital mobile network, digital payment, and logistic services to find alternative markets and sell their produce online.
Many turned to established e-commerce platforms, such as, Pinduoduo, Taobao, and JD, and doing so innovatively via live-streaming.
In contrast, rural farmers in some other parts of Asia struggled to keep their livelihoods during the pandemic. Without access to face-to-face trades due to lockdowns, let alone selling online, many had to live with little or no income.
Businesses of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in many parts of Asia also suffered during the pandemic. Even in ordinary circumstances, persistent barriers such as poor and costly infrastructure, poor digital literacy, and limited government support hinder the growth of MSMEs in many developing economies.
Inevitably, during COVID, many MSMEs failed to capitalize on the pandemic-triggered digital transformation.
The above are some of the issues discussed in a dialogue organized by the ADB-PRC Regional Knowledge Sharing Initiatives (RKSI) and the Ministry of Finance, the PRC, on the topic of digital transformation and regional cooperation.
The forum acknowledged that despite the many opportunities presented by the digital economy in Asia, a great part of the region’s digital potential remains untapped, and key regulatory, infrastructural, financial, and capacity challenges remain.
There is also a widening digital divide among countries that are under-connected and those that are digitalized.
Prevailing digital infrastructure and non-infrastructure gaps, specifically in e-commerce across Central Asia, are highlighted in a Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC) Institute study. The study shows that e-commerce development among CAREC countries is highly varied and key gaps remain.
These gaps include those in basic digital infrastructure and regulatory policies resulting in a lack of economic opportunities, income inequality and weaknesses in the business environment. A solution to bridge this gap and drive an inclusive digital growth is regional cooperation.
In 2021, ministers from Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) member countries endorsed the Digital Strategy 2030, which identifies areas that can catalyze collaboration and digitalization in the region. Similarly, Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) countries are considering a proposal to promote and enhance cooperation in the digital economy, leveraging on the GMS cross-border e-commerce cooperation platform.
Region-wide cooperation allows governments and stakeholders to coordinate policies, share costs of building and maintaining infrastructure, and expand markets to advance the digital economy. Regional cooperation mechanisms also help build trust and harmonization that are crucial for digital development among countries.
In turn, digital advancement promotes regional cooperation in trade, finance, transport, energy, and other sectors. To make inclusive digital transformation a reality, cooperation must extend beyond the public sector and encourage collaboration with partners from international organizations, private businesses, MSMEs, civil society, and other stakeholders.
Regional cooperation offers great potential to level the field and ensure that no one is left behind in the digital economy. Regional cooperation also means sharing and learning from country experiences across the region.
There are rich lessons and inspirational stories from not just digital-focused firms, but also individuals with digital skills, who have transformed their lives and that of their families and communities waiting to be heard and shared.
Regional focused platforms such as CAREC, GMS, and RKSI, play a crucial role on this front in facilitating such cross-border knowledge exchanges and partnerships to ensure inclusive and sustainable development, and improve people’s wellbeing.
Hsiao Chink Tang is a Senior Economist and Anne Cortez is a Communication Specialist at the Asian Development Bank-PRC RKSI, a south-south development knowledge sharing platform that draws on the PRC’s experience and facilitates knowledge exchange among ADB’s developing member countries.
Brazil’s then-President Jair Bolsonaro launched the sale of shares of Eletrobras, the largest company in the electricity sector in Brazil, which will be privatized through its capitalization. CREDIT: Alan Santos/PR-Public Photos
Opinion by Victoria Barreto Vieira do Prado (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Feb 15 (IPS) – Eletrobras is Latin America’s biggest electricity company, responsible for around 30% of Brazil’s power capacity and 50% of all its transmission lines. In 2021, the Brazilian government announced it would reduce its controlling shares in this state-owned company from 72% to 10%. Given Eletrobras’ dominant role in Brazil’s power sector, this divestment in the government’s controlling shares merits a more complete understanding of the implications for Brazil’s energy transition and energy security.
This is because the law that was passed to make this happen raises important risks to the decarbonization of the country’s power sector and has the potential to increase electricity tariffs.
How the legal process that open the door for the government’s controlling stake on Eletrobras raised questions about the energy transition
The government’s dilution of its participation as Eletrobras’ major shareholder required legal approval in congress, consolidated through a law now commonly known as Eletrobras’ privatization law (Law 14.182/2021).
Given how politically charged this law is and the electoral dynamics due to looming presidential elections in the following year (2022), the government decided to fast-track this bill in congress under a mechanism known as a provisional measure (medida provisória), thus expediting its approval process. The deadline for approval of bills using this fast-track provision is of 120 days.
The bill was approved on the eve of the fast-track deadline for its approval. However, it contained over 500 amendments, many of which were unrelated to the company’s privatization.
This strategy is known as jabuti, where legislators take advantage of the provisional measure’s fast-paced characteristics to include amendments which may favor their own political interests. By adding amendments to key clauses of the bill, as was done in Eletrobras’ privatization, the likelihood of vetoing the added amendments is close to null.
While this measure gave no responsibility to Eletrobras for the deployment of this thermal capacity, it signals the government’s direction and ambition for the power sector. In addition, this amendment included a provision that the new thermal power plants had to function constantly for 70% of the time throughout the next 15 years.
Such mandatory use for thermal in the future, would result if followed through, in an expected 33% increase of greenhouse gas emissions and redraw the country’s electricity matrix which is currently one of the cleanest globally with 82.9% renewables (world average being 28.6%).
The law, as approved today, also disfavors renewable sources, currently the cheapest form of energy in Brazil, which have no additional variable costs of operation to fuel the power grid.
The new law requirements may increase installation costs by up to R$ 6.6 billon (roughly USD 1.3 billion) when compared to the prior Brazilian national energy expansion strategy and thus reflect in price increases for the end-consumer. A requirement to operate the thermal powerplants for 70% of the time has negative implications for the future development of non-hydropower renewables given that it reduces wind and solar power capacity expansion in up to 12 GW and 3.5 GW until 2030, respectively.
The law does not significantly affect hydropower capacity expansion (already projected to slow down), which would increase modestly in about 0.2 GW in the same time frame and remain responsible for one of the largest shares of the Brazilian power mix.
The impact of this build up in thermal power in Brazil
The inclusion of gas-powered plants is supposed to address energy security and support the company’s efficiency in providing reliable energy nationwide as frequent droughts threaten hydropower capacity. While understandable as an objective, as it stands, the current provisions are problematic in many fronts, not only in terms of the GHG emission implications.
According to the law’s provisions, the mandatory regions where these thermal powerplants are to be installed are mostly in water-abundant regions. Second the natural gas infrastructure is lacking. Third, additional infrastructure investments may lead to higher energy prices for the end-consumer.
Gas feeding these power plants will mostly come from Brazil’s southeast region to be transported across the country, which adds to transportation costs and emissions. Through this lens, the government-issued Ten-Year Energy Plan (PDE 2031) acknowledges the difficulty and costs of implementation due to the necessary added infrastructure requirements. The report implies that meeting the mandated targets may be challenging. This was reflected in October 2022 auctions in which 1.17 GW of additional capacity for gas-powered power plants were contracted at a price seven times higher than those bided at similar auctions in previous years.
In addition, the implementation of new powerplants would require decades of on-going operation to ensure full amortization of costs. This may lead to stranded assets as demand for cleaner sources of energies outpace fossil fuels. Although the government has claimed that part of the additional installed capacity will be used to replace existing thermal power plants (to be switched off by 2024), emissions from additional infrastructure and the 70% intermittency requirement outpace the efficiency gains from the new installations.
Even if it is in the law, will Brazil’s be able to attract capital for natural gas power plants?
While technically enforceable by the Eletrobras’ law, many questions remain on whether companies will be willing to invest in capital-intensive projects which may soon become stranded – especially when penalties for doing otherwise remain unclear.
In addition, it is unlikely that Eletrobras’ new shareholders would be on board with such a massive of buildout in thermal power plants. Singapore’s sovereign fund, GIC; Canadian pension fund, CPPIB; and, Brazilian Investment Management company, 3G Radar, each hold around 11% of Eletrobras.
All of these financial actors have shown considerable interests towards investing in the energy transition and decarbonizing their portfolios. It is thus believed that this could hinder their willingness in investing in high-cost gas power plants which require additional infrastructure investments in order to become profitable, not to mention that Brazil does not produce enough natural gas and thus might need to be imported via very expensive LNG.
Regardless, if the additional capacity of 8 GW of thermal gas power does go through, one should expect these power plants to be running for a considerably long time in order to fully amortize the investments. This could lead to a 33% emission increase which will slow down the Brazilian government’s energy transition strategy.
Lula, Brazil’s new president, has indicated that its government will revise this 8 GW mandate, an attempt to remove the 70% inflexibility requirement. Instead, the new government might make the additional power as back-up for renewable energy intermittence, diminishing the potential environmental hinderance foreseen in the law. In order to do so, a new motion would have to be approved in congress – a usually time-intensive measure. This regulatory uncertainty may in the meantime decrease energy investments and impact the pace of the energy transition.
The Eletrobras law also pushed for renewables
The Eletrobras law did promote measures which favor the energy transition. However, if all these requirements are fulfilled, they may also increase electricity prices for the end consumers.
An additional measure promotes the development of small hydropower plants, to be developed over the next 20 years. While this promotes dispatchable renewable energy and addresses the need to replace existing old hydro powerplants which would soon cease operations, it also favors the most expensive form of renewable energy available, again creating possible cost impacts for the end-consumer. The government addressed this by creating a price cap according to 2019 auction prices adjusted to inflation (R$ 314.55 / MWh). These prices remain 7.7% higher than those found in 2021 auctions.
The government also included the extension of PROINFA by 20 years. PROINFA is a governmental program established between 2002 and 2022 which created subsidies for biomass and small hydro power plants, wind, and solar farm owners in order to incentivize the production of renewable energy sources in the country.
While positive in theory, such extension would only favor previous contracts as opposed to a structural revision of the Brazilian power grid and costs of renewable technologies. Most of these investments have already been amortized and cost of technology has decreased significantly.
Its impact in promoting the energy transition therefore, can be questioned, as it is not necessarily deploying new renewable technologies, but rather favoring outdated contracts at higher costs. A more interesting alternative instead would have been to promote the expansion of new low-cost renewable energy projects through new auctions.
Final thoughts: The Mixed Outcome of Electrobras’ privatization Law
In conclusion, it is unclear what impact will Eletrobras’ privatization truly incur for the country’s energy transition. It is argued that through its privatization, the company will now be freed from bureaucracy, allowing it to speed up investments and increase its ability to invest in new (riskier) clean technologies.
However, it is important to note that the law does push for thermal gas expansion, which, if occurs, may shift and delay Brazil’s energy transition. The absence of clear penalizations and accountability makes it unclear on whether the additional capacity of 8 GW of thermal gas powerplants will indeed be adopted.
While it is unclear how much the privatization will truly impact the energy transition, increase in tariff prices may be likely. The law and the subsequent auctions since its approval, seem to favor costly renewable contracts, which will likely increase tariffs for the end-consumer. Tariff increases may also happen due to the expansion of PROINFA, promotion of small hydro power plants, and implied cost of necessary added infrastructure for thermal gas-powered plants.
Victoria Barreto Vieira do Prado is a MSc. Sustainability Management student at Columbia University. Prior to her studies, she has worked in the development of the Brazilian Voluntary Carbon Market via her work at Carbonext, and in the decarbonization strategies of major players in the Brazilian hard-to-abate sectors as a consultant
An electric bus in downtown Montevideo, Uruguay. Credit: Inés Acosta/IPS
Opinion by Brianne Watts (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Feb 10 (IPS) – Latin America’s (LATAM) transportation sector produces the largest share of regional emissions and is a large source of air pollution, making transforming transportation technology systems key to energy transition and decarbonization. In particular, electrifying public transportation systems across the region through a transition to electric bus (e-bus) fleets will reduce fossil fuel demand and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
While there are obstacles in the transition to e-buses, Latin America is well-positioned to address these challenges and take the lead in switching to zero-emissions public transit through innovative financing models, incentives, and public policy, which will contribute to reducing emissions while supporting more sustainable economic growth. Several countries and cities in Latin America are already leaders on this front and the region has innate advantages to expanding these networks.
Why Latin America Is Uniquely Poised to Benefit from Public Transit Electrification
Transforming transportation in LATAM will reduce fossil fuel use, contributing to decarbonization in the region. Unlike most of the world, the majority of Latin America’s electricity comes from renewable energy, while more than 95% of the energy used in its transport sector comes from oil and petroleum products.
Recognizing the need to change, governments across the region have taken steps to clean up the transportation sector. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 27 of the region’s countries prioritized transport, though only a handful specified renewables-based transport.
There has been a lot of focus on private electric vehicles (EVs) and raising emissions standards, but electrifying municipal bus fleets allows for less extensive infrastructure development—focusing charging infrastructure in centralized bus depots—and does not rely on consumer demand for cleaner private vehicles.
LATAM also has a history of embracing transit innovation. One report pointed to the early adoption of electric trams, cable cars to serve dense, hard to reach settlements, propane taxis, and other new transportation technology. The region has “relatively sophisticated transit authorities” and some of the developing world’s best transit systems, suggesting data collected from existing networks “can support the efficient deployment of new electric buses.”
The region is receiving support from international partnerships to expand electric bus networks. In 2019, the Zero Emission Bus Rapid-deployment Accelerator (ZEBRA) Partnership was launched, financed by P4G – Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030, and co-led by C40 and the International Council on Clean Transportation.
Falling Costs, Innovative Financing, and International Support Can Drive Investment
One of the biggest obstacles to scaling up the deployment of e-buses is the high up-front costs of units. As U.S. interest rates continue to rise and the U.S. dollar appreciates, public financing of the units will pose a risk in countries that already have large amounts of U.S. dollar-denominated debt. However, lifetime costs of units are dropping and potential economic slowdowns could increase demand for public transport, while innovative financing solutions can enable LATAM countries to transform their bus systems.
E-buses are quickly becoming a cost-effective alternative to diesel counterparts, as acquisition, operation, and maintenance costs drop, and fossil fuel prices rise. A 2021 report estimated e-buses and associated charging infrastructure have up to two- to three-times, higher up-front costs compared to diesel alternatives. However, lower-cost battery technology, efficiency improvements, and low maintenance costs have already caused the purchase price to plunge.
In the meantime, cities throughout the region are using innovative models and public-private financing arrangements to expand e-buses fleets. One popular method is “unbundling” ownership and operation.
To spur the inclusion of e-buses in Latin America’s energy transition, local and national governments need to develop and implement cross-cutting policies that incentivize this technology and enable it to thrive.
First, governments should codify goals of switching to 100% zero-emission bus fleets, following the examples of Chile and Colombia. These goals should include clear and ambitious target dates for purchasing and operating e-buses and for infrastructure improvements needed to support this transition.
Second, it is important to specify zero-emission technology (such as electric buses) in these goals, as ambiguous language like “low carbon” and “clean transport” creates loopholes allowing for fuel-efficient combustion technology. Transportation authorities also need to partner with utilities to expand charging infrastructure, ensure the grid can handle the additional load, and ensure that clean sources of electricity are used to charge the e-buses.
At the same time, governments should craft financial incentives for private bus owners and operators to switch to electric buses. The current average age of both public and private transport fleets in many LATAM countries is relatively low, increasing the risk of stranded assets. This cost, along with the upfront costs of a new electric bus, could inhibit the switch away from combustion-engine buses.
When São Paulo adopted a law to make all privately owned buses (which comprise the city’s entire bus fleet) zero-emission by 2037, many operators complained that they did not have the financial and technical resources needed to comply. They feared raising fares to pay for electric buses could hurt ridership.
Targeted subsidies, tax incentives, and insurance schemes that reduce the costs and risk of replacing higher emitting buses with e-buses will not only speed up the transition and contribute to meeting NDC targets, but will also signal the governments’ commitment to this technology.
New Opportunities for Growth
Because LATAM already leads in renewable energy use for electricity generation, transportation sector electrification is key to the energy transition. In a region known for extensive bus use, a switch to e-buses in public transportation will signal that LATAM governments are committed to furthering meaningful decarbonization.
LATAM is already home to several bus-manufacturing powerhouses, including Mexico and Brazil. Chile and Argentina are home to large lithium reserves. The region has the skills and resources to develop production capacity in electric bus manufacturing and battery manufacturing, which could create green jobs, support technological development, and strengthen regional value chains.
While cost and financing present challenges, targeted policies, public-private financing, and financial incentives can turn Latin America into a leader in public transportation electrification, reduce fossil fuel use, and present opportunities for sustainable economic development.
Brianne Watts is a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State, currently pursuing a Master of Public Administration in Economic Policy Management at Columbia University.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the U.S. Government.
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