Climate Injustice in Colombia, Latin America
I just returned from a Christmas and New Year’s trip to Colombia, and I was also fortunate to have traveled there in March 2017. I have now experienced Cartagena, both the old city and the beach resort area, Santa Marta and Tayrona, doing yoga in an eco-lodge and exploring Indigenous communities, and Medellin, the great and modernized city that was once the most dangerous city in the world run by drug lords.
Located in northwestern South America, Colombia is the fourth largest country in South America and the only one with Caribbean and Pacific coasts. There are five main natural regions on the mainland: Caribbean, Andean, Pacific, Orinoquia and Amazonia. Before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in 1499, the Muisca, Quimbaya, and Tairona civilizations had great empires that rivaled the Inca, and the legend of El Dorado was built around a great lost “city of gold” erected by the Indigenous Colombians. The real riches were in a truly advanced culture, and some traditional wisdom and practices have been preserved.
How is climate change affecting Colombia? Climate injustice is a fundamental fact of many people’s lives in Colombia — in a country plagued by the colonial legacy of racial injustice, where being fully or partly black or Indigenous often came with social stigma and limited legal rights, it is clear that those with closer ties to Spain are still dominant. Poverty is the biggest polluter, as is lack of access to education and resources, and those living in poor farming communities, often non-whites, are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change pollution even though they themselves produce very few greenhouse gas emissions.
Although I am conversational in Spanish and can maneuver deftly through the streets, especially flanked by my MBA classmates, many Indigenous peoples do not speak Spanish, are not integrated into modern society, and have few opportunities for upward mobility. Their incredible arts and crafts as well as traditional medicines, including Ayahuasca, are being sold for shockingly low prices, furthering the exploitation of these communities.
Colombia has traditionally been one of Latin America’s most unequal countries with the highest poverty and inequality rates in the region. With a population of nearly 46 million people, about 68 percent of the labor force works in the service sector, contributing to about 53 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Industry, including oil exports, accounts for approximately 38 percent of the GDP. Approximately half of Colombia’s citizens live below the poverty line and numerous rural municipalities are isolated by poor infrastructure and fragile institutions. Inequality, underemployment, drug trafficking, and inadequate infrastructure are the greatest challenges to sustained economic expansion in Colombia.
Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Luis Gilberto Murillo has said that close to 12 million people are vulnerable to climate change impacts. 500 municipalities are constantly in medium or high alert for flood and landslide risks.
Colombia experiences on average 2.97 disasters per year — floods and landslides accounted for a third of these between 1970–1999, which is one of the highest disaster rates in Latin America. Heavy rains have endangered residents in dozens of towns and cities, especially in neighborhoods of makeshift construction on deforested slopes of the Andes mountains. At-risk cities in the Andean country, which has a population of 49 million, are typically located along riverbeds or in mountainous areas. Deadly avalanches and flooding in the cities of Mocoa and Manizales killed 330 people in April 2017.
Colombia has reduced annual deforestation to 124,000 hectares from 282,000 hectares in 2010 and hopes to take the level below 100,000 hectares next year, Murillo said. Some deforestation is caused by ranchers and farmers looking to expand arable land. Illegal logging, gold mining and the cultivation of coca, the base ingredient for cocaine, also contribute.
Big data may provide some solutions. Latin American researchers at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture based in Cali just received the prestigious Momentum for Change Award from UNFCCC COP-23 for creating predictions using data to help boost farmer yields and battle climate change. The researchers developed online systems to capture crop and climate information. They then used modelling, climate forecasting, and analysis techniques to make recommendations for individual farmers on the best crops to grow and when to plant them.
Colombia has its work cut out for it in implementing a national climate mitigation and adaptation plan, and the tourists that enjoy the nightlife, incredible salsa dancing, tasty seafood preparations, and gorgeous beaches and mountains should also think about who should pay for climate adaptation in Colombia. It is certainly the Global North countries that are responsible for the bulk of climate emissions and the legacies of colonialism, as well as for transferring technologies and financial resources to this great country to facilitate its sustainable development. I believe Colombia will build the resilience needed to transform its society.
