This year too we have been preparing for the COP. The 25th is due to be held in Santiago de Chile from 2 to 13 December 2019 and we plan to cycle from there to Brazil via Bolivia. Brazil was originally supposed to host the event, but the year before (following the election of climate sceptic Jair Bolsonaro as president) it announced - a few days before the start of COP24 in Katowice - that it was withdrawing its bid to host it.
For us, this will be an opportunity to report on each of these three Latin American countries. In Chile, we plan to document the serious drought problems affecting the centre and north of the country, then go to Bolivia before heading to Brazil: to discover the Andean Altiplano, the Amazonian forest (passing through the areas that burned in September this year and whose images were shown around the world), to try to photograph the large cattle farms and the immense Brazilian soya plantations...
To withstand the humidity of the Amazon we equip ourselves accordingly: a new waterproof tent with a full mosquito net and a new waterproof camera body (tropicalised). Unfortunately, the evening we bought the latter, the news came: the COP25 was cancelled in Chile!
In Chile, the social crisis that began on 18 October was worsening (riots, fires, some twenty deaths) (1), and President Sebastián Piñera preferred to cancel rather than maintain the hosting of 25,000 people (including heads of state and government, ministers, delegates and representatives of civil society). Several days after the United Nations had hesitated between cancelling it or holding it in Bonn - Costa Rica was also mentioned - (2) it was announced that Spain, through its Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, was offering to host the World Summit on Climate Change. The Summit will therefore finally be moved to Madrid.
What is to be done? Preparations for Latin America have ruined us. How can we now spend two weeks in Spain when we can't even afford the train fare to get there... That's where the warm proposal from our former Spanish neighbours and friends who recently returned to Madrid comes in. Many thanks to Hectoras, Marta and Paco, the cousin who is going to put us up in his artist's studio. The attractive bus fares of less than 10 euros!!! help us to get there.
In Spain, in 2006 -2007, we had worked on the theme of immigration and intensive agriculture (see our report "The garden of Europe or the third world"). This country is also suffering from climate change, and like Chile, it has been hit hard by drought. The geographical displacement of the COP25, one month before the scheduled date, prevented many participants from attending (3), including the peoples of Latin America. Their presence was nevertheless quite visible, for example during the Climate March (whose slogan was "The world has woken up to the climate emergency") where they were at the head of the procession (4) which gathered 500,000 people (20,000 according to the prefecture) on Friday 6 December. On the banners they were able to denounce what is happening in Chile (problems with pensions, education, water which is privatised there) and which has generated the social, political, economic, moral and also environmental crisis (5) which has been responded to by police repression with deaths, torture, rapes, eye gouging. (6)
December 6 is also the date of the launch of the Social Summit for the Climate (Cumbre Social por el Clima) organised by Indigenous Peoples and more than a hundred associations. In parallel to the COP, (as with the Climate March) this counter-summit is being held simultaneously here and in Santiago de Chile, where it has been maintained. It is an opportunity to meet (in the city centre at the UGT and at the Complutense University of Madrid where their conferences are held) to exchange and continue their struggle (Minga Indígena) to defend their knowledge and their territories and to bear witness to the violence they suffer: murders and disappearances due to intensive agriculture and extractivism.
This year's COP was named COP Blue because Chile wanted to highlight the role of the oceans. As heat and carbon sinks, they are also suffering from "the increase in temperature [...] such that it leads to a rise in sea level, acidification of the oceans, with irreversible effects on biodiversity. " (7)
"After a year marked by climate disasters on all fronts, the vibrant appeals of millions of young people who took to the streets behind the young Swede Greta Thunberg, and increasingly chilling scientific reports, the 200 or so signatories to the Paris Agreement were under unprecedented pressure for this COP25 [...]. "(8) Among other things, the rules for implementing the Paris Agreement before it comes into force next year are to be set, namely how to limit global warming to below 2°C or even 1.5°C. These commitments will undoubtedly require a significant reduction in the use of fossil fuels. Indeed, since 2015, global greenhouse gas emissions have increased by a further 4%. (9)
During these two weeks of meetings "[t]he whole exchange was met with systematic obstruction from the United States, which will leave the Paris Agreement in November 2020 [according to the will of President Donald Trump], Australia, Saudi Arabia and especially Brazil [...]. "(10) ""The main actors from whom progress was hoped for did not meet expectations," said Laurence Tubiana, architect of the Paris Agreement, noting, however, that the alliance of island states, Europeans, Africans and Latin Americans, had made it possible to "wrest the least bad result possible, against the will of the major polluters [...]"". (11)
Despite the 2-day extension of the summit, it was impossible for the representatives of the 196 countries to agree. "The Madrid conference failed to reach agreement on the rules for international carbon markets* [...]. "(11) "given the failure to reach consensus on a text that includes strong social and environmental safeguards, prohibits double counting and respects human rights." "I am disappointed with the outcome of COP25," [UN Secretary General] Antonio Guterres said in a statement. "The international community has lost an important opportunity to demonstrate greater ambition on mitigation (greenhouse gas emission reductions), adaptation and financing of the climate crisis," he insisted. "We must not give up, and I will not give up"[...]" (8)
"The only good news came from Brussels, with the EU summit "endorsing" the EU's climate neutrality target by 2050. (12) For the Director General of the European Climate Foundation (ECF): "[...] Europe's Green New Deal gives me hope that Europe will resume a leading role in these discussions," hopes Ms Tubiana, who believes that this COP has made some important advances. In the text there is a recognition of science at all levels, especially the IPCC reports, something that has been very difficult to include in previous COPs. " (13)
"The British, who have been officially appointed to host COP26, have promised to do everything possible to make Glasgow a success. "Claire O'Neill, who will chair the conference, was reassuring on Friday: "The Prime Minister spoke of our legal commitment to carbon neutrality (...) this will be our number one global priority next year" [...]" (12)
"Greta Thunberg has already warned that this year of preparation will come under pressure from the street. "The science is clear, but the science is ignored. Whatever happens, we will not give up. We are just getting started," she said on Twitter. " (8)
On our side, after COP25, we still went to Chile on 10 January to make the reports that you can see on our website.
* According to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, a country that emits a lot of CO2 can buy emission reductions in another country that emits little.
Internet links, consulted on 14 February 2021:
(1) https://www.la-croix.com/Monde/Chili-manifestants-prennent-assaut-grand-centre-commercial-Santiago-2019-11-28-1301063168
(2) https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2019/10/30/secoue-par-une-violente-crise-sociale-le-chili-renonce-a-organiser-la-cop25_6017460_3244.html
(3) https://www.ouest-france.fr/europe/espagne/madrid/cop25-madrid-dans-une-course-contre-la-montre-pour-organiser-l-evenement-6620279
(4) https://cumbresocialclima.net/marcha-por-el-clima/
(5) https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2019/10/28/la-protestation-collective-au-chili-fait-echo-a-une-actualite-sociale-planetaire_6017131_3232.html
(6) https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/12/13/torture-mauvais-traitements-viols-l-onu-denonce-la-repression-des-manifestations-au-chili_6022786_3210.html
(7) https://www.lenergietoutcompris.fr/actualites-conseils/quels-sont-les-enjeux-de-la-cop-25-au-chili-48659
(8) https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/nature-environnement/climat/la-cop25-a-rate-une-occasion-importante_139885
(9) https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/cultures-monde/climat-des-mots-aux-actes-14-cop-25-dernieres-negociations-avant-engagements-1
(10) https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1434359/conference-changement-climatique-cop-25-desaccord-marche-carbone
(11) https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/transitions-ecologiques/la-cop25-adopte-un-accord-a-minima-loin-de-l-urgence-climatique-835456.html
(12) https://www.ouest-france.fr/environnement/climat/cop25-les-discussions-poursuivies-au-bout-de-la-nuit-loin-de-l-urgence-climatique-6653428
(13) https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/nature-environnement/climat/cop25-a-madrid-la-cop-de-tous-les-echecs_139896
This year too we have been preparing for the COP. The 25th is due to be held in Santiago de Chile from 2 to 13 December 2019 and we plan to cycle from there to Brazil via Bolivia. Brazil was originally supposed to host the event, but the year before (following the election of climate sceptic Jair Bolsonaro as president) it announced - a few days before the start of COP24 in Katowice - that it was withdrawing its bid to host it.
For us, this will be an opportunity to report on each of these three Latin American countries. In Chile, we plan to document the serious drought problems affecting the centre and north of the country, then go to Bolivia before heading to Brazil: to discover the Andean Altiplano, the Amazonian forest (passing through the areas that burned in September this year and whose images were shown around the world), to try to photograph the large cattle farms and the immense Brazilian soya plantations...
To withstand the humidity of the Amazon we equip ourselves accordingly: a new waterproof tent with a full mosquito net and a new waterproof camera body (tropicalised). Unfortunately, the evening we bought the latter, the news came: the COP25 was cancelled in Chile!
In Chile, the social crisis that began on 18 October was worsening (riots, fires, some twenty deaths) (1), and President Sebastián Piñera preferred to cancel rather than maintain the hosting of 25,000 people (including heads of state and government, ministers, delegates and representatives of civil society). Several days after the United Nations had hesitated between cancelling it or holding it in Bonn - Costa Rica was also mentioned - (2) it was announced that Spain, through its Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, was offering to host the World Summit on Climate Change. The Summit will therefore finally be moved to Madrid.