The challenges of climate change, more challenges for Latin America

American continent has testified this year as persistent droughts reveal the bottom of dried-up lakes and rivers, cracked soils; Raging fires have also devastated one forest after another during extreme heat waves in the western United States and Canada.

Also in Latin America, the effects of global warming are beginning to take their toll in countries such as Chile, Brazil, Argentina and parts of Peru that have had to face extreme and persistent drought, while in the tropical areas the rains have overflowed.

This October 24, the world commemorates the World Day against Climate Change, a date that calls for reflection on the impact of the phenomenon associated with the climate and the patterns of human behavior to aggravate it.

In this context, the Organization of American States (OAS) presented a report to put the situation in the region into perspective and how joint public policies should be oriented to deal with the problem.

The study Climate Change: Life, Democracy, Justice, Freedom and Equality analyzes the situation and the commitments that must be materialized in the short term in the region so that it can overcome the phenomenon that in some areas of the American continent has begun to activate migratory waves.

In others, it exposes vulnerabilities due to the accumulation of one after another disaster caused by extreme natural phenomena.

“There are countries, such as those in the Caribbean and Central America, that are in the group that suffers the most from the consequences and at the same time are the most vulnerable. If there are no special conditions, the countries of Central America and the Caribbean will come out of each shock with more vulnerabilities and less capacity to face the next one”, explains the study.

And these dynamics -according to the OAS study- are repeated on a scale in each nation among the most vulnerable population and differ from those who have more capacity to face the problem.

It is considered that among “the continuous effects of climate change in the member states of the OAS, the irreparable damage and the high cost it has had, both in human lives and in human displacement and economic destruction, stand out.”

The investigation has crossed data from other reports that have emerged in the different regions of the continent, contributions from experts who have systematized the information, and the visits that intergovernmental missions have made to evaluate the phenomenon in the face of “the serious challenges that the OAS member states are already facing.” , and the way in which they can be aggravated if the factors that cause climate change are not counteracted”, reads the document.

Red alert from the UN

When presenting the global perspectives on Climate Change this year, the United Nations Organization (UN) warned that the projections previously foreseen for 2050 have advanced two decades, so the challenge is to stop the effects before 2030.

If greenhouse gas emissions peak in three years, and then tend to fall in half by 2030, the world could breathe a little easier. Otherwise, the global population continues in an escalation of extreme climate impacts, according to the report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The consolidated report from the ONU Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Changeindicates that if urgent measures are not taken, humanity will not be able to stop the global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius foreseen in the goals of the conglomerate of nations.

This would be enough -according to the experts of the world body- to experience more forest fires, extreme droughts, storms and other climatic calamities. And to continue the Actual trends of fossil energy use, by the year 2100 there will have been a further 3.2 degrees of warming, the report indicates.

“It is now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (…) Without an immediate and deep reduction in emissions in all sectors, it will be impossible,” warned Jim Skea, co-chair of the group of experts who developed the study.

“The increase in heat waves, droughts and floods has already exceeded the tolerance thresholds of plants and animals, and has caused the mass mortality of various species, such as trees and corals. These extreme weather events occur simultaneously, generating cascading impacts that are increasingly difficult to control.

And when locating the most affected regions, the UN pointed out that the climate phenomenon has impacted millions of people who have been exposed to a “situation of food and water insecurity”, especially in Africa, Asia, Central and South America.

urgent measures

To address the problem on the fly and in the absence of specific prevention plans, the report presented by the OAS for this date calls for the creation of a window with special financing conditions and updated cooperation policies for the member countries of the organization.

“We propose that they should have a special window with special conditions in all financial institutions” since in each disaster, the situation of each country depends on the degree of exposure and vulnerabilities that reduce recovery and response capacity, he reiterates.

Experts agree that it should also create a special background to finance studies focused on the challenges of climate change for Central American and Caribbean countries.

Another proposal is to alleviate the external debt, whose weight makes it difficult for 13 countries in the Latin American region to finance prevention plans against the global phenomenon and face the destruction caused by disasters caused by extreme natural phenomena.

Above all, the OAS study also urges “initiate a campaign of greater awareness among international institutions about the serious situation in Central America, especially in the countries of the Northern Triangle, which is producing refugees as a result of the harmful effects of climate change. climate”.

The Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, said when presenting the study that humanity has previously overcome large-scale challenges and that this is an opportunity for current generations to face up to.

“The challenge that climate change presents us with, and it is imperative that we counter it. And that moral obligation is redoubled especially because the populations most affected by its effects are the most vulnerable, the most disadvantaged, those with the least capacity to protect themselves,” he pointed out.

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