Continuing along the guidelines set forth in “Integration & Trade: a New Chapter”, this time we decided to address the topic of climate change, and more specifically, its links with economic development and international trade. This decision was based not only on the extraordinary importance attached to international negotiations in the 2009-2010 biennium to define a new post-Kyoto global scenario but also on the current greater awareness of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries on these issues. This is manifested both in the appreciation of the diversity of this phenomenon as well as in the urgency to undertake national actions and reach agreement at the regional and global levels that will facilitate mitigation to climate change and adaptation to its consequences.
Acknowledging these events, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) decided to support the countries of the region and therefore, launched in 2007, the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative (SECCI). Through this Initiative the Bank has sought to articulate climate change with its operations in different relevant fields. Thanks to two special financial funds that were set up, such coordination has increased in number and intensity, particularly since 2009. The Initiative’s activities are structured around three areas: knowledge generation, institutional strengthening and financial assistance. SECCI is currently operational in over 20 countries in the region following an incremental strategy that begins with low-cost operations with the purpose of exploring ways to achieve sustainable development mainstreaming climate change. These operations help to set the foundation for more elaborate programs and facilitate access to additional financial instruments. On the basis of the experience gained so far, the Bank is oriented to promote the articulation of financial instruments (from the public and private sectors) and of non financial tools to assist the countries in achieving enough preparedness at the institutional and technical levels and the financial capability to address climate change problems. The strategy will also be useful to guide and facilitate dialogue on these topics between the Bank, governments, civil society and the private sector.
Particularly with this purpose, the IDB, in partnership with Lord Nicholas Stern, had hosted the Conference “Development in a more hostile climate” in Washington, at the beginning of 2009. The Conference convened a group of renowned world experts from private and public sectors, civil society and international organizations to analyze three topics: first of all, the impact of the financial and economic crisis triggered in 2008 on the efforts to undertake mitigation and adaptation actions and the threats of the crisis for country development; secondly, the role of alliances between governments, the private sector and regional and international financial institutions to structure responses to specific investment challenges that developing countries face as a result of climate change; and thirdly, to give an overview and discuss the conclusions of the case studies carried out in Brazil, Mexico and Southeast Asia, following the guidelines set forth in the so-called Stern Report. The analytical value of the presentations and the interest of the information provided at the conference led us to present a brief summary of deliberations in the first section of this Journal, together with brief video clips of the main comments made at the Conference.
In the second section we have asked renowned experts to prepare four essays on the consequences of climate change, from different but supplementary viewpoints. Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz, Trineesh Biswas and Ingrid Jegou examine the links between international trade, climate change and sustainable development. After a brief historical review, they state that these links have acquired considerable importance in the current world. To illustrate this argument, they analyze the development of global institutionality in trade, vis à vis climate change, pointing out mutual interrelationships. The article concludes that present difficulties to reach a global agreement to reduce emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), create the conditions for the adoption of unilateral policies by developed countries (DDCs), under diverse taxing modalities and subsidies that would negatively affect developing countries (DGCs) in several sectors of its exports to the developed world.
Next, Grant Aldonas analyzes the consequences of climate change within the current context of global production based on an intricate network of global value chains, managed by big transnational firms. The author holds that, within this framework, decisions adopted by oversight bodies in developed countries on the standards of distribution of the carbon footprint along the value chain, will have a greater impact on costs and market access for primary producers in developing countries than trade negotiations themselves. In this sense, he points that the delay in reaching a global agreement on emissions control could be used as an opportunity to analyze the impact that mitigation measures under consideration would have on developing countries.
The essay by Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jisun Kim highlights that, although Latin America and the Caribbean holds a small share in the generation of greenhouse gases worldwide, it is one of the most vulnerable regions to the different consequences of climate change. Nonetheless, they state that the region’s countries have comparative advantages for adopting low-carbon economic growth patterns to favour an abundance of natural resources. On the other hand, they anticipate that the current international negotiations allow reading between lines that mitigation efforts to be undertaken by the region can attract international financial resources and new technologies that are essential for their development.
Finally, the article by Sandra Polónia Rios and Pedro da Motta Veiga focuses on Latin American and the Caribbean. The authors point out that country heterogeneity in the region makes vulnerability to climate change and the distribution of its impacts vary from country to country and, therefore, national agendas acknowledge different levels of urgency and balance between mitigation and adaptation actions. The authors propose the adoption of national policies that favor low-carbon production and consumption models. They also suggest that regional cooperation should be structured around thematic pillars and geographic regions sharing common issues so as to promote a greater convergence of positions to defend regional interests in global negotiations.
To illustrate the many perceptions and positions on the issue of climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean, the third section includes the opinions of a distinguished group of experts representing different regional realities. Panel members had to answer five questions: firstly, on the visible impacts of climate change and the prospects for forthcoming decades; secondly, on how national players perceive climate agenda negotiations; a third question on the evaluation and the outcomes of the Copenhagen Conference; another on the potential impact of these outcomes on the national strategy which may have to be reviewed and the possibilities to articulate regional strategies; and a fifth question on the most promissory areas for regional cooperation in future mitigation and adaptation efforts.
Participating experts were: Carolina Burle Schmidt Dubeaux (Brazil), Alieto Aldo Guadagni (Argentina), Carlos Fuller and Kenrick Leslie (Belize and the Caribbean Community, respectively), Mario Molina (Mexico) and Jorge Rodríguez Quirós (Costa Rica). In our opinion, the experts have reflected in their replies not only their academic training and knowledge but also their professional and political experience. We believe that the variety of answers will help to understand the current terms of the debate among the different geographical areas of our region.
Lastly, a section on Statistics provides the usual highligts on integration and trade figures and also several graphs and a glossary with relevant information and terms on climate change, being the selected topic for the 30th issue of Integration & Trade.
Steering Committee
Integration & Trade Journal
Contents
Climate Change in LAC