Project
Combating Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs)
You encounter them every day: soot from auto exhaust and burning wood (black carbon), gases that make refrigerators and air conditioners cool (hydrofluorocarbons), natural gas that makes your stove work (methane), and ground-level ozone formed by sunlight and fossil-fuel emissions. Short-live climate pollutants are all around us. And controlling them holds great potential in the fight against climate change.
Short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) are so named because they last a relatively short time in the atmosphere, from a few days to a few decades. In contrast, carbon dioxide (CO2) can last centuries. Yet they’re a major contributor to climate change, degrade air quality, and have grave impacts on food security and the health of the world’s most vulnerable populations.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, SLCPs are responsible for more than 30 percent of global warming (more recent studies estimate their contribute to be as high as 45 percent).
Effective control of SLCPs could create significant progress in the near-term fight against climate change, buying time to implement long-term solutions. It could also mean better air quality, a reduction in premature deaths from respiratory and heart disease, and improved crop yields.
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Civil society urges World Bank to withdraw funding from Colombian mining project
Organizations argue that the International Finance Corporation invested in a gold mine without taking into account potential environmental impacts, thereby failing to comply with its own investment standards. The proposed mine threatens Colombia’s Santurbán Páramo, a high-Andean ecosystem that provides water to millions of people. Washington, DC. A coalition of civil society organizations met at World Bank headquarters yesterday to demand that the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, withdraw its investment in the Angostura mine. The proposed gold-mining project would be located in Colombia’s Santurbán Páramo, a high-Andean ecosystem that supplies drinking water to more than two million people. The organizations also delivered a petition, signed by thousands of people from throughout the Americas, calling on IFC to withdraw its investment immediately. To present their demand, the organizations met with representatives of the IFC. They are also meeting with members of Congress and representatives of the US Department of State to discuss the situation in the Santurbán páramo and the risks its defenders face. The Committee for the Defense of Water and Páramo of Santurbán led the coalition, with support from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), the Interamerican Association of Environmental Defense (AIDA), the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), and Mining Watch Canada. The demand presented yesterday tops off an important year in the fight to defend Santurbán. In March, the Canadian company developing the mine, Eco Oro, announced its intention to file an international arbitration suit against the Colombian government. In February Colombia’s Constitutional Court issued a ruling that bans all oil, mining, and gas operations in the country’s páramos. In August, an independent investigation undertaken by IFC’s internal watchdog, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, found that the investment in Angostura did not take into account the project’s potential environmental impacts, thus failing to comply with IFC’s own investment standards. The investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by the Committee and supported by the international organizations.
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The Green Climate Fund: Summary of Decisions of the Board of Directors (in Spanish)
This report offers an overview of the development, evolution and current state of the Green Climate Fund. It includes a summary of the decisions made thus far by the Board of Directors. It also highlights the progress made by the Fund, and the challenges it must overcome in order to achieve its objectives. In 2010, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change created the Green Climate Fund with the goal of contributing significantly and ambitiously to the goals set by the international community to combat climate change. The Fund will be the primary mechanism through which developing nations receive financial resources from developed nations to undertake adaptation and mitigation activites that will help them confront extreme changes in climate. The Latin America nations that are members of the Convention will be beneficiaries of the financing. That’s why a clear understanding of the objectives and operation of this institution can contribute to better use of these resources in the region. Download the report (in Spanish)
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Peru begins testing La Oroya residents affected by toxic pollution
In May 2016, the IACHR required the Peruvian State to protect the life and integrity of 14 additional people affected by the heavy pollution of La Oroya’s metal smelter. Just last week, medical examinations began to evaluate the levels of heavy metals in the beneficiaries. La Oroya, Peru. Last week 7 residents of the city of La Oroya were tested for concentrations of heavy metals in their bodies resulting from long exposure to toxic air pollution from the local metal smelter. The tests come five months after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) requested that the State extends precautionary measures granted in 2007, increasing the number of beneficiaries from 65 to 79. In May, the Commission urged the State to take necessary measures to protect the life and personal integrity of the 14 additional residents of La Oroya. The measures include “conducting the necessary medical assessments to determine the levels of lead, cadmium and arsenic in the blood in order to provide medical attention in accordance with applicable international standards.” Following pressure from civil society organizations, medical evaluations were finally completed on seven of the new beneficiaries. In addition to testing for heavy metals, evaluations were also made in the areas of nutrition, dentistry, psychology, internal medicine, pulmonology and gastroenterology. The results should be processed by the Center for Occupational Health and Environmental Protection and delivered to the beneficiaries in a period of no more than 45 days. The Ministry of Health promised that those who require medical treatment will be attended to by specialists in Huancayo or Lima, as the Health Center of La Oroya doesn’t have the capacity to do so. The government also promised a new date for the measurement and evaluation of beneficiaries who couldn’t attend the first set of exams. On behalf of the organizations representing the victims, we hope this is the first step towards full compliance with the precautionary measures requested by the Commission. The measures request not only testing, but also specialized medical treatment and appropriate follow-up with each of the beneficiaries—those included in the original 2007 measures, whose protection remains in force, as well as those included in the extension granted this year. “Despite the fact that the precautionary measures were issued nearly 10 years ago—calling for urgent actions to protect the health of beneficiaries—they have not yet been fully implemented. For years the health problems of the beneficiaries have not been properly cared for,” said Christian Huaylinos, attorney with the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos (APRODEH). The State must urgently address the condition of health services in La Oroya. The local health center is operating in a state of crisis, in a place that has been declared uninhabitable by the National Institute of Civil Defense. It has only five doctors for 66,000 people in La Oroya and in the surrounding Yauli province. “La Oroya’s structural problems with health and the environment must be solved urgently,” said María José Veramendi Villa, attorney with the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense. “The Commission must immediately issue its final report on this case, which was first presented nearly a decade ago. The victims have been waiting all this time for justice. If the State is truly committed to the people of La Oroya, that commitment must be shown through full compliance with the eventual recommendations of the Commission.”
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