Uruguay signed in the last hours two agreements that took place at COP26, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In the first place, together with 80 countries, it joined the agreement to reduce methane gas emissions by 30% and in turn, together with 100 global leaders, it signed the agreement to “stop and reverse the loss of forests and land degradation” by the year 2030.
The Minister of Economy, Azucena Arbeleche, traveled to Glasgow to participate in the summit while the head of the Environment portfolio, Adrián Peña, will do so next week.
According to Peña told the Daily, Uruguay was “reluctant” to sign the agreement for methane gas. “On Monday of last week we had agreed with Argentina and Brazil at least not to sign the commitment. Argentina changed position, Brazil late on Tuesday as well, and it was decided“said the minister who pointed out that the reduction of this gas has a” favorable effect on the temperature in the short term “but that it disappears from the earth in a short time unlike CO2.
“We are not a large emitter of methane in global terms, the emissions that we have have to do with livestock production, which is part of the biological cycle. It is not the same as most of the methane emissions, which are actually due to loss of natural gas, something that Uruguay does not contribute at all “added the Minister of Environment.
As part of the promise to stop afforestation, meanwhile, Uruguay joined with 28 countries to a declaration of forestry, agricultural and commodity trade. Peña pointed out that Uruguay is being affected by the problems of deforestation, as a result of the advance of soybean cultivation. “Sometimes I think that we are not too aware of this: when you see the heat wave that we had last week, we are experiencing all these situations that make the national productive system and the national economy very complex.“He stated and added that in” a basically agro-industrial country, the persistence of recurrent droughts, floods, cold waves, heat waves, all these components are very harmful. “
The minister said he is preparing a decree to further regulate afforestation. “No matter how much the soil allows afforestation, if more than a certain percentage was forested in a given basin, we are going to request a study from the basin to see if we allow more afforestation or not, because it may have an impact on the sources of water courses.“, he pointed.
Cosse presented plans for Montevideo
The mayor of Montevideo, Carolina Cosse, was also present in Glasgow as vice president of Mercociudades, a network of cities that includes 10 from Mercosur. There he presented the proposals that are based on “promote unity among the different networks to access financing from international organizations, which will allow the Implementation and deepening of public policies in accordance with the global agenda“, details the website of the Municipality of Montevideo.
This proposal seeks that all donors, such as multilateral credit organizations, donate 50% to climate change adaptation plans.
On the other hand, Cosse stressed that they support the promotion of a debt swap for environmental and climate action, something that was discussed at the G-20 summit in Rome.
In the Montevideo plans, the mayor highlighted the More Green Montevideo that “includes sustainable sanitation and drainage, electric mobility, integrated waste management, energy efficiency, biodiversity and ecosystems, science-based programs” and noted that “in less than a year the number of households was multiplied by 10 doing household waste sorting“.
As part of this plan, the mayor announced that Montevideo will launch the politics Net Zero CO2 and that it is committed to achieving CO2 neutrality by the 2040s. “EThis is a very ambitious goal and structural transformations will be required to achieve that goal in such a short time. For this, Montevideo is working hard to change its energy matrix, starting from having a 95% electrical matrix“He said. In that sense, he pointed out that Montevideo has 30 units of electric buses and that it plans to acquire 100 more” in the very short term. “
