With the recent adherence to the Escazú Agreement, Latin America’s great pact for nature and the first in the world that includes the protection of environmental activists, “Chile returns to the international arena,” he said in an interview with Eph the Minister of the Environment, Maisa Rojas.
Starting this Wednesday, ECLAC headquarters in Santiago de Chile will host the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties of Escazú, a treaty signed by 24 countries but ratified by only twelve and which is called to resolve the “socio-environmental conflict Rojas added.
Former President Sebastián Piñera was one of the main promoters of the treaty, but in his second term (2018-2022) he changed his mind due to pressure from mining and refused to sign it.
Instead, just a week after assuming power, the current president, Gabriel Boric, signed the accession, what a radical change of position, right?
MR: With its accession, Chile somehow returns to the international arena with a treaty in which we played a leading role in its negotiation. Chile believes in multilateralism and, in particular, in this treaty. The other great message is that we understand caring for nature as a human rights issue as well.
Why is the Escazú Agreement so important?
MR: It is a treaty on access to information, participation and justice on environmental issues. In the case of Chile, we have seen in recent years a high level of socio-environmental conflict when we have to make decisions in the territories and we firmly believe that this conflict can be resolved with more information, with greater transparency and with early anticipation or significant for all actors.
For its entry into force, the agreement needs to be ratified in Congress. In countries like Colombia or Brazil, the parliamentary process is stalled, do you fear that the same thing could happen?
MR: I hope not. It is beginning to be discussed in the Foreign Relations Commission of the Chamber of Deputies and we hope that in a couple of weeks it will reach the Environment Commission, which is where I will go to speak. I hope we have an expedited process.
CLIMATE CRISIS AND POVERTY GO HAND IN HAND
She is one of the most renowned scientists in the region, why did she decide to leave academia and make the leap to politics?
MR: The world situation is very critical and this decade is absolutely fundamental. I have gone from creating the evidence, evidence that is already very clear, to taking an active role so that we can apply that knowledge to public policies.
Boric promised during the campaign an ambitious environmental agenda and the formation of the first ecological government of Chile. How is that achieved?
MR: It’s an ambitious agenda, but it’s up to us to give it content and explain it. It is very important for countries in our region, with so many environmental but also social challenges, to explain that these two agendas go hand in hand.
We cannot solve the problem of poverty if we do not address at the same time the agenda of the climate crisis, of biodiversity, of devastation. A country that has high levels of degradation is a country that also has high levels of poverty.
Do you think the same should be done with the Environment and thus mainstream the fight against the climate crisis?
MR: Yes, definitely. I recently discovered that there are at least three ministries in Europe for Ecological Transition in Spain, France and Italy. I think that’s where we’re going. In the case of Chile, the Climate Change Law is about to be enacted, which involves almost half of the ministries and which will force mainstreaming.
“WE NEED RESILIENCE”
The convention approved last week the new definition of the State, with a first article that says that “Chile is a social and democratic State of law. Plurinational, intercultural and ecological, was it a milestone to include ecology in the primary definition of the State?
MR: Definitely. We’re all looking very carefully at what the outcome of the convention is going to be, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s going to take care of the crisis we’re in. The convention declared itself last year in climate crisis and in that sense it can be a very avant-garde constitution.
She was one of the authors of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that was published in August 2021 and that caused great global impact, do you think that the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine are displacing attention and putting in a second place the global environmental agenda?
MR: I think not. It may look like it in the media, but we must remember that these “shocks” are a small sample of what the world will be like if we do not control the increase in temperature. To deal with “shocks”, we need resilience. Europe has done it with its Green Deal and is taking advantage of the pandemic to refocus investments. The war has shown us how dangerous it is to depend only on one source of energy.
You talk about changing the model, but copper has played a fundamental role in Chile’s economic recovery and is being fundamental to face this complex world scenario. Is it possible to exploit so much copper and at the same time preserve the environment?
MR: It must, there is no other way. The crisis of degradation is so deep… We cannot continue thinking about a development that undermines our planet. A development model must be found that is not dichotomous, contradictory between caring for nature and economic development.
