Caribbean & Central America - September 2018 (ISSN 1741-4458)
CENTRAL AMERICA: Region must make concerted effort to reduce vulnerability to climate change
Earlier this year the Central American Integration System (Sica) announced that it was relaunching the process of re-evaluating its regional strategy on climate change (ERCC). The aim is to bring the framework in line with the objectives laid out in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2015 Paris Agreement, of which all Sica countries are now signatories, after Nicaragua finally signed the agreement late last year. The announcement once again highlighted the challenges posed by climate change which face the sub-region which, due to its geography, has always been threatened by natural hazards.
In 2015, ahead of the 21st conference of the parties (COP21), an initiative from Central American civil society pushed for the region to be recognised as especially vulnerable to climate change, a status reserved for the most at-risk areas, namely small, developing, island states and the least developed countries. The Central American isthmus is indeed frequently subjected to extreme weather events, including floods and droughts, which are exacerbated by the regular El Niño Southern Oscillation climate phenomenon. The region is also home to the arid ‘Corredor Seco’, a tropical dry forest region which runs from Mexico through to Panama and has seen an increase in periods of drought and torrential rains, affecting Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua in particular. In recent El Niño years, rainfall there has dropped by 30%-40%, with devastating effects on agriculture and food security – half of Central America’s 1.9 million smallholder farmers can be found in the Corredor Seco. However, the Central American states’ proposal never made it into the final text of the COP21, better known as the Paris Agreement.
Yet many countries in the region are amongst the most vulnerable in the world, according to the 2018 Global Climate Risk Index (CRI) developed by NGO Germanwatch. The CRI measures countries’ vulnerability to extreme weather events by taking into account human fatalities and economic loss. Honduras was the most vulnerable country in the world to extreme weather events over the period 1997-2016. Nicaragua is listed as the fourth-most vulnerable, Guatemala as 11th, and El Salvador as 16th for the same time period. Costa Rica and Panama fared better, listed as 101st and 95th respectively, although both their rankings drop when only taking into account data from 2016, going down to 25th for Costa Rica and 70th for Panama.
The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events has increased in recent years. This increase is linked with high certainty to anthropogenic climate change – that is to say, climate change due to human activity. This means that Central America must not only work towards adapting to face the risks posed by climate change, but must also mitigate its impact on the environment, despite the fact that the region accounts for less than 1% of carbon emissions globally.
The consequences of climate change are far-reaching, impacting multiple sectors of the economy and society, from agricultural production to food and water security, migration patterns to public health. Mitigation and adaptation responses must therefore fit into a wider strategy of sustainable development.
A regional approach
International bodies such as the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) emphasise the importance of a regional climate change strategy integrated within development agendas, to complement national policies. On 11 May 2018, Sica (which comprises the six Central American states as well as the Dominican Republic and Belize), announced the launch of a process of re-evaluation of the ERCC. Once updated, the new ERCC will be implemented transversally within Sica’s environmental, social, and economic agendas. Sica Secretary General Vinicio Cerezo recalled that climate change “is a profoundly human problem”, noting the impact that it has on internal security, migration patterns, and socio-economic issues.
The importance of an integrated cross-sector approach in the region has also been expressed by Julie Lennox, Chief of the Agricultural Development Unit and Focal Point for Climate Change at Eclac. Speaking in Guatemala City last October at a seminar on ‘Climate change and globalisation: challenges for Central America’, co-organised by the Central American Economic Integration System (SIECA) and a number of other independent regional entities, Lennox emphasised the urgency of the situation and the need for rapid action. While recognising that national policies have begun to include adaptation and mitigation plans, she noted that the biggest challenge was now the implementation of these policies to truly effect change.
Areas of adaptation: green infrastructure and technology
From agriculture to education, work must be done in all areas for Central America to adapt to climate change and reduce its vulnerability. One of Lennox’s recommendations related to infrastructure. Infrastructure projects in the region must be approached according to new criteria and with long-term planning in mind, she said. This means shifting towards combining traditional ‘grey’ infrastructure with innovative ‘green’ infrastructure. The World Economic Forum defines green infrastructure as “standalone and strategically networked environmental features designed for environmental, social and economic benefits”. Green infrastructure therefore fits into a wider sustainability agenda.
Examples of green infrastructure already exist in Central America, particularly relating to water management. The Latin American Water Funds Partnership, a public-private alliance, has backed the creation of water funds in Costa Rica and Guatemala, managing reservoirs in a sustainable manner and leveraging investment into green infrastructure projects. El Salvador is about to get its first green residential building, according to the local press: the Torre Limón in San Salvador, a nine-storey building with 80 square metres of solar panels, water cisterns to capture rainwater, and green areas, is due to be built by the end of 2019.
Technology is another area which nations can work on to facilitate adaptation and mitigation, and which can be integrated into green infrastructure projects such as the Torre Limón. In October 2017, UN Climate Change and the Central American Development Bank (BCIE) held a workshop on technological solutions to climate change in Panama City, attended by representatives from all Central American states. The aim was for Sica members to identify appropriate technologies for mitigation and adaptation.
Costa Rica provides the latest example of innovative use of technology in this context, with the announcement on 23 April of the launch of the Sistema Nacional de Métrica del Cambio Climático (Sinamecc – National System of Climate Change Metric). The Sinamecc software will collect information on all initiatives aiming to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – be they national, local, individual, public and private – and measure their impact. It will also provide information on compensation mechanisms and make all these data available for the local and national level, as well as different sectors. The platform fits into Costa Rica’s aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2021, as well as its commitment to the Paris Agreement.
- Global climate finance
According to a report by the Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies (Icefi) and the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos) released in June 2017, only 0.7% of global climate finance (US$211.5m) was allocated to Central America between 2003 and 2016, 6.4% of the amount allocated the whole of Latin America. The majority (63.5%) of these funds was destined to mitigation projects.