Exposing World Wide Inequalities: Latin America

Introduction

Latin America is a subcontinent formed by 20 vastly different countries. It has an extremely high biodiversity, and its nations often struggle to balance their economical needs with the wish to protect their fauna and flora. The Caribbean is a region formed by 17 countries and more than 700 islands, all present in the Caribbean sea, adjacent to Central American countries. The area is known for its paradisiacal and postcard sceneries, factors that contribute to its heavy economical dependency on tourism. Climate change severely threatens the nature and population of both Latin America and Caribbean countries.

Photographer Jack Prommel ,2022, via www.unsplash.com

History

Both Latin America and the Caribbean have a similar history of being inhabited by natives until colonization by European states. The discovery of the New Continent began in 1492 when Christopher Colombus arrived at Guanahani (now Bahamas) and claimed the Caribbean region for Spain. From that moment, an age of Western settlement and colonization of the newly-discovered land began, and countries that ended up settling in these regions included England, the Netherlands and France (and at some point also Denmark, Portugal and Sweden). After an initial stage of expansion and contrasts amongst European powers, only Portuguese and Spanish colonizers permanently settled in the continent, dividing South American territories amongst them. In all of the South and Central American and Caribbean countries every valuable resource was extracted in the colonies and returned to the kingdom’s of the settlers, giving way to a process that continuously stripped South American and Caribbean countries of their natural resources. Throughout this process the native people of these countries were constantly robbed of their cultures and forced to abide to Western standards, while the Western colonizers exploited them for their workforce. Because of this, the colonization of these countries had disastrous repercussions on the economical and social realities of these nations, which are still being felt and dealt with today.

Impact of the region

The Caribbean’s impact on climate change is minimal, emitting just around 0.3% of the world’s emissions. Latin America, however, emits 10% of global emissions, although it is important to note that it is significantly larger in size and in population. The biggest offenders are Brazil and Mexico; in 2021, Brazil was the 7th biggest polluter in the world and Mexico was the 10th. The main producers of CO2 in the area are agriculture, wood extraction, changes of soil use, transportation, electricity, industries and trash management. Recent forest fires and deforestation are also contributors. Unfortunately, the main economic activities of Latin American countries are big emitters of carbon, so the process of getting to net zero emissions has been very difficult due to the financial impact that it would have in the short term.

Photographer Dennis Schrader ,2019, via www.unsplash.com

Impact on the region

The Caribbean is possibly one of the regions that is most exposed to damages from climate change on this planet. Rising sea levels endangers the livelihoods of at least one million people that live in areas less than one vertical meter above local high tide lines. The Bahamas, for example, have 32% of land and 25% of population below 0.5 m above tide lines, putting them in serious risk. Furthermore, the increase of the risk of floods caused by climate change might jeopardize even more areas. Besides rising sea levels, tropical storms, increase of droughts, floods and landslides, heatwaves and forest fires are all a concern. South America faces similar challenges. The criminal deforestation of the forests and the general lack of care towards the natural resources all over the continent are decimating the region’s natural defenses against the effects of natural disasters. We have one example of a climate tragedy in what is happening in Rio Grande do Sul, a state in the south of Brazil:

The floods in Rio Grande do Sul

The state of Rio Grande do Sul has been suffering the consequences of its biggest natural disaster in 40 years. This is aggravated by the fact that it had already faced one of the biggest natural tragedies of its history last year.

In 2023, an extratropical cyclone caused heavy rain, strong winds and floods that affected more than 100 cities, most of them in the region of the Vale do Taquari. The government of the region declared "State of Public Calamity" amongst the thousands of people that had lost their belongings and houses and the severe damage to the economic activities of the region. There were more than 50 deaths, and more than a 1000 families affected.

Now, in 2024, the floods caused by a mix of climatic circumstances have affected more than 2 million people and forced 581 thousand to move away from their homes, a reality that promises to not only bring the discussion about “climate refugees” to a country that had never talked about them before, but to change the economic reality of an entire region. The damages have been estimated at around 2 billion dollars, not to mention the resources that are being allocated to help with the relief and the long term economic impact of having one of the wealthiest states of the country completely underwater.

While these instances may seem like they are related, they do not have as much in common as one would think at first glance. In 2023, the floods hit with a loud “bang”, kicking the door down and arriving with its obnoxious destruction. In 2024, it was not like that. There was no announcement, no unexpected villain, no single moment to pinpoint where it all went wrong. The floods in 2024 arrived quietly, politely opening the door, not wanting to alarm anyone of their presence. When people looked at the news on April 26, they knew heavy rain was coming, but Rio Grande do Sul is a rainy state. They expected the kind of rain that is a mild inconvenience to those of us that have to work and study, but a necessary part of nature’s cycle that allows the crops to grow. But then the rain came, and it stayed. It kept raining until school was canceled, until it wasn’t safe to leave the house anymore, until you could only get by using a boat, until entire buildings were submerged, until people lost all they had ever built in the cities they had lived in their whole life. It kept raining for days and months, the level of the water slowly rising until there was no hope of stopping it anymore and the only solution was to tell five hundred eighty-one thousand people that they had to pack up and leave all they knew and start again somewhere else.

Despite that, the loud guest and the overstaying one do have similarities: they both should’ve never reached the level of disaster that they caused. After all, it is not rare for cyclones to form on the coast of Rio Grande. And, of course, even if it is a rainy state, rain is meant to stop at some point. So why? Why did these fairly normal happenings end up causing such destruction?

The El Niño is an abnormal heating of the oceans that happens twice every ten years and has a duration of about eighteen months. Climate is related to the air masses that come from the ocean, so when the temperature of the ocean rises, countries are more likely to experience high temperatures and natural disasters like floods and droughts. We are currently experiencing the El Niño phenomenon. The issue is that global warming enhances the effects of the El Niño, so much that scientists are even speculating the coming of a "Super El Niño". Climate change is the one letting the guests in, and if we don’t do something about it, it will only get worse.

Conclusion

Latin America and the Caribbean are highly vulnerable areas that have very complicated relationships to climate and with the environment they live in. The delicate political and social landscape most of the continent sits on has made environmental preservation an afterthought, something to put second on the line of priorities because tackling it with ineffective and inconclusive solutions is easier than recognizing that it is that very careless approach that it gives to its natural resources that drives the main economic power of most of its nations. However, if we do not take care of what is ours, we will not have a nation to have an economy. It is urgent that action is taken to stop the criminal exploration of its assets and move towards a more positive outlook on sustainability in the region. A continent rich with indegenous heritage, the traditions and knowledge of the native people of these regions have taught us that a path where natural resources are used with sustainability in mind and minimal impact is possible, and could still be achieved.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
This is discussed further in:

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