Die Reaktionen auf Rafael
Correas Entscheidung, das höchst innovative Yasuní-ITT-Projekt
Die Reaktionen auf Rafael
Correas Entscheidung, das höchst innovative Yasuní-ITT-Projekt
Joan Martínez-Alier: As
it was expected since February 2013 when president Correa won again the
presidency of Ecuador, and even before given his track record since
2009 of internally boycotting the Yasuní ITT initiative, oil drilling
has been announced in the ITT fields (Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini)
inside the Yasuní National Park in Ecuador. There is oil extraction in
blocks 16 and 31 inside the Park already. The ITT is the last one to
fall (depending now on the popular reaction in Ecuador and around the
world).
Correa
on 15th August blamed the rest of the world for not providing funds
amounting to 3.6 billion dollars over 12 years (and therefore about one
billion for the first three years) since the Trust Fund under UNDP
auspices was formed on 3rd August 2010.
True,
some foreigners (and particularly minister of
cooperation Dirk Niebel from Germany) bear a part of the blame.Norway
and its Oil Fund (swimming in oil money) refused to help. The proposal
was for Ecuador to renounce to extraction of about 850 million barrels
of oil (about 9 days of world extraction), preserve unparalled
biodiversity, preserve the rights of local indigenous peoples and avoid
carbon emissions of about 410 million tons of CO2. Ecuador asked for
about half the forgone revenues of over 7 billion USD at present value.
Hence the figure of 3.6 billion USD for outside contribution, under
principles of co-responsability.
Up
to now, the money collected amounts only to tens
of million dollars in actual fact, plus formal promises of about 300
million, which is not bad. Correa now stated solemnly last week in
Quito, “we have waited long enough”, “the world has failed us”, we need
the oil to fight poverty, no damage will be done to the environment, the
oil in ITT is worth nearly 20 billion dollars at present value and a
few other lies. He dismissed art. 71 of the 2008 Constitution of Ecuador
giving rights to nature. In fact, Correa has failed the world.
It
is well known that the president Correa himself never liked the
proposal, that came from environmental groups like Acción Ecológica and
others
in Ecuador and from Alberto Acosta, when he was minister for energy and mines in 2007. True, Correa has sometimesspoken eloquently in favour of the Yasuní ITT Initiative.
But
in practice in December 2009 he boycotted the signature of the MoU for
the Trust Fund with UNDP, he did not go to the COP in Copenhagen himself
where this signature was to take place in front of the world press, he
then forced the resignation of the competent Ecuadorian team (Roque
Sevilla, Yolanda Kakabadse) and his own minister for foreign relations,
ecological economist Fander Falconí.
Later,
in August 2010, when the Trust Fund was
finally set up, he did not appear at the signature of the agreement
with UNDP in Quito, he merely sent his vicepresident. In the meantime
since 2010 feeble attempts have been made by a second rate team in Quito
to collect some funds from abroad, while preparations in situ for
drilling in Tiputini were increasingly obvious for all to see.
Now,
the only hope that remains is the reaction from the people of Ecuador.
The Yasuní ITT has been very popular inside the country. Fander Falconí,
who rejoined the government in 2011, has resigned again. It remains to
be seen whether there are any other resignations from ministers from
Alianza
PAIS, Correa’s party. We know that concentration of CO2 in the world is
reaching 401 ppm, that nothing or too little is being done by the world
political and economic powers against climate change, that the Amazon
is being deforested in all the frontiers in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru,
Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela…
The
Amazon is one
of the worst places in the world to drill for oil. There is danger to
the lives of indigenous peoples. The ITT oil is of bad quality, heavy
oil, and it will produce terrible pollution locally while, when burnt in
the importing countries, it will of course produce CO2.
Nnimmo
Bassey: The excuse of the president that the world failed
Ecuador is weak and lame. He failed the peoples of Ecuador and the
world. This act brings to the fore the critical struggle that we must
wage around the world to ensure that elected officials do not usurp our
sovereignty after being sworn into office. And the protests that greeted
the announcement is a sign that the people of Ecuador are clear about
the fact that the decision to allow the assault on Yasuní ITT is not
with the consent of the people. Of course the people of Ecuador have not
forgotten the tragedy of oil extraction as exemplified by the mess that
Texaco
(Chevron) left there. How would they forget when Chevron has shrugged
off
the fines that the court in Ecuador slammed on them for their massive
environmental misbehaviour?
President
Correa is aware of the unwillingness of the oil companies to respect
the rights of the peoples and the environment and yet he is set to open
up the remaining tracts of the pristine environment in his country. A
basic problem of the Yasuní ITT proposal was that it was hinged on
donations of cash in exchange of not extracting the crude. We agree it
was the best option for our environmental activist friends to push the
idea of leaving the oil in the soil. The climate crisis is intensified
by the use of fossil fuels, chief of which
is crude oil. A critical step towards fighting global warming requires
an urgent transition from dependence on fossil fuels. Rather than take
that necessary step, political leaders, oil companies and financial
speculators keep pushing for more crude oil fields – whether it is in
the Arctic, in fragile ecosystems in Africa or in the Amazon.
As
oil fields diminish the race for the bottom of barrel is intensifying
and telling capital to respect the environment and the people is like
asking Shylock not to demand his pound of flesh. Oil in Yasuní ITT must
be left in the soil, not because monies were not donated in exchange for
50% of
the value of the crude, it must be left untapped for the reason of
safeguarding the environment of the uncontacted peoples of who live
there, to tackle global warming and generally to preserve the rich
biodiversity in the area. Life is more valuable than crude oil.
No
one can buy the planet and all she has to offer. All who value the
planet, no matter where we are located, must defend Yasuní ITT. The
Ecuadorian constitution recognizes the right of nature. Let us tell
President Correa that opening up Yasuní ITT to the claws of the oil
predators is a blatant abuse of nature and her rights.
Patrick Bond: There
are plenty of enemies of the progressive Yasuní initiative. Everyone
has a different political spin on this, but mine is that there should be
appropriate “climate debt” payments from excessive greenhouse gas
emitters to both those suffering climate loss&damage (“polluters
pay” – preferably via an arrangement such as the Basic Income Grant in
those geographic areas affected so that the funding doesn’t go to elite
politicians, multinational corporations and dubious aid agencies/NGOs as
is currently on track in the Green Climate Fund), and Southern
countries’ governments and directly-affected peoples (e.g. Niger Delta
residents) to “leave the oil under the soil, coal in the hole, tarsand
in the land, fracking shale gas under the grass,” etc.
Both
those kinds of payments are central to climate justice, in my view, and
with a Namibian Basic Income Grant pilot and
Yasuni-as-ecodebt-downpayment, it seemed to me that the stage was set
for a coming battle on how the promised $100 bn/year for the GCF might
be better allocated. The film “The Bill” sets the German challenge
nicely:
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