el salvador: climate change - cutting emissions, adapting to impacts
El Salvador, like so many other impoverished countries, has not contributed much to the causes of climate change. Despite this, the most vulnerable sectors of the country’s population are already suffering the impacts of this major threat. Friends of the Earth El Salvador / CESTA has placed climate change high on its agenda, believing that measures should be taken at the local, national and global level to tackle climate change.
what happened: First, FoE El Salvador defined three main goals to achieve the necessary changes in national and local policies that will allow the country to address climate change. These are: fostering and facilitating a public debate with government officials; contributing to local community empowerment; and raising the general public’s awareness, to generate a broad commitment to change.
Toward these goals, a series of actions were coordinated with various groups and institutions across El Salvador. This included three massive public forums; putting the spotlight on five key projects involving transnational corporations (TNCs); and petitions to the Ministry of the Environment, the National Parliament, and the San Salvador City Council.
The forums, which were attended by more than 600 representatives from affected communities, created a space to exchange experience and build strong links. This allowed the various communities to unite in their struggle against climate change impacts. The goal of exposing the role of TNCs took the form of national demonstrations. They were attended by more than 7,000 people, who demanded the government put and end to the construction of coal and natural gas power plants. As for the petitions, these called for new policies and actions to tackle climate change.
what is changing: The activities promoted by FoE El Salvador were welcomed by the national government’s Executive Branch. This led the President to commit to greenhouse gas emissions cuts of 17 percent in coming years, and to an initiative at the legislative level to develop a climate change policy. As a result of the project, the Ministry of Environment asked for FoE El Salvador’s technical advice, to provide details for national communications on the country’s estimated levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
Another positive result was that communities became stronger in their ability to advance their struggle for survival in the face of climate change, and built up their capacities to carry out advocacy work.
lessons learned: Building a strong regional movement to address climate change and to strengthen local communities and their struggles appears to be a key strategy. The other strategy identified as an important result from this project was the need to confront the impunity of TNCs. Confronting power structures — both political and economic — continues to be one of the greatest challenges, because these forces reject and overrule any action that might interfere with their short-term interests.
what next: FoE El Salvador is planning to work with other Friends of the Earth groups in Central America to build a “Movement of Affected Peoples.” Strengthening and building the resilience of affected communities will continue to be a key objective in future work of FoE El Salvador. As actions to tackle climate change become increasingly urgent, awareness-raising and engagement of the general public will continue in the quest for solutions. Advocacy and lobbying work at the legislative and executive levels will also remain high on the agenda.
with thanks to our funders: the sigrid rausing trust
