On Monday, experts from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) revealed that, for the first time on record, global average temperatures breached the 1.5C warming limit over a 12-month period compared to the preindustrial era. The warning to humanity is clear: more than ever, the climate is in crisis.
While scientific evidence and extreme events accumulate, and the international community turns its attention to renewable energies and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Latin America and the Caribbean are embarking on a new – and, for many, belated – oil rush.
Since the Brazilian state-owned company Petrobras discovered “black gold” in deep waters in the Atlantic Ocean in the 2000s, new deposits have been found in different parts of the continent. Twenty years on, the oil money – or the expectation of making it – has been redirecting the economic strategies of countries like Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Mexico, and fuelling the dreams of young nations like Suriname and the latest global petrostate, Guyana.
This week, Southern Frontlines is publishing The Latin oil rush, a six-part series. Our reporting shows the quest for oil has mobilised 16 of the 33 countries in the region, according to the International Energy Agency, and often neglecting energy transition and environmental preservation along the way. “We’re not going to waste any opportunity to grow,” argued the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in June.
While political leaders hail the black gold as a welcome source of revenue to develop the region – following the example of developed countries throughout the 20th century – scientists and environmentalists warn of a paradox: the age of oil is also the age of extinction.
Andrei Netto, Commissioning editor, Latin America and the Caribbean |
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