Britain's Prime Minister Cameron stands with other leaders during the family photo session of the G20 Summit in Seoul (Courtesy Reuters).
2012 will be a year to watch Latin America’s rising role on the multilateral stage. The hints of Latin America’s growing stature were already there in 2011. In November, International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Christine Lagarde toured the region, meeting with Brazil, Mexico and Peru to ask for help (and extra funds) to stabilize Europe and the eurozone. But 2012 will be the real stage, as both Mexico and Brazil – the region’s largest economies – take the reins.
The first stage will showcase Mexico’s role at the helm of the G20. Its year of leadership will culminate in the annual summit to be held in Los Cabos in June 2012. Given the eurozone crisis, fights over currency valuations, and volatile financial markets, the path will be choppy at best. Mexico ambitiously wants the issues of the structure of international financial regimes, food security and financial inclusion all on the table, with the goal of transforming, at least somewhat, the role and mandate of this vital multilateral institution for the future.
The second major event will be the 2012 Earth Summit to be held in Rio De Janeiro (just one day after the Group of Twenty meet). It commemorates the first groundbreaking 1992 Earth Summit (also in Rio), where the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted, and which still forms the basis of the global climate change regime today. But the Brazilians hope for more — to push forward with international negotiations, perhaps even setting the agenda for the next twenty years. There are real doubts as to what can actually be achieved (particularly given what little happened in Durban, South Africa, which hosted the last UNFCCC negotiation late last November). But, whatever the odds stacked against it, Brazil will be at the fore, burnishing both its environmental credentials as well as its aspirations for global leadership.
Neither climate change nor world financial stability are easy sells today. But both depend on multilateral actions. And whether progress is made in 2012 will very much depend on the leadership of Latin America.
Published in conjunction with Latin America’s Moment at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Strips of deforested land in the Brazilian Amazon (Rickey Rogers / Courtesy Reuters).
I attended a small conference a year and a half ago in Rio de Janeiro during which one of the panels focused on climate change. With one of the cleanest energy matrices around (nearly 50 percent of its energy comes from clean and renewable sources) Brazil has certainly earned its green bona fides and leadership position in world climate change talks. Alluding to Brazil’s historical leadership, they talked mostly of Brazil’s future, and its pledge – one of the first emerging economies to do so – to voluntarily reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 38% of business-as-usual amounts by 2020. In practical terms, this means attacking deforestation, which is responsible for some 70 percent of Brazil’s emissions today. The country’s 2008 National Plan on Climate Change pledges to cut deforestation by half by 2020.
During the conference the intense optimism of the Brazilians on their ability to reverse and reduce deforestation – and with it climate change – struck me. Granted, in 2009 the figures were impressive: a 45 percent drop in forests lost, the lowest level in over two decades. Yet the declines coincided with falling commodity prices, easing the economic pressures to expand Brazil’s farms and ranches into the Amazon. One had to ask if commodity prices – particularly those for soya and beef – rise again, would Brazil be able to maintain its ambitious preservation plans? The Brazilian experts responded that Brazil’s government could in fact enforce the laws, whatever the countervailing financial incentives.
In their certainty about the efficacy of the state, it seems they were right. Government monitoring and enforcement has improved – so much so that Brazil’s agricultural interests have launched a full court press to change the laws. Under the current law, known as the Forest Code, farmers in the Amazon must keep 80% of their land forested. The new legislation will exempt small-scale landowners from having to replant deforested land and grant amnesty to farmers who illegally deforested land before July 2008. Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies approved the bill last week, and the Senate should pass it soon. President Dilma Rousseff has come out against the amnesty provisions (threatening a veto), but hasn’t condemned the overall idea of opening up more forest for tilling and grazing
This showdown between Brazil’s agricultural lobby and the environmentalists is revealing in many ways, but perhaps most about the effectiveness of the government itself. Brazil’s ranchers and farmers see the need to change rather than just skirt the law (though unlawfulness in the Amazon does continue, heartbreakingly witnessed in the recent murders of forest conservation activist José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, his wife, and a witness to the murders). As the politics unfold, hanging in the balance is the world’s largest forest – the Amazon – and perhaps the future of climate change.
Published in conjunction with Latin America’s Moment at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Steep economic decline, rising public insecurity, and the resurgence of swine flu threaten North America today. As U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper head to Guadalajara, Mexico to meet with President Felipe Calderon, the agenda looks quite difficult. Add to this the equivocal support within the U.S. government for free trade, and the outlook for this summit looks grim. Yet now more than ever we need to appreciate the real lessons of NAFTA, and focus on our own neighborhood. All three countries will benefit from working together rather than moving apart.
Often maligned in all three countries, NAFTA has, on balance, benefited the region. By creating one of the largest trading blocks in the world, this trade agreement not only tripled regional trade and generated an estimated 40 million new jobs during its first fifteen years, but also helped spur similar agreements world wide. Even as economic recession frightens North American citizens, it is precisely the growth of free trade that will be the basis for economic recovery in all three countries. All efforts should be made to support its progress, resolve underlying disputes, and limit the barriers to economic integration.
Security too is a growing concern for all three North American leaders. While bloodshed so far has been concentrated in Mexico, Canadian and American citizens have also been caught up in the violence and the reach of organized crime and drug networks is apparent throughout the region. President Calderon has made a commitment to radically reduce the power of the drug cartels, but no unilateral solution is possible. The Guadalajara summit provides an opportunity to think creatively about cooperative action to address Mexico’s current challenge. Canada, as well as its NGOs , academic, and corporate communities , has a significant history of supporting democratization processes, fighting crime and corruption, and building institutions in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Lessons learned there could be helpful in dealing with similar issues on a much larger scale in its North American partnerships.
The most vivid recent example of the indelible ties between the North American nations – and the real benefits gained from close cooperation – occurred this last April with the discovery of the H1N1 virus. The spread of this flu respected no boundaries. Luckily, the response too crossed borders. With the initial cases found in Mexico, Canadian scientists first cracked the genetic makeup of the virus. As the virus spread, Canada and the United States sent epidemiologists to Mexico, who worked side by side investigating and controlling the outbreak. The three nations continue to share all data on the virus and its development in an unprecedented manner, and should use this moment to prepare together for the possible return of H1N1 this fall.
Joint programs and collaborative action to address climate change, environmental degradation, and renewable energy initiatives will make faster and deeper progress than individual activity in these areas. Mexico and the US announced in April a bilateral framework on clean energy and climate change. In July Canada announced that it will match US restrictions on greenhouse emissions. Just as NAFTA served as a catalyst for other extensive trade agreements, the US, Canada and Mexico should set the standard for regional cooperation on the global issues of climate change, cooperation in developing renewable energy technologies, and controlling carbon emissions.
Perhaps as important as the substance of trilateral relations going forward is the process. North American summits have suffered in recent years from the perception of exclusivity. As President Obama has done in other realms, it is time to open the process to a broad array of citizens, non-governmental organizations, labor unions, and private sector organizations. The recent Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago gave a strong voice and platform to these groups, as many leaders and their ministers attended a wide variety of events and discussions on regional initiatives with presentations from aboriginal groups, a youth forum, and a regional business forum in addition to the formal plenary summit sessions. A more inclusive process would provide both a broader set of ideas and solutions, as well as greater support for summit outcomes.
As the three leaders head to their summit, they face significant tasks. Yet this is a time to take on the many challenging issues ahead, addressing issues concerning the environment, labor, and energy, and expanding on issues of most pressing concern to all three countries – economic recovery and security most importantly. The intertwining of peoples, businesses, and communities has brought these populations together; it is time the governments caught up. This Trilateral Summit presents an ideal opportunity to start this process.
Co-Authored with Jennifer A. Jeffs, Acting President of the Canadian International Council, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation
