Peru, host country of the 2014 UN climate conference (COP 20), faces significant obstacles that have been erected by the beneficiaries of the current global order on the road to a prosperous and just clean energy future. At a Dec. 8 meeting for international union leaders hosted by the Peruvian Labor Federation (CGTP), CGTP Vice President Juan Jose Gorritti Valle informed us that Peru is the third-most vulnerable country to climate disruption impacts (after Honduras and Bangladesh), even though it has made little contribution to the climate crisis. The Peruvian economy is dominated by transnational mining companies that take the resources from the country and leave poverty and pollution behind. Unfortunately, the government seems more interested in protecting private profit than promoting the prosperity of the people, 45 percent of whom come from one of 51 indigenous groups.
Peru has one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems, with the Andean highlands, coastal desert, and Amazon rainforest, among other subclimates.
Gorritti informed attendees of this meeting -- sponsored by Trade Unions for Energy Democracy -- that 70 percent of this Andean nation’s electricity is supplied by hydropower. Seventy percent of Lima’s industrial electricity comes from a single hydroelectric plant in an Andean region, where 70 percent of the people don’t have electricity. Lima -- with nine million people is the second largest desert city in the world -- also gets its drinking water from the Andes. If we don’t solve the climate crisis, melting glaciers related to climate disruption will have devastating consequences for both the country’s power and water supplies, especially in Lima, where half the country’s population resides. Currently, only .3 percent of the country’s electricity comes from wind, and 1.5 percent from biomass. Most of the rest comes from gas.
Mining is one of the two most dominant sectors of the economy (along with agriculture), and its growth has accelerated in the last 20 years. Only about 40 percent of Peruvian workers are employed in the formal sector of the economy. This deregulated and precarious economy extends to the mining sector, where, along with the formal mining industry (in which transnational corporations take wealth out of country legally), there is a large informal and even illegal mining industry. On the informal side of the industry, mafias exploit workers in illegal mines, including children, and traffic girls for prostitution.
One of the country’s most important social struggles is happening at Conga, a huge open pit mine controlled by the U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corporation, Peruvian Buenaventura, and the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank. The local residents are resisting the development of this mine after a bad previous experience with other U.S.-owned mining interests, which residents felt brought contamination, pollution, and no benefit to the population.
Even after the end of the Fujimori dictatorship (1990-2000), successive Peruvian governments have passed laws limiting the right to protest and granting greater power to the police and armed forces in social conflicts. As a result, although people have been resisting the Conga mine for only two years, so far 27 people have been killed.
Meanwhile, in a different dispute, Peru is being sued in the World Bank for $800 million by mining company Renco for ordering a pollution clean-up that allegedly forced the company into bankruptcy.
The Amazon region is facing indiscriminate deforestation, especially since recently passed legislation rolls back forest protections in order to attract new investment and development. In September, four indigenous anti-logging activists were murdered. The families and colleagues of the victims allege they were murdered by logging interests.
The Peruvian union leaders told us they are working hard to create links between indigenous people and urban residents. The People's Summit, which opened earlier this week, has provided an opportunity for them to build a movement across sectors and struggles.
Luis Isarra Delgado, the President of the Peruvian water workers’ union, FENTAP, told us, “Our goals are clear--we want to change the system to one that respects Mother Earth with sustainable development and jobs that are decent.”
In a telling mark of the repression of social movement leaders, the Peruvian government revoked Isarra’s union leave just before the COP20 opened. Isarra is responsible for coordinating Peru's labor movement mobilization for the Peoples Summit. His union, FENTAP, has led major national mobilizations on the right to water. They also focus on the pollution of water sources by the lucrative mining industry. The timing of this intimidation is particularly suspicious, given Luis's role in mobilizing for COP20.
You can help defend Luis Isarra by signing the petition here.