The central objective of this union “seeks to give greater prominence to subnational governments in discussion spaces particularly related to the climate change agenda,” summarized the general director of Environment and Climate Change of the province, Maximiliano Gómez, in dialogue with The Between Rivers.
“Up to this point,” he reviewed, “the direct representation of Argentina in international agreements linked to this issue has been exercised exclusively by the federal government,” from which he identified as a “deficit” the fact that “the provinces do not have a more direct involvement.”
With this alliance, “we seek to build a network that allows us to have a more forceful position in the climate change agenda, which does not only imply working on the design and implementation of environmental climate policy strategies,” explained the official.
“We also intend to advance in mitigation and adaptation projects, promotion of clean and renewable energies, land use planning, strengthening risk management, conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity,” he listed.
With “own” agenda and “proactive” role
Beyond accompanying what is decided at national and international levels, “we must develop our own agenda with the implications of each territory,” said Mr. Gómez.
The current management of the Entre Ríos Environment Secretariat understands that climate change “generates a multiplicity of impacts of different types and in different orders, which necessarily requires a review and redesign of public policies in general,” he formulated as a definition.
“This not only includes environmental policies but also those related to productive development, infrastructure, the living conditions of people in their communities, risk management and civil protection, as well as access to water, energy and green spaces,” he later developed.
At this point, the general director stopped to highlight the importance of climate change as a global phenomenon, with planetary reach, “which represents a set of challenges for state policies and that is where the provinces must play a proactive role and a greater involvement with climate action.”
Meanwhile, he anticipated that the Entre Ríos government is working on a provincial climate action bill, “something that Governor Rogelio Frigerio announced at the opening of ordinary sessions, seeking to promote a mitigation and adaptation strategy, which recovers the spirit of similar initiatives from other districts and as complementary regulations to the current national law, which is on minimum budgets.”
Simultaneously, the creation of an “interministerial climate change cabinet” is promoted, a successful experience in the Nation and other provinces “that will nuclearize the transversality of the action of different public actors.” It should be remembered that the national climate change cabinet was created in 2016 and its operation remained, regardless of changes in government.
Financing
Within the 2024 agenda, they are working on what they consider one of the “shortcomings” detected so far: “The design of the development of a joint financing strategy for climate action.”
“Although there is availability of international funds for those countries, like ours, that have joined the Paris Agreement and presented their commitments and goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, many times these projects require access to certain bodies of governance that escape the direct field of action of the provinces, which makes access to these resources difficult,” Gómez described.
“We want to develop, at an interprovincial level, a joint financing device that guarantees and facilitates that the availability of these resources can be executed in our own territories,” he then announced.
At the same time, he recalled that as a province “we have an assumed commitment, which establishes that 30 percent of electrical energy must be generated sustainably by the year 2030” and noted that “we are still quite far away” from that goal.
Impact on flooding
Asked about the flooding on the coast of the Uruguay River, the head of Environment and Climate Change of Entre Ríos made his analysis.
“Unfortunately, these types of episodes of extreme climate phenomena, with negative consequences for people and property, will not only be repeated more and more in the coming years, but will increase their capacity for damage,” he predicted, based on scientific studies.
With these premises, he highlighted the importance of “articulating policies in which climate change is a transversal axis that runs through their design processes”, based on “lessons learned from other regions of the planet and other Argentine provinces, both in mitigation and with adaptation.”
“This means projecting how we are going to protect people’s lives, their property, infrastructure and production, in a context in which the planet’s temperature will continue to increase and therefore the climate will continue to behave in the way it has been doing. ”he reasoned.
