Susana Muhamad, environment minister of Colombia, speaks to The Associated press at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. Credit: AP/Peter Dejong
But his mission to leave fossil fuels behind has faced criticism.
Tomas Gonzalez, a former Colombia energy minister from the Conservative Party who now directs the Bogota-based Regional Center for Energy Studies, called Petro’s approach “very radical”.
“As long as there is demand someone will meet it, so restricting Colombian production doesn’t reduce emissions globally,” Gonzalez said. “But for Colombia, it means major sacrifices in fiscal revenue and funding for public spending.”
Oil and coal are key to Colombia’s national revenue, according to government data, accounting for about 8% of GDP and over 50% of its exports. It’s the world’s sixth-largest exporter of coal, according to the national mining agency, and a top-20 exporter of crude. But its oil reserves are considered small, at around seven years, according to the country’s oil regulator, ANH.
“We don’t have huge reserves,” Muhamad said. “We are not like other countries which could have 200 years of oil under the soil. So as the world decarbonizes, our markets will be closing and we need a replacement.”
Colombia may have more oil and gas, but Petro’s administration has stopped issuing new oil and gas exploration contracts. Gonzalez called that “the opposite direction of what we need.”
Colombia launched a new investment portfolio at the end of September for its climate adaptation plans, which it hopes will attract around $40 billion to help fund ecotourism, a fair energy transition and conservation and restoration of ecosystems.
“Colombia is doing the right thing in a way by saying we need to move away from fossil fuels,” said Bill Hare, a climate scientist and chief executive of Climate Analytics, a science and policy group that supports action on climate change.
“They’re doing it for a combination of different reasons, some of them economic, some basically completely moral and oriented around the climate crisis. What is really bad that’s happening is that they’re not being backed up by the international financial community.”
Hare said the whole ecosystem of the international financial community is not backing Colombia up.
“They’re going with the fossil fuel industry. So Colombia is facing a downgrade economically because of that,” he said. “It will need backing. It may not be hard cash, but it could be debt guarantees. It can be all sorts of things like that that ultimately don’t cost a lot that make all the difference.”
For Gonzalez, when it comes to the energy transition, there are serious gaps between the ambitions Petro has set and the policies in place.
“Colombia needs to expand its clean energy supply and improve energy efficiency at a scale and speed far greater than what we’re currently achieving,” he said. “When you want to be a global leader the disconnect between goals and policy actions in this area remains a major challenge.”
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Arasu reported from Baku, Azerbaijan. Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein contributed from Baku.
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Publish date : 2024-11-15 19:34:00
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