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How Colombia plans to keep its oil and coal in the ground [1]
['María Paula Rubiano A.']
Date: 2022-11-16
The government's campaign plan proposed to create an Energy Transition Fund with taxes and royalties from the industry to finance the phaseout and promote new economic sectors like agriculture, agroecology and clean energy technologies. However, it's still unclear if the fund will happen, how much money it will receive, and how it will decide where the money should go. It is also unclear what kind of product – or combination of them – has the greatest potential to replace such a big chunk of the country's exports.
A coalition of more than 30 national and international organisations addressed how a transition could be funded in a proposal published earlier this year. New taxes could be placed on the oil and coal industry, it said, (this seems likely, as they are included in a tax reform on the verge of being passed in Congress), while tax exemptions and benefits, which accounted for a lost $1.34bn (£1.14bn) in 2020 according to the proposal, could be removed.
A fund like this might help, but it leaves unanswered the question of what mine closures should look like, says Andrea Cardoso, an economist at University of Magdalena in Santa Marta, Colombia. The country's legal framework is largely silent on what happens to workers if a company voluntarily gives up its mining permits: they are legally responsible for the environmental clean-up, but the layoff of workers or responsibility for health outcomes after decades of pollution is hardly mentioned in laws and policies. The lack of clear regulations, Cardoso says, allowed Glencore to close its Prodeco mines with virtually no explanation.
The dismissals came with no notice, and while they included "voluntary retreat" programmes which gave some workers a year's salary and health insurance, the company did not support them in finding a new job or repurposing their skills, union members say. "With us, the workers and the communities, everything that should not be done in a just transition is being done," Robinson Moreno, a union leader at the country's largest coal workers union, Sintracarbón, says.
A spokesperson for Prodeco rejects the claim that workers were given no support, saying workers have been offered counselling and professional support programmes "aimed at identifying the occupational life project that best suits their needs, through either an entrepreneurship or a new labour opportunity". The spokesperson says since operations were first suspended "different communication channels have been established with all employees in order to keep them informed about the company's situation and the need to adjust our personnel due to the definitive termination of operations at Calenturitas and La Jagua mines". They add that "the decision to relinquish the mining contracts was not taken lightly and represents a disappointing outcome for the Prodeco Group".
Since the closures, according to the National Mining Agency the company has complied with only about 42% of its environmental obligations. The Prodeco spokesperson says the firm is working with Colombia's National Environmental Licensing Agency to fulfil its environmental obligations, and is awaiting the agency's approval of its proposals.
For Cardoso, many questions remain. "There is a lot of talk about alternatives, ecotourism or agriculture," says Cardoso. "But the communities themselves ask, 'But how can we do that if the soil is contaminated, the air is polluted, the water resources are scarce?'"
[END]
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[1] Url:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221116-how-colombia-plans-to-keep-its-oil-and-gas-in-the-ground#:~:text=Conversely%2C%20Colombia%20is%20among%20the,exports%20are%20coal%20and%20oil.
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