Last year, the UN Environment Programme report, Global Environment Outlook, depicted a depressing picture for LAC, as the region’s economic, social and development gains risk being undermined by climate change, pollution and environmental degradation.

Farming, which employs up to 40 percent of the working population of Latin America, is likely to face increasing droughts and low crop yields. Melting glaciers are projected to affect significantly the water available for human consumption and energy generation in the Andes. Countries in the Caribbean and Central America can expect a greater number of hurricanes, which continue to decimate coastal regions.

The effects of climate change in LAC will also be felt further a field. The Amazon basin contains 40 percent of the earth’s fresh water supply which plays a significant part in regulating global climate. Rainfall generated by the Amazon is essential for Brazil’s agriculture which produces much of what ends up on our kitchen tables.  

The summit comes four months before a high level meeting on the stalled Millennium Development Goals in New York and seven months, respectively, before the next UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Poznan. Regardless of this series of negotiations, getting to grips with the severity of the threats posed by climate change will prove to be elusive for a number of reasons.

In the case of the UK and the LAC, a primary problem is that the LAC are low on the UK political agenda compared to other regions where the UK faces more acute concerns in Africa and the Middle East. The UK also faces a considerable challenge in diversifying its multibillion pound annual investment portfolio in LAC, the majority of which is pumped into carbon intensive sectors such as mining and hydrocarbons.

Hilary Benn, the environment minister, stated that regardless of climate change, developing countries must be allowed to develop in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Yet he also said that the high carbon growth path for developing countries will not work given the threats posed by climate change. This leaves the majority of countries in LAC, which are largely dependent on extracting natural resources - be it oil or mineral depositories - in a difficult predicament.

The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is meant to address this situation. By allowing developed countries to gain emissions credits from their investments in low carbon intensive projects, developing countries should benefit from technology transfers and financing for sustainable development. However, LAC has only around 30 percent of the global CDM projects compared to Asia, which accounts for over 60 percent, suggesting LAC countries are constrained by their own weaknesses as well as the inefficiencies of the CDM process from being able to transform into low carbon and sustainable economies.

In the World Bank’s Doing Business 2008 report, no LAC country came in the top 30. The highest were Chile at 33 and Mexico at 44. Suffocating red tape, complex tax structures and an occasional habit of nationalising foreign companies, particular in Bolivia and Venezuela, is giving investors the jitters.

LAC has also failed to attract the levels of foreign investment needed to kick start a real effort to transfer to low carbon economies.  This is in part because, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, regional investment promotion agencies, which are designed to promote their country to potential investors, continue to be out manoeuvred by the booming economies of Asia which are scooping up the lion’s share of global foreign direct investment.

The FCO should take advantage of the wave of newly elected governments which could provide the impetus to turn this situation around. It is hoped the region may still experience a plethora of reforms this year, as nearly 85 percent of reforms usually take place in the first 15 months of a new government.

Firstly, the FCO could provide increased support on LAC legal procedures and business practices to encourage UK businesses specialising in low carbon technologies and renewables to invest in LAC. Secondly, increased pressure should be bought to bear on UK corporations such as Rio Tinto and others to reinvest more of their profits into low carbon technologies and renewables.

Thirdly, support must be given to LAC investment promotion agencies so they can do more to attract FDI to their countries. This could involve financial support to increase the agencies operational budgets and through training assistance to bolster staffing shortages and inexperience, which in some cases are said to be wholly inadequate.

In some ways Latin America has begun to step out from the gloomy shadow that historically has enveloped the region. Economic and political reforms have been widely praised, and the recent handling of the Colombian- Ecuador border crisis spoke volumes about the diplomatic procedures encapsulating the region’s internal exchanges. The impact of climate change risks undermining this successful chapter.

Latin America is not facing a battle for its soul in as much as it is a battle for everyone’s survival. The UK government should make clear to its counterparts in LAC, and the UK business community, on which side it is really fighting.

* Eduardo Galeano (1973) Open Veins of Latin America, Monthly Review Press