The president who pushed for a green Colombia

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Jun 22, 2022 View in browser   By Zack Colman Presented by VERBATIM Colombian President Iván Duque is worried about his successor's oil policies. | Marcio Jose Sanchez, AP Colombian President Iván Duque has less than two months left on the job, but he's already worried about his successor's plans to end new oil and coal production. "I think it'll be an absolute suicide," Duque said in an interview. Gustavo Petro won Colombia's presidential election Sunday, just days after POLITICO spoke with Duque. With Petro pledging to halt new oil and coal production, it's a leftward pivot for a fossil fuel powerhouse and key player in Latin America's fight against Amazon deforestation. Colombia, South America's top oil and second-largest coal producer, gets most of its power from hydroelectricity. It sends most of its coal abroad. Crude oil totals roughly half of Colombia's exports and is one of its biggest revenue generators. Duque has set a goal of curbing greenhouse gas emissions 51 percent by 2030. His administration established Latin America's first oil and gas sector methane regulations. It joined the Global Methane Pledge, a 110-country pact to slash methane 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030. But crimes against environmental activists, including murder, remain higher in Colombia than anywhere else, according to Global Witness. And setting climate goals is different than reaching them. As the election underscored, Colombia is clearly in transition. Yet Duque said he wants to accomplish more before he leaves office. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Right now you're signing longer term contracts for coal exports and for oil exports. How do you reconcile that with being a climate leader?  Ecopetrol, which is the national oil and gas company, is now turning into an energy company. Ecopetrol has become the number one output generator with non-conventional renewables in the country. And they have now decided to undertake projects on geothermal, and eventually on biomass. So it's a company that is also transitioning. In the course of the next decade, we're going to see year over year less coal being demanded. We have to also start developing technologies to see what kind of investments can we make in order to take energy out of the coal without increasing the emissions. And that's why for example, the case of blue hydrogen, or gray hydrogen, are interesting to evaluate. Petro has said that he would end new oil and mining exploration contracts, keeping the existing ones but end new ones. What do you think about that concept? It would be like shooting at your own feet. If you decide no more exploration, that is going to affect your current exploration as well. Because nobody's going to look at the sector for the long term. And fiscally speaking, it will give a message to the states of Colombia that they're not going to receive any longer the royalties that come out of the oil and gas sector. So I think it'll be an absolute suicide. We still are in a transition that is not going to take one or two or three or five and even 10 years. It might take a little bit longer than that. How do you expect the targets in some of the policies that you've put in place to outlast your presidency? When it comes to targets, you have to walk the walk and talk the talk. I signed the leaders' pledge for nature so that Colombia will have 30 percent of our territory declared protected by 2030. But I just said last year, we're not going to wait until 2030, we're going to have 30 percent of our territory declared a protected area in the months to come before I leave office. I also said we want to accelerate the energy transition. We went from basically 28 megawatts to more than 2,000 megawatts that are either installed or any installation process by the end of the year. We have 4,500 megawatts that will come later on in the next two years. We have one of the highest rates of electric vehicles per capita in Latin America and the Caribbean. We have the largest public transportation fleet run by electric vehicles and the largest cargo fleet run by electric vehicles. A message from UnitedHealth Group: At UnitedHealth Group, sustainability is an integral part of our business strategy, culture and mission as we work to ensure the health care system works better for everyone — both now and in the future. Learn more about our progress and new long-term commitments in our recently released 2021 Sustainability Report.   On the global methane pledge, which you have signed, how does Colombia anticipate bringing its contribution to methane reduction? You want to capture, you want to reduce, but also you need to start moving on another set of policies. In the case of recycling rate, I inherited a country with a 5 percent recycling rate, we're leaving our country with an almost 15 percent rate. Can I be absolutely happy about the number? No, we have to go even more aggressive. But as much as we recycle, we're going to be able to reduce the pressure on methane. When you look at the oil and gas sector, they now have more technologies in order to capture the methane, or in order to split the methane and maybe use it for another source of energy. That's why we're interested in looking at green ammonia, we're interested in looking at green hydrogen. But we also have to look at blue hydrogen, and that blue hydrogen can happen if we have the right technologies to capture and transform that methane. One other thing in terms of climate — deforestation. There are a good number of environmental activists and land defenders who have been killed in Colombia. Those deaths are increasing under your administration. What have you done to address that? And what do you see the problems being? What is interesting is why didn't we have numbers on those killings before my administration? So let's just take the politics out of the debate and let's look objectively: Who are the ones who are killing the social leaders and killing also some environmental leaders? The drug business, the illegal mining business and other illegal trafficking businesses. In the case of deforestation, our administration is going to fulfill the objective that we set, which is to cut the deforestation rate by 30 percent in accordance with the objective of being zero deforestation by 2030.   DON'T MISS THE 2022 GREAT LAKES ECONOMIC FORUM:  POLITICO is excited to be the exclusive media partner again at the Council of the Great Lakes Region's bi-national Great Lakes Economic Forum with co-hosts Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot. This premier, intimate networking event, taking place June 26-28 in Chicago, brings together international, national and regional leaders from business, government, academia and the nonprofit sector each year. "Powering Forward" is this year's theme, setting the stage to connect key decision-makers with thought leaders and agents of change to identify and advance solutions that will strengthen the region's competitiveness and sustainability in today's competitive climate of trade, innovation, investment, labor mobility and environmental performance. Register today.     The U.S. Justice Department has the ability to partner with governments to crack down on deforestation and illegal agricultural practices. Have you partnered with the Biden administration in any way on this? The U.S has supported us in updating the environmental crimes bill in Colombia so that now we have imprisonment and we have stronger sanctions. We will also update legislation on violence prevention – whoever kills that social leader is going to have the largest sentence in Colombia. But I also believe that we need to work closely on having programs that are deterrents against deforestation. Having the possibility to declare protected areas and involve communities and persons in protecting those areas, and be able to monetize the expansion of the protected areas through carbon credits that can go to the community so that the communities can keep on protecting. Those are things that we definitely want to keep on expanding. The United States has been the number one supporter of these environmental policies in order to fight deforestation. During President Biden's Leaders Summit, you made a call for debt for climate swaps. How do you see that playing out? We had a conversation with President Biden, we also had a conversation with [Special Climate Envoy] John Kerry. The only way Caribbean countries are going to be able to accelerate spending on climate action and the only way the middle-income countries are going to expand spending is by having the right incentives. You could have debt swaps, or you can have debt relief based on climate action results. We launched the green taxonomy of Colombia. We've done a lot of green bonds issuance. But I think now we need to find more comprehensive frameworks for ESG. And I think the United States can be not only a very important funder, but can also be a very important bridge with U.S. investors that are willing to get in these kinds of projects to be able to monetize the carbon credit markets.   A message from UnitedHealth Group:   YOU TELL US GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. We deliver data-driven storytelling, compelling interviews with industry and political leaders, and news Tuesday through Friday to keep you in the loop on sustainability. Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott, deputy editor Debra Kahn and reporters Lorraine Woellert and Jordan Wolman. Reach us all at gmott@politico.com, dkahn@politico.com, lwoellert@politico.com and jwolman@politico.com. Want more? Don't we all. Sign up for the Long Game. Four days a week and still free!   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     WHAT WE'RE CLICKING — The European Union plans to use its market power to force trading partners to take action to address climate change. POLITICO Europe has the story. — A spontaneous Tesla battery fire took a dozen firefighters an hour and 4,500 gallons of water to extinguish — about the same amount of water as a building fire, the Washington Post reports. — The Washington Post describes how goats are playing a front-line role in preventing the spread of wildfires. — Some Miami Beach residents are complaining that efforts to control flooding by raising roads is diverting water into their homes, the Wall Street Journal reports. A message from UnitedHealth Group: At UnitedHealth Group, our approach to sustainability reflects our belief that the health of any society is measured by the health and well-being of its people. Our commitment to sustainability is an integral part of our mission and culture, brought to life through collaboration, partnership and the collective efforts of all UnitedHealth Group employees working to positively impact the people and communities we serve. Our 2021 Sustainability Report highlights new long-term commitments focused on advancing health equity and improving environmental health and shares progress toward our ongoing commitments to expanding access to care, improving health care affordability and achieving better health outcomes. Read the report.     Follow us on Twitter Debra Kahn @debra_kahn Greg Mott @gwmott Lorraine Woellert @Woellert Jordan Wolman @jordanwolman   Follow us

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