Lessons from CDM-Registered Alto Maipo Hydroelectric Project: Impacted Communities Emphasize that Any Agreement on Climate Action Must Protect Human Rights & the Environment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 9, 2019

MADRID, SPAIN — Chilean activists present at the UN Climate Conference in Madrid (COP-25) are calling on negotiators to learn from the human rights violations and environmental damage caused by a hydroelectric project registered under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). They urge world leaders to ensure Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which will replace the CDM, learn from past mistakes and protect human rights and the environment.

Just outside Santiago, Chilean communities in the Maipo River Basin have experienced firsthand how poorly designed climate action violates human rights. At COP-25, they are urging negotiators to ensure the new rules for carbon markets include effective social and environmental safeguards. The Alto Maipo Hydroelectric Project is a large-scale run-of-the-river hydroelectric project that will reroute the three main tributaries of the Maipo River for 100 kilometers through tunnels blasted in the Andes Mountains. It aims to use underground turbines to generate electricity.

“We are here in Madrid for COP-25 to share our first-hand experience of not only the human rights impacts of climate change, but also of climate action. Instead of protecting the rivers Chileans depend on, the government has legitimized the Alto Maipo hydroelectric project as positive climate action under the UN Climate Framework’s ‘Clean Development Mechanism’,” says Marcela Mella, spokeswoman for the Citizen Coordinator ‘No Alto Maipo’. “We have lived the devastating impacts of carbon markets in Chile. Because they currently lack social and environmental safeguards, they are causing environmental destruction and human rights violations. As Article 6 rewrites these rules, it must substantively protect human rights and environmental integrity. Anything less would condemn other communities to suffer harmful impacts similar to those that we have endured as a result of the CDM-registered Alto Maipo project.”

If completed, the Alto Maipo Project’s massive intervention in the Maipo river basin will affect access to water for millions of Chileans, undermine local economies, and exacerbate climate change. Opposition to the project has been ongoing for more than ten years, with legal challenges complementing numerous marches led by a grassroots movement and joined by thousands of Chileans who are calling for the project’s cancellation and the protection of the Maipo River.

“Most Chilean rivers are in agony; their basins are severely degraded. The Maipo River has 50% less water today, and Alto Maipo is accelerating the basin’s desertification. The situation is critical. We need urgent actions to restore ecosystems, and urgent reforestation of basins with native species. Only nature can reverse climate change—if we let her. Furthermore, Chile’s economic model privileges business and corporations over the care of the environment and human rights, and it has created scandalous socio-economic inequality in Chile,” says Juan Pablo Orrego, President of Chilean NGO Ecosistemas and founder of Chile’s Free Rivers Network.

The Alto Maipo Project’s adverse impacts for both the environment and Chileans’ human rights are indicative of the long-term effects of hydroelectric projects and large-scale energy infrastructure, with impacts already being felt throughout Chile. According to Ms. Mella, “The Alto Maipo project is already accelerating desertification, exacerbating fissuring of our glaciers, and endangering the right to water for millions of Chileans. As the international community continues to monitor developments in the streets of Santiago and beyond, we ask that it also stand in solidarity with the No Alto Maipo movement as we continue our fight for justice and rights as well.” 

Projects with impacts like those caused by Alto Maipo must not be legitimized as “sustainable development” under Article 6, currently under negotiation at COP25. To avoid repeating the mistakes made under the CDM, any mechanism that the Parties agree upon in Madrid must be governed by robust social and environmental safeguards, implement meaningful and effective stakeholder consultations, and include independent grievance mechanisms.

Contact:

Marcela Mella, Citizen Coordinator ‘No Alto Maipo’, cuentaccrm(at)gmail.com (Spanish only)

Juan Pablo Orrego, Ecosistemas, jp.orrego(at)ecosistemas.cl

Sarah Dorman, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), sdorman(at)ciel.org