Argentine senate approves historic climate change bill

Argentina's senate has approved a bill to establish the country’s climate change policy, which will now be reviewed by the lower chamber of congress.

The bill, which was backed by all senators present, proposes to “establish strategies, measures, policies and instruments related to the study of impacts, vulnerability and adaptation activities for climate change in order to guarantee human development and that of ecosystems.”

The text also establishes a series of “minimum budgets for environmental protection” in order to apply mitigation and adaptation measures, which will be included in a nationwide plan that will have to be updated every five years. 

This plan will have to include measures for health, water management, transport, energy, fishing, agriculture and infrastructure, among other areas.

“The impacts associated with global warming in Argentina are significant. The variability of rains and its results are reflected in floods, the expansion of agricultural areas, and the reduction of glaciers and deforestation, among others. Our country must adapt to this new reality right now,” states the author, senator Fernando E. Solanas in his presentation of the bill.

CLIMATE EMERGENCY

During the same session, the senate also approved a resolution to declare a nationwide “climate emergency,” marking the first approval of such a measure in Latin America, according to the local chapter of Fridays for Future, which has led worldwide protests on the issue of climate change.

Solanas, who authored both climate bills, said via Twitter that “the victims of climate change are countries in the south and poorer populations. Last year rains flooded dozens of towns in the Pampas, causing multi-million dollar losses.”