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As critical climate negotiations take place this week in New York, Amazon Watch joined a coalition of 52 NGOs working in Latin America to insist that large dams should not be considered a clean energy source, nor an energy solution to climate change. In a letter addressed to global leaders, financial institutions, and international organizations, signatories cited a myriad of arguments against large dams, including:
- Their greenhouse gases emission, including methane, especially in tropical regions, aggravating climate change, and making adaptation more difficult;
- Their costs routinely exceed almost twice their initial budget, causing economic difficulties in the communities and countries where they are implemented;
- The length of time they take to become operational, making them an inefficient solution to the urgent energy crisis that they are intended to tackle;
- Their often enormous and irreparable environmental damage; and
- The high incidence of human rights violations and impoverishment of communities linked to their construction.
The letter concludes: “It is time to learn from the past and to implement alternatives appropriate to our time”.
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