Nicaragua pivots on Paris accord, scraps environmental assessmen rules.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
Nearly four months after US President Donald Trump announced that he would break rank with more than 190 nations and pull out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, his Nicaraguan counterpart, Daniel Ortega, made the exact opposition decision. A critic of the deal from the outset, Ortega now says he wants in.
Nicaragua was one of just two countries (the other is Syria) absent from the agreement until Trump declared earlier this year that the US would join them (NotiCen, July 13, 2017). Unlike the US president--who is on record as calling climate change "a hoax"--Nicaragua's leadership opted out because, in their opinion, the deal doesn't do enough to protect the planet.
The Ortega administration doubled down on those arguments in early June, saying that it "demands a realistic, truly responsible [climate change] proposal" and describing its refusal to accept the Paris accord as "a clear position in defense of the planet and life." But on Sept. 19, the long-serving Nicaraguan leader abruptly changed his tune, declaring that he'll sign the deal after all. Why? For the sake of "solidarity" with the "nations of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, which are in highly vulnerable zones," he said.
Environmental groups in Nicaragua applauded the decision. And yet, not everyone is convinced by Ortega's stated rationale, especially given the timing of the announcement, which came less than a month after La Gaceta, the official government journal, published details of a surprising decree (Decreto 15-2017) scrapping the country's existing environmental assessment system for business or infrastructure projects. The previous rules had been in place since late 2006, just before Ortega and his Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) party returned to power after a 16-year absence.
Critics of the "decretazo" (sweeping decree) accuse the Ortega administration of conspiring with business leaders to lift environmental restrictions for the benefit, in particular, of new metals-mining investments. They see Ortega's climate accord about-face, in that sense, as a way to save face following weeks of criticism from environmental organizations and other civil society groups. Backers of the president, in contrast, say that Decreto 15-2017 is a first step toward improving Nicaragua's environmental assessment procedures.
'More discretion'
The decree, effective immediately upon its publication in La Gaceta, appeared Aug. 28 under the title "Updating of the...
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