Latin American and Caribbean countries approved a new action plan to protect environmental defenders this week.
This occurred at the third Conference of the Parties (COP3) to the Escazú Agreement, held in Santiago, Chile, from 22 to 24 April.
The Escazú Agreement, in force since 22 April 2021, is a legally binding regional treaty that aims to protect environmental defenders and promote public participation and access to information on environmental matters.
The conference brought together more than 700 people, from state parties and civil-society organisations to youth activists and Indigenous environmental defenders.
Latin America and the Caribbean is considered by campaign groups to be the “most dangerous place in the world for activists”.
The regional action plan sets out priority areas and strategic measures for countries to enact article 9 of the Escazú Agreement, which urges states to recognise and protect the rights of environmental defenders and prevent and punish attacks against them.
Graciela Martínez, regional campaigner for the Americas at Amnesty International, tells Carbon Brief that the action plan is an “important step towards implementing the Escazú Agreement”.
Action plan
Between 2012 and 2022, Latin America and the Caribbean saw 1,910 killings of environmental and land defenders, according to a 2023 report from campaign group Global Witness. This accounted for 88% of such killings around the world during that decade, the report notes.
The Escazú Agreement came out of the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development and seeks to guarantee the right to a healthy environment and sustainable development for current and future generations. Part of this is achieved, the agreement says, by recognising the important role that environmental and human-rights defenders play in this regard.
Currently, 16 countries have ratified the Escazú Agreement, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, and several Caribbean countries, such as Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and Saint Kitts and Nevis. A recent statement by Amnesty International points out that some of the countries that have not yet ratified the agreement are among the most dangerous for environmental defenders, such as Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala.
The action plan agreed upon at COP3 will be implemented from 2024 to 2030 and comprises four priority areas, each accompanied by strategic measures to comply with objectives:
- Knowledge creation.
- Recognition.
- Capacity-building and cooperation for national implementation.
- Evaluation of the action plan.
Knowledge creation refers to understanding the situation of defenders and identifying mechanisms to prevent and punish violations of defenders’ rights. Recognition measures require publicly acknowledging the work of defenders.
Within national implementation, the action plan mandates parties to create and strengthen institutions to provide free legal assistance to environmental defenders and training for judges and prosecutors.
Jesús Maya, a Mexican human-rights defender and youth representative at COP3, tells Carbon Brief:
“This is more than necessary for us to be able to talk about environmental justice and justice for people.”
Maya adds that the consultancy he manages, Eheco, is working to ensure that the Escazú processes “takes into account alternative justice” such as “collective justice” – as violence can also be directed at entire groups, not just individuals – and policies to preserve the “collective memory” of killed defenders, “so as not to repeat the issue”.
There are other examples of alternative justice, Maya says. One is Colombia’s special jurisdiction for peace – which seeks to deliver transitional justice to victims of the decades-long armed conflict by providing the right to justice, truth and restoration of damages. Another comes in the form of the truth commissions in Argentina, Peru, Chile, Mexico and Colombia, which were created to uncover the truth about human rights violations committed by military dictatorships, authoritarian regimes or internal armed conflicts.
Indigenous demands
Teresita Antazú López, an Indigenous environmental defender of the Yanesha people of the central Peruvian rainforest, tells Carbon Brief that Indigenous peoples had a number of demands at this COP.
According to López, who attended the COP3 as a member of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle, the highest priority was to ensure their effective participation in the negotiations going forward. This includes having an Indigenous caucus to represent them and an Indigenous peoples rapporteur to report on violations in their territories.
Alice Piva, a Brazilian climate activist and young ambassador of the Escazú Agreement, tells Carbon Brief that young activists and defenders are asking for the recognition of their leadership and participation in the Escazú processes. She explains that environmental justice includes intergenerational justice, adding:
“It is up to the younger generations to push [the Escazú Agreement] forward to achieve this vision of a Latin America with a strong environmental democracy.”
Piva also criticises accessibility of the COP for Brazilian organisations, noting that negotiations are often held in Spanish and English and less frequently in Portuguese.
Information access
COP3 also addressed transparency and access to environmental information.
During a side event organised by Article 19 Mexico and Central America – an organisation that promotes freedom of expression and access to information, Maribel Ek, guardian of the cenotes – or deep natural wells – of Homún, in the south-eastern Mexican state of Yucatán, told the audience that her community, which is home to 360 cenotes, managed to shut down a 49,000-pig mega-farm on its territory after investigating the farm’s permits and receiving support from lawyers. Ek said:
“To defend nature, we just need information. We need to know the steps to follow, the places to touch and how to do it.”
Article 6 of the Escazú Agreement states that “each party shall ensure the right of public access to environmental information in its possession, control or custody, in accordance with the principle of maximum disclosure”.
However, during the event, speakers said the Latin America and the Caribbean region still has shortcomings when it comes to disclosure. For example, panellists pointed out, Peru lacks training for officials and the budget for disclosures.
Speaking at the side event, Lourdes Medina, a lawyer specialising in environmental and Indigenous rights, said that if the right to access environmental information is not protected and guaranteed, other rights are at risk. Medina said:
“Citizens’ participation in resistance cannot be guaranteed. There is no adequate mechanism for access to justice, and this produces different forms of violence against defenders.”
Current implementation
During COP3, seven countries presented their national plans – either approved or in progress – to implement the Escazú Agreement. According to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Ecuador, Argentina, Santa Lucía, Belize, Mexico, Uruguay and Chile all presented their plans at the summit. The COP also welcomed Dominica as the 16th party to the agreement.
Maya tells Carbon Brief that Mexico’s plan for implementing the Escazú Agreement is on hold due to the country’s upcoming national elections.
Piva says she is working with civil society organisations to get Brazil to ratify the agreement. She said that given Brazil’s size and its leadership in economic issues and regional networks such as Mercosur, the Escazú Agreement also needs Brazil. She tells Carbon Brief:
“If Brazil does not ratify or takes too long to ratify, the agreement will lose strength because it needs the country as a strong negotiator.”
According to the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (COICA), this COP succeeded regarding the inclusion of public participation, including Indigenous peoples, in implementing national plans.
Defenders and civil society organisations consulted by Carbon Brief highlight the need for the COPs on Escazú to be annual rather than biannual since protecting defenders is an urgent matter. Piva says:
“I don’t think it’s fair that defenders already threatened or at risk [wait] more than two years to have [a tool] to demand that their countries protect them.”
The post Latin America approves plan for protecting environmental defenders appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Latin America approves plan for protecting environmental defenders
Climate Change
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Australia has some of the largest areas of high volume, consistent solar and wind energy anywhere in the world. It is a natural advantage that many countries in our region and across Europe will envy as they ramp up their efforts to reduce carbon pollution.
Australia has an amazing opportunity to utilise this abundance of reliable energy not only to transform our own energy systems but also that of our neighbours – if we get the policy settings right.
We are, in fact, already seeing the benefits of renewable energy flowing into our electricity grids. With all the inflation pressures on our bank accounts it looks like electricity pricing may be one cost that could be turning a corner – largely thanks to cheap solar and wind energy.
Renewables are Bringing Down the Cost of Producing Electricity
Here at Greenpeace, while we think there are some important questions to ask about renewable energy, it is clear that solar and wind are certainly the cheapest energy options available.
In contrast, coal, oil and gas are not only big on pollution, they are also proving costlier as they struggle to cope with the changing nature of our electricity systems. Plus, fossil fuels are much more exposed to international price fluctuations – as we all experienced when our electricity bills rapidly rose following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Wouldn’t it be great if we instead had energy independence, sourced from an infinite supply of clean energy?
Solar and wind (backed by batteries) can do just that and the reality is that they are already out-competing the old guard of gas and coal simply because they are quicker and cheaper to deploy. Which is good news for electricity prices!
Although whether energy retailers are passing on those savings to customers is another question. Short answer: no, they’re not – but it is a bit complex.
Why are my electricity bills still high?
There are a number of elements that make up the final amount we see on our bills. The graph below shows the breakdown of energy costs covered by our bills.
You will see roughly a third (36.2% in 2025-26) of the cost goes to maintenance and build out of the electricity grid. This includes the transmission lines needed to connect to new renewable energy sites and to connect states so they can better share their energy resources. The ‘network’ costs have been increasing but so have other components of our bill, most notably the ‘wholesale’ cost of producing electricity.
Thankfully, the cost of producing the electricity is now starting to go down (thanks to renewables and batteries), but they are coming off record highs thanks to the exorbitant cost of gas and the unreliability of coal power stations that are old and no longer fit for purpose.
During high demand times (eg, when we all get home from work on a hot day and turn on the air conditioning) spot prices can quickly jump. Add to that a couple of coal power plants breaking down (as they increasingly do), and expensive gas fired power use spikes in the system. This can quickly cancel out any of the cost savings solar power may have created during the day when prices can actually go negative.
The good news is that this is exactly the problem batteries can solve. Batteries are great at soaking up the surplus supply of solar during the middle of the day, which creates a more efficient system, and then rapidly pumping out that power during the evening peak at a cheaper rate than gas.
How much have costs come down?
According to the Australian energy regulator (AEMO), wholesale electricity prices across the east coast have dropped by 44% when comparing prices in quarter 4 of 2025 to the same period in 2024.
AEMO directly attributes the change to the significant growth in wind (up 29%), solar (up 15%), and batteries (3,796 MW of new battery capacity added). This influx of cheap renewable energy has seen a corresponding decrease in the use of polluting fossil fuels to power the grid. Coal fired power dropped by 4.6% and gas fired power fell by a staggering 27%.
The same trend can be seen in the world’s largest standalone grid in WA where renewable energy and storage supplied a record 52.4% of the grid’s energy across the final 3 months of 2025. That is an impressive result given there is no interstate connection to borrow energy from and there is no hydroelectric power in the system.
As a result, WA has seen a 13% drop in wholesale electricity prices thanks to a 5.8% reduction in coal fired power and a 16.4% reduction in gas fired power.
Australian Households Lead the Way on Solar and Batteries
Despite all the attempts to discredit clean energy by Trump and other conservative politicians, Aussie households have long known the value of renewable energy. In fact, Australia now holds the title for the highest rate of solar energy per capita in the world.
This is now being followed by the rapid takeup of household batteries with the Clean Energy Regulator being overwhelmed with interest in the Cheaper Home Batteries Program. They now expect to receive “around 175,000 valid battery applications corresponding to a total usable capacity of 3.9 GWh by the end of 2025.”’
All these extra batteries storing the surplus solar energy across our neighbourhoods during the day is not only creating drastic bill reductions for those households who are installing them, it is helping the whole grid. Which eventually will help everyone’s electricity bills.
If Australia as a whole follows the lead of suburban families by switching to cheap solar (plus wind) backed-up by batteries, it has an unparalleled opportunity to build its economy on the back of unlimited, local, clean energy harnessed from the sun and wind.
Powering our Future Economy
If there was ever something Australia has a natural advantage in, its sun and wind. But given the growing demand for electricity from data centres and the electrification of heavy industry, we are going to need more than just rooftop solar panels.
That’s where Australia has the potential, more than almost any other country, to become a renewable energy powerhouse and punch above our weight in the fight against climate change. See for example the unique opportunity to enter into the production and export of green iron.
While there is still quite a way to go before our electricity is fully sourced from solar and wind, we are well on the way. The clean energy charge is gathering pace – and our communities, oceans, wildlife and bank balances will be the better for it.
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