Colombia - Climate Change
Colombia is the world’s third most vulnerable country to climate change, according to Frank Pearl, Colombia’s former Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development. Colombia’s climate has been noticably changing. Colombians saw an increase in floods during the “Ola Invernal” or “seasonal rains”, while others faced continuous threats of drought. Catastrophic flooding in 2010 and 2011 displaced nearly two million people. Watershed degradation due to deforestation and weak institutional ability to respond to natural disasters will continue to be a problem in a time of increasing climatic variability. A relatively clean electricity grid, serving 90 percent of the population, is projected to lose 20 percent of its capacity. Colombia’s Andean glaciers, roughly six percent of South America’s icepack, are projected to disappear in 25 years. The high mountain water catchments, the páramos, may be diminished by half by 2050.
Both the public and private sector in Colombia are aware of this hazard, with 95% of Bogotá’s inhabitants considering that climate change affects their quality of life. Considering its high vulnerability to global warming and climate variability, climate change and sustainable development are top priorities in Colombia’s political agenda.
Colombia is arguably a regional leader in the development of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. In 1994 Colombia joined the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Since then, the nation has developed an increasingly sophisticated approach towards the issue. While Colombia’s gross domestic product (GDP) corresponds to approximately 0.5% of the global economy, the country emits only 0.37% of the world´s total greenhouse gases (GHGs). Colombia´s low emissions are explained to a large extent by the fact that hydropower represents more than two-thirds of the country’s electricity generation.
Currently [2014] Colombia produce 85 mm tons of coal, by 2040 will produce between 150-200mm tons. Most of the emissions are related to fugitive emissions (Colombia is a net exporter of coal), counting over 300mm tons CO2eq (2010-2040). Colombia accounts 0.37% of the total world emissions (2004), however with a population of over 60 million people in 2040 and a sustained economic development, Colombia will increase dramatically it’s emissions from 150mm tons of CO2eq in 2010 to 350mm tons in 2040. More than 30% of the expected increase will be related with the energy sector. Foreseeing this scenario, Colombia developed the Colombian Low Emissions Development Strategy (CLEDS).
Many fungal plant diseases are strongly controlled by weather, and global climate change is thus likely to have affected fungal pathogen distributions and impacts. Modelling the response of plant diseases to climate change is hampered by the difficulty of estimating pathogen-relevant microclimatic variables from standard meteorological data. The availability of increasingly sophisticated high-resolution climate reanalyses may help overcome this challenge.
The life cycles of many fungal pathogens are strongly determined by weather. Dispersal can be assisted by wind and rain, while germination and infection rates are often dependent upon liquid water on the plant surface (sometimes high relative humidity) and species-specific optimal temperature ranges.
Coffee ranks just after oil in its value among traded commodities and is grown in more than 60 tropical countries. An estimated 25 million farmers produce coffee on over 1 million ha, most of whom are smallholders who depend on coffee for their livelihoods. This web of small coffee farms is important in the economies of some developing countries. Coffee harvested area in Colombia declined from around 100 000 ha in the early 1990s to around 80 000 ha from 2000 onwards [26]. Coffee is planted at all altitudes, with the highest density of planting in Colombia in the ‘Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia’ World Heritage Site, also known as the ‘Coffee Triangle’. The high-value Coffea arabica is grown primarily at altitudes from 1000 to 2000 m.a.s.l., while C. robusta, which has greater resistance to CLR, can be planted at lower altitudes but is uncommon in Colombia. Arabica coffee is mostly grown in tropical highlands and is used in gourmet coffees due to its higher quality, while Robusta coffee is lower quality grown at lower altitudes.
"Mountain-grown" coffee is a well-known and well-worn catch phrase, due to a long-running advertising campaign, but it also indicates the obvious: much of the world's coffee supply is indeed grown in tropical mountainous regions. The iconic image of Juan Valdez and his burro in front of a mountain, symbolizing "Cafe de Colombia," emphasizes this enduring geographical relationship in the coffee-producing South American nation of Colombia. Yet, mountain regions are quite susceptible to regional climate variability, and recent meteorological factors have caused a reduction in the amount of coffee produced in Colombia, driving up world coffee prices. The short-term factor for this reduction in Colombia and also the coffee-growing regions of Brazil is above-average rainfall. Over the longer term, the increase in temperature over the past three decades, which reduces the range of mountainous habitats in which coffee plants thrive, is the main contributing factor.
Bloomberg News reported that heavier than normal rainfall in 2010 reduced coffee production in Colombia (heavier rainfall could continue), and Nestle subsidiary Nespresso reported problems with their high-end arabica bean supply due to poor weather conditions in both Colombia and Brazil. The New York Times, in the article by Elisabeth Rosenthal on 09 March 2011, "Heat damages Colombia coffee, raising prices," provides the following information: "Coffee plants require the right mix of temperature, rainfall and spells of dryness for beans to ripen properly and maintain their taste. Coffee pests thrive in the warmer, wetter weather. ... The shortage of high-end Arabica coffee beans is also being felt in New York supermarkets and Paris cafes, as customers blink at escalating prices. Purveyors fear that the Arabica coffee supply from Colombia may never rebound — that the world might, in effect, hit “peak coffee.”
The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation said high fertilizer prices have also dented yields. But it agrees with a 2009 report from the International Coffee Organization that concluded, “Climatic variability is the main factor responsible for changes in coffee yields all over the world. ... Average temperatures in Colombia’s coffee regions have risen nearly one degree in 30 years, and in some mountain areas the increase has been double that, says Cenicafé, the national coffee research center. Rain in this area was more than 25 percent above average in the last few years. ... Half a degree can make a big difference for coffee — it is adapted to a very specific zone,” said Néstor Riaño, a specialist in agroclimatology for Cenicafé. “If temperature rises even a bit, the growth is affected, and the plagues and diseases rise.” "
Several rivers burst their banks near Mocoa in the early hours of 01 April 2017, sending water, mud and debris crashing down streets and into houses as people slept. The catastrophe, killing hundreds, came after days of torrential rains that left large parts of the region without electrical power or running water. This was the worst natural disaster to strike Colombia since 1985, when more than 20,000 people were killed after an eruption at the Nevado Del Ruiz volcano triggered a landslide that overwhelmed the city of Armero.
Government agencies, land use experts, and environmental organizations had warned for years that Mocoa could face dangerous flooding. Mocoa was vulnerable because of its location, amid a confluence of rivers in the wet subtropical Amazon region of southern Colombia. The danger had grown worse as trees were cut down for cattle ranching and other agriculture.
It was the latest instance of sudden, heavy rainfall in the region becoming more extreme. Pacific weather phenomenon coincided with the country’s traditional rainy season. In July 2016 National meteorological institute IDEAM had warned about the possibly disastrous effects of “La Niña”, but those seasonal conditions have not yet begun. Many of Mocoa’s destroyed neighborhoods were built on the Mocoa River floodplain , where the river would naturally overflow in the event of extreme rainfall. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos travelled to the city and told local TV channel Cable Noticias: “We are facing a disaster caused by nature, by climate change.”
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