Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief, coming to you from the United Nations climate conference in Belém, Brazil.
The highlights this week: Countries flaunt new climate strategies at COP30 in Belém, the U.S. Navy’s largest aircraft carrier enters the region, and Chilean presidential candidates get creative with their campaign strategies ahead of Sunday’s vote.
U.N. climate summits sometimes take place in convention centers that project placeless modernity. At this year’s edition in Belém, Brazil—known as COP30—there is no doubt that we are at the edge of the Amazon rainforest: Rain leaks through the roof each afternoon, Indigenous leaders who sailed here on boats roam the halls, and the menus include fish stewed in local fruits and peppers.
Latin America has hosted the annual U.N. climate conference before, most recently in Peru in 2014, but the region’s climate policies have vastly evolved since then.
Though the region has many climate hazards—including deforestation and economic models that heavily rely on oil and gas exports—several countries have emerged as global agenda-setters. Each brings something slightly different to the table.
As I wrote in Foreign Policy this week, Brazil is using its COP30 presidency to foreground the need for countries to help create high-quality green jobs via industrial policies. Brazil is also coaxing countries into voluntary coalitions for climate action at a moment when geopolitical fractures threaten the prospects for a unanimously negotiated deal at the summit.
At COP30, Colombia is strongly advocating for oil-producing countries to make specific road maps to move beyond fossil fuels. Colombian officials came to the summit touting plans to hold a first-of-its-kind international conference on the topic next April. Colombia is also part of efforts to draft a multicountry declaration on transitioning away from fossil fuels during the conference.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s climate plans have continued to evolve under President Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist. The country presented its first-ever whole-of-economy emissions cap for 2035 at COP30, which the World Resources Institute called “among the most ambitious new climate targets from a major emitter.” The Mexican Center for Environmental Law’s Anaid Velasco told Foreign Policy that while the target was an important advance, climate specialists were still waiting for the full details of the new emissions plan to understand it better.
The Mexican government created the climate targets with workshops that involved state and federal officials, as well as businesses, researchers, and Indigenous groups, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Alicia Bárcena told Foreign Policy. Mexico held a Latin America and Caribbean ministerial meeting on climate action with 22 countries in August, which yielded a common position that climate action “cannot be disconnected from socioeconomic development,” she said.
In addition to these country-led initiatives, Latin America’s contributions to COP30 extend into the wonky but consequential world of multilateral development banks.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is debuting a program to make private banks more confident in investing money in climate and other development projects in Latin America. The program, called ReInvest+packages investments with special insurance and offers a target rate of return that is attractive to private-sector lenders.
A lot of capital in the world is “very risk-averse,” top IDB climate advisor Avinash Persaud said. “We’re going to meet investors where they are. We are going to give them what they have been asking for and have not been offered.”
Though it’s too early to say how much interest that effort will generate, Persaud has a strong track record of advancing reforms in public banking. He was an advisor to Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley on the Bridgetown Initiative, which helped advocate for reforms at the IDB and the World Bank, among others, that have expanded total capacity to make loans by at least $500 billion in the last three years, Persaud said.
“For all aspects of development”—including climate—“you can’t get there without the multilateral development banks,” he added.
Friday, Nov. 14, to Friday, Nov. 21: COP30 continues in Belém.
Sunday, Nov. 16: Chile holds a general election.
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz walks after his swearing-in ceremony in La Paz on Nov. 8.Gaston Brito Miserocchi/Getty Images
Paz becomes president. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau attended the inauguration of center-right Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Nov. 8, calling Paz’s presidency a “new era” of U.S.-Bolivia relations. Paz plans to allow U.S. tech firm Starlink to operate in the country, reversing the previous government’s position, Landau said. He predicted that more U.S. investments in the region would soon follow.
Starlink (and Tesla) founder Elon Musk has long eyed potential investments in Bolivia because of its untapped lithium reserves, which are key for electric vehicle batteries. Until now, there was tight state control over the sector and little to no private investment. Paz has yet to announce his plans for Bolivia’s lithium sector.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric and Argentine President Javier Milei, ideological opposites but regional neighbors, also attended Paz’s inauguration.
Chile’s musical election. Ahead of the first round of voting in Chile’s presidential election on Sunday, candidates have made their closing arguments via song. Center-right candidate Evelyn Matthei—who is lagging in polls—released a trap music video that aims to appeal to urban youth.
Matthei’s right-wing opponent, José Antonio Kast, called the video a “big mistake.” But he has tried similar tactics: His campaign uploaded a whole album to Spotify last month including genres from reggaeton to K-pop.
Kast and leftist Jeannette Jara, who has a simpler campaign soundtrack, are leading polls ahead of Sunday’s vote. The economy and security are top issues for voters.
Fish, please. COP30 organizers’ work to include local Amazonian chefs in their menu planning has not gone without a diplomatic incident. The organizers of the Earthshot Prize, an initiative championed by Britain’s Prince William, asked famous chef Saulo Jennings to prepare vegan canapes for their prize ceremony last week that kicked off more than two weeks of COP events.
The request was an attempt to be environmentally conscious, but Jennings was taken aback, claiming that cooking with fish was part of sustainable living in the Amazon region. “It was a lack of respect,” he told the New York Times. “It’s like asking Iron Maiden to play jazz.”
Eventually, a detente was arranged in which Jennings, a U.N. gastronomy ambassador, did not cook for the event but stayed on to prepare other menu items for the COP conference. “We eat whatever the forests give us, whatever the rivers give us,” he said.
Marajó Island, which lies at the mouth of the Amazon River near Belém, is around the same size as which European country?
Switzerland
Belgium
Cyprus
Croatia
That’s around 15,000 square miles.
Dignitaries from across the European Union and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) pose for a photo at the EU-CELAC summit in Santa Marta, Colombia, on Nov. 9. Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took a quick trip away from COP30 over the weekend to fly to Santa Marta, Colombia, where European Union officials held a summit with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
The meeting was originally meant to focus heavily on economic ties between the two blocs. But it gained new urgency amid the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean, which expanded this week to include the largest aircraft carrier in the world.
Leaders such as Sheinbaum and Mottley have voiced opposition to repeated U.S. strikes on alleged drug trafficking targets that Washington has not fully identified, while Colombian President Gustavo Petro has said they violate international law.
Though the EU-CELAC summit declaration did not explicitly mention the U.S. military buildup, it referenced the need to respect international law, opposition to force outside the scope of the U.N. Charter, and the acknowledgement that CELAC has defined itself as a “Zone of Peace.”
A handful of Latin American countries abstained from parts of the declaration, underscoring the region’s lack of unity on the matter.
Nevertheless, on Tuesday, France’s foreign minister repeated the message at a G-7 ministerial summit in Canada, saying openly that the U.S. actions flouted international law. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Europe did not get to define how the United States defends its security.
Speaking to FP’s John Haltiwanger this week, Argentine international relations scholar Juan Gabriel Tokatlian said U.S. threats in the Caribbean fit squarely within a broader international trend that includes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: The international rules-based order is “dying,” he said.
