Challenges of Energy Infrastructure Financing: Environmental Sustainability, Climate Change and Human Rights

On the 12th of november the BRICS Policy Center hosted the dialogue “Challenges of Energy Infrastructure Financing: Environmental Sustainability, Climate Change and Human Rights”. The event was organized by the Associação Interamericana para a Defesa do Ambiente (AIDA) and aimed to promote a discussion about the importance of the human rights on the implementation of power generation projects, and the States obligations in this context.

During the event, the AIDA association released the report Por trás das Represas: Investimentos do BNDES em Belo Monte e Hidroituango: Aprendizagens rumo a financiamento responsável, a document that analyzes the social-environmental performence of the BNDES, particularly in what concerns the financing of megadams, historically important projects in the bank´s investment area. The report can be found  here.

The launching of the publication was the background for a discussion of the environmental safeguards in these major development projects and the reduction of impacts of the environment and on development models.

According to Professor Maria Elena Rodrigues, coordinator of LACID, the safeguards action has been insufficient to protect these territories and traditional communities from the regions chosen for the implementation of this type of project. Therefore, it would be necessary to improve the mechanisms of these financial institutions and institute greater rigor in relation to environmental protection standards. There has also been an assessment of the easing of environmental standards that have occurred in recent times and of the risks that the new Brazilian environmental policy can bring to the environmental agenda as a whole.