{"id":3682,"date":"2022-01-03T13:25:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T17:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energiesnet.com\/espanol\/?p=3682"},"modified":"2022-01-03T14:12:17","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T18:12:17","slug":"chile-writes-its-constitution-confronting-climate-change-head-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energiesnet.com\/espanol\/chile-writes-its-constitution-confronting-climate-change-head-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Somini Sengupta\/NYT -Chile Writes Its Constitution, Confronting Climate Change Head On"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chile has lots of lithium, which is essential to the world\u2019s transition to green energy.
But anger over powerful mining interests, a water crisis and inequality has driven Chile
to rethink how it defines itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photographs by Marcos Zegers.

Evaporation ponds at a lithium plant in Chile\u2019s Atacama Desert. Questions of mineral
wealth, global warming and water are at the heart of a rewrite of the nation\u2019s defining document.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Somini Sengupta<\/a>\/NYT

LITHIUM SALT FLATS, SALAR DE ATACAMA, Chile 
EnergiesNet.com 01 03 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rarely does a country get a chance to lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is, until now, in Chile, where a national reinvention is underway. After months of protests over social and environmental grievances, 155 Chileans have been elected to write a new constitution amid what they have declared a \u201cclimate and ecological emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their work will not only shape how this country of 19 million is governed. It will also determine the future of a soft, lustrous metal, lithium, lurking in the salt waters beneath this vast ethereal desert beside the Andes Mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lithium is an essential component of batteries. And as the global economy seeks alternatives to fossil fuels to slow down climate change, lithium demand \u2014 and prices \u2014 are soaring.

Mining companies in Chile, the world\u2019s second-largest lithium producer after Australia, are keen to increase production, as are politicians who see mining as crucial to national prosperity. They face mounting opposition, though, from Chileans who argue that the country\u2019s very economic model, based on extraction of natural resources, has exacted too high an environmental cost and failed to spread the benefits to all citizens, including its Indigenous people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, it falls to the Constitutional Convention to decide what kind of country Chile wants to be. Convention members will decide many things, including: How should mining be regulated, and what voice should local communities have over mining? Should Chile retain a presidential system? Should nature have rights? How about future generations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around the world, nations face similar dilemmas \u2014 in the forests of central Africa, in Native American territories in the United States \u2014 as they try to tackle the climate crisis without repeating past mistakes. For Chile, the issue now stands to shape the national charter. \u201cWe have to assume that human activity causes damage, so how much damage do we want to cause?\u201d said Cristina Dorador Ortiz, a microbiologist who studies the salt flats and is in the Constitutional Convention. \u201cWhat is enough damage to live well?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s water. Amid a crippling drought supercharged by climate change, the Convention will decide who owns Chile\u2019s water. It will also weigh something more basic: What exactly is<\/em> water<\/p>\n\n\n\n