Written by Raquel Anais Smith
The hot and dry climate of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula is a solar developer’s paradise. From afar, Mexico’s status in the top 10 list of countries with highest renewable investment appears to set shining examples towards the future of green energy, but local social and environmental backlash has been thick on the ground in the recent past.
The small city of Valladolid provides a glaring example. Here, in February of 2019, the Chinese company Jinkosolar Investment halted their progress on the Yucatán Solar Park residents sued them for violating human and indigenous rights and neglecting environmental impacts. The backlash stemmed from a lack of consultation and transparency about the project that was to take over 250 hectares of indigenous land. Violated rights were affirmed by independent observers, including Emilio de los Rios, who found irregularities in meetings that were often manipulated in favor of the project.
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This often hidden but deeply-rooted controversy has finally come to light with the first ever human rights benchmark of renewable energy companies, set up by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center. By assessing 16 of the largest publicly-traded wind and solar energy companies, they uncovered 197 allegations of human rights abuse since 2010, and realized none of the companies fully meet their responsibility to respect human rights. In fact, not a single company scored above a 53%, and more than half scored below a 10%.
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Renewable energy represents a clean start not only regarding how we power our world, but the power dynamics that govern it. However, as of now the rush to implement clean energy has been a repeat of colonialist ideologies rather than a community asset. The people of Valladolid want green energy, but only if it respects crucial socio-environmental aspects of their community.
Further west, the Ixtepec community in Oaxaca found a way to achieve the “energy sovereignty” that is often a missing piece of renewable energy projects. Assisted by the Yansa Group, a US-based nonprofit, the Ixtepec people diverged from the typical private model by creating a community wind farm.
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The project’s community-based aspect and pursuance of low interest and concessional loans keep the local community in control, able to benefit off both revenues and energy generated from the wind project. The Yansa Group jumpstarted the project by providing financial capital and technical know-how, while the reinvestment of 50% of funds into the community built the Ixtepec capacity to continue the project independently and expand their influence to support and teach other communities.
As fossil fuels impact various parts of the world in unique ways, the response to the crisis must also be uniquely targeted to reflect the diversity of culture, socioeconomic status, and environmental conditions of our world’s communities. The BHRRC human rights benchmark should be seen not as a sobering view of the direction we are going, but rather as a wake up call to make sure that our future is achieved the right way. The implementation of renewable energy has the capacity to turn the page into a new world order; one in which our world’s most powerful communities continue their development in responsible ways, and our world’s most neglected communities can achieve the sovereignty and rights they have been fighting for throughout history.
Raquel Anais Smith is a freelance writer specializing in environmental features, published across a variety of international online and print media.
