Malaysia: Renewable energy is violating human rights as much as fossil fuels have for decades

Malaysia: Renewable energy is violating human rights as much as fossil fuels
have for decades

Before she was killed, prominent indigenous activist Berta Caceres wrote a
letter to Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the United Nations special rapporteur on
the rights of indigenous peoples.

"The threat to Rio Blanco has returned due to this new onslaught by DESA
Corporation," Caceres wrote in Spanish in Oct. 2015. She then asked
Tauli-Corpuz—whose UN role is to serve as an expert "investigator" of abuses
against indigenous people—to visit her community in Honduras, and
investigate "the severe violation of individual and collective human rights
of indigenous peoples in our country," they perceived from the development
of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam by the company Desarrollos Energéticos
S.A. (DESA).

In March 2016, Caceres was shot and killed in her home. Five people were
charged with her murder—including two men linked to DESA: a man named as a
"manager for social and environmental matters" in a statement by DESA and a
private security guard who had been employed by the company.

"This is not a safe world, especially for indigenous peoples," says
Tauli-Corpuz. "You cannot hide." For years, fossil fuel extractors have been
criticized for harming local communities; now, as the world moves towards
renewable energy, indigenous people are facing threats from those seeking to
make money in the new, green economy.

After the global climate agreement brokered in Paris last year, investment
in renewable energy is surging. Last year, the number of new renewable
energy installations outpaced the number of new fossil fuel installations
globally for the first time ever.

Eniko Horvath, a senior researcher at the Business & Human Rights Resource
Centre in London, says Caceres isn't the only human rights advocate to be
threatened or killed for resisting a green power project. "Despite the
increasing investment [in renewables] we've been seeing, we didn't see a
real conversation around the human rights impacts that these companies are
having," Horvath says.

This year, the Centre released a report on responsible renewable energy.
They reached out to 50 renewable energy companies about their approach to
human rights, and only five said they'd committed to following the
internationally recognized standard established in the UN Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which prohibits resource extraction,
development or other investment projects on native land without the free,
prior and informed consent of the indigenous community.

The problem is the conflict of interest inherent in green energy
development, says Richard Taylor, chief executive of the International
Hydropower Association, a membership organization representing corporations,
engineers, and researchers working in the hydropower sector. "Many
developers are coming in with a perspective of getting a return on
investment," says Taylor. "They're not necessarily the best people to do a
rigorous preparation of a project; however, the expectation is on them. So
there is this conflict of interest about how much effort goes into the
preparation of a project."

In 2010, the World Bank and European Investment Bank financed the expansion
of geothermal energy production in Kenya and the construction of a
140-megawatt power station on land in the Rift Valley traditionally occupied
by the Maasai people. Then in 2014, Maasai leaders filed a complaint against
the World Bank, alleging the community was pushed off their lands without
proper consultation and resettled into a smaller area that could not support
their livestock, the source of their livelihood as pastoralists. "You are
evicted because it is in the national interest to have access to energy for
all," says Edna Kaptoyo of the Indigenous Information Network, a Kenyan NGO.
The World Bank eventually conceded it failed to adequately communicate with
the community in their language, and that they were not fairly compensated
for the loss of their land and livelihoods.

But it's complicated. Indigenous leaders are fighting for land rights and
against corporate "green-grabbing"—but they do genuinely want a just
transition to renewable energy. Indigenous groups are considered a
"frontline community" by environmentalists—they often experience the first
and worst effects of climate change. For generations, they have followed
weather and climate patterns for their agriculture and other means of
livelihood. When these patterns become less reliable, climate change can
have severe economic, social, and health impacts.

"For indigenous peoples, renewable energy has both its good and bad sides.
The good thing is we cannot deny that it can contribute to reducing
greenhouse gas emissions," says Tauli-Corpuz.

Human rights defenders like Tauli-Corpuz and Horvath contend that native
peoples' voices need to be included in development projects meant to
mitigate the effects of climate change, so that the vulnerabilities that
result from the uneven power dynamic between large fossil fuel companies and
local communities aren't replicated in the shift towards green energy.

"When solutions to climate change are brought to [indigenous communities]
they are not consulted nor is their consent obtained," says Tauli-Corpuz.
"I'm here to make sure human rights will be included." As the Paris
agreement was being negotiated last year, Tauli-Corpuz and other advocates
successfully pushed for human rights and indigenous peoples' rights to be
specifically named within the text.

Winnie Jimis, a member of the Orang Asli tribes of peninsular Malaysia, is
fighting another dam project in Sabah, Borneo, by working as the project
coordinator for the community organization Community-Led Environmental
Awareness for our River. "We don't want it," says Jimis. "It's going to
drown a settlement of our people. There are schools and clinics in the
village. It will drown the forest." The proposed Kaiduan Dam would submerge
up to 12 sq km of forest, and the project is already mired in controversy
after two senior water officials were arrested on graft charges in
connection to the dam and other federal projects.

As an alternative, Jimis advocates micro-hydro projects, like the small
hydroelectric dam in Long Lawen village in Upper Bakun, Malaysia. The Orang
Asli there have used the micro-dam to power lights and refrigeration for a
community of about 350 people since 2000. The community received about
$53,000 from several Malaysian NGOs to fund the project.

Bigger picture, some environmentalists have pushed to redefine what gets
categorized as "renewable energy" in an effort to limit damage on indigenous
communities. The Sierra Club, for example, supports small-scale dam efforts,
but condemns large-scale hydropower projects because of the damage they
inflict on wildlife and watersheds. Most influential international and
funding bodies, however, still consider large-scale hydropower renewable,
including the World Bank and the US House Committee on Natural Resources.

This year, Tauli-Corpuz presented a report to the UN General Assembly on the
violation of indigenous peoples' rights in the name of conservation. She
also submitted a report to the Human Rights Council on the state of
indigenous peoples in Honduras, condemning the killing of Caceres and
calling for the Honduran government to reconsider its contract with DESA and
revoke its licenses and permits.

"For me, the death of Berta [Caceres] is really very devastating and it
symbolizes a lot of what indigenous peoples' go through on day-to-day
basis," says Tauli-Corpuz.

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Link to Original Article:
http://qz.com/845206/renewable-energy-human-rights-violations/

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com