Imagine live in the driest desert in the world and wake up one night and feel that all rain a year falls in a few hours. And then hear gnashing hills, rolling stones, desperate screams of friends and neighbors trying to protect their homes and their lives.
It is not commonplace, but at any moment it could happen again.
According to figures from the national Office of emergencies (Onemi) the flood of March 2015, occurred in the Norte Chico, left 31 dead, 16 missing and 16.588 affected.
Four years later, the consequences of floods are still visible in Atacama, as if they were scar wounds that, in our country, can produce tangible effects of climate change.
Touring Copiapo, Yellow Earth and the parrots, you can see houses covered with mud and debris. Not to mention Chañaral, whose geographical disposition completely changed and the inhabitants live in a city divided by a mass of mud, tailings and stone that is impossible to remove.
Those images could be repeated each summer more frequently. Models and weather reports developed by domestic and foreign experts indicate an increase in the heat waves and periods of drought in the South of our country and an increase of phenomena such as floods in the North.
A flood takes force under the slope where comes and, agree experts, is one of the most preventable natural disasters in human involvement, as simply a good urban planning, climate education and other preventive measures for prevent deaths and material losses. Unfortunately none of this exists or is contemplated, in the short term, despite the tragedy of four years ago.
Our country is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Thus recognizes it the INDC delivered in the context of the Paris agreement and the own national Plan for climate change 2017-2022.
But there are still more fragile groups such as the indigenous communities of the North and South; towns and villages affected by drought and desertification; areas of environmental sacrifice with serious socio-environmental conflicts and a system of environmental assessment that has significant deficiencies.
A reading to both documents enables us to find spacious and good political intentions, however, they lack ambition and urgency of the circumstances merit.
This year, in the context of the COP25 which will be held in our country, is the right time to achieve, finally, a climate change law.
The need to legislate on the subject not only relates to the appropriate response of Chile to its international environmental commitments, but compelling way, the opportunity to develop the legal framework enabling to have ambitious public policies, with clear objectives and specific targets. A law on climate change which create an adequate institutional, which modify sectoral laws (such as the communal regulatory plans, for example), and that is according to the rules on human rights.
A law to consider all stakeholders – particularly the most vulnerable and the generations future- and that put emphasis on a high adaptability to the effects of climate change, is the best insurance to new phenomena that lie ahead.
The call of the civil community, scientific and academic is clear: adequate legislation can prevent injuries and scars as the still remaining in Atacama.
Poured in this op-ed content is the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial line nor the counter position.
