In Peru, A Small Carbon Footprint Is Not A Choice

Sofia Llocclla Pellaca always descends on foot from the unlit hill where she lives with hardly any electricity on the outskirts of Lima. She rarely eats meat and cooks on a gas or wood stove

Lima, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th Dec, 2023) Sofia Llocclla Pellaca always descends on foot from the unlit hill where she lives with hardly any electricity on the outskirts of Lima. She rarely eats meat and cooks on a gas or wood stove.

She has never even heard of a carbon footprint.

While some climate-conscious people in rich countries try to restrict their carbon emissions, Pellaca's minimal impact on the environment is an unhappy side-effect of poverty.

Giving the poor a better life and spurring economic growth while also curbing planet-harming emissions is one of the major challenges facing world leaders meeting for COP28 climate talks next month in the United Arab Emirates.

"I walk down, I walk where I need to be, I walk back" up the hill, said Pellaca, 31, a single mother of two who barely uses public transport, owns no car or motorbike, and has never traveled by plane.

Pellaca is a domestic worker who earns less than half Peru's minimum wage of $265 per month.

She lives in a shantytown in the fog-covered desert highlands of the Peruvian capital that are home to many of Lima's 2.7 million poor people.

Peru's economy mainly leans on fishing and mining, with 73 percent of the working population in the informal sector.

It has one of the lowest carbon footprints in South America, emitting an average of 1.7 tons of carbon per person, compared to 4.2 tons in Argentina.

In the United States, the average annual footprint per person is 15 tons, more than three times the global average.

Experts say that to stay below the critical benchmark two-degree Celsius (3.6-degree Fahrenheit) rise in global temperature, individuals need to reduce their carbon footprint to less than two tons in the coming decades.

Eating less meat, taking fewer flights, driving less and using electricity more frugally are all billed as ways to reduce the emission of planet-warming greenhouse gases.