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Whitney Pennington Rodgers:
Marcelo Mena is an environmentalist,

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a scholar,

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and he is the former
Minister of Environment for Chile.

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Welcome, Marcelo.

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Marcelo Mena: How are you doing, Whitney.
Thanks for the invitation.

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WPR: Perfect. Great.

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Of course, thank you so much
for being with us here today.

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And you know, before we dive
into the future of climate action

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in Chile and beyond,

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I think it would be great for us
to talk about the present,

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and why Chile really represents
a country that is worth thinking about

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when we talk about climate.

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You know, recently there have been
lots of commendable actions

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taken by your country
when we think about climate.

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Chile recently committed
to net zero emissions by 2050,

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the first in the Americas to do this,

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and that's especially notable
when you think about

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how much of Chile's economy
really depends on carbon emissions:

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mining, agriculture, and spaces like that.

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So could you start a little bit
by just talking about

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how would this even be possible
to get to net zero emissions in 30 years,

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and what would that mean for Chile?

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MM: It was a very surreal image

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when we saw Minister Schmidt,

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the COP25 president,

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Patricia Espinosa,
the UN head on climate change,

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with masks delivering this new NDC.

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The important thing here is things
that are hard to build require consensus,

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but therefore to get rid
of that commitment,

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you need to have another consensus.

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This hasn't happened,

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so I think is, the reason why Chile
has a sort of vision towards mitigation

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that's ambitious

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is that we see that there's
a big economic benefit.

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We have seen, we've witnessed,

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what the renewable energy sector
has been able to do for investment,

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for lowering energy costs,

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and so therefore to reach this goal

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we will inevitably expand
to 100 percent renewable,

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but we'll also transform our industry,
which is heavy on fossil fuels,

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towards low emissions,

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with the hydrogen economy kicking in,

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with a recently launched committee
that I formed, that Minister Jobet,

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the Minister of Energy, set up.

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And also energy efficiency
and a lot of capture, carbon capture.

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We are endowed with
a lot of natural capital.

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Taking care of that natural capital
and expanding plantations

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will allow us to reach net zero by 2050.

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WPR: That's great.

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And now it seems like Chile
has such a huge focus, then,

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in thinking about renewable energy
and thinking about climate.

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But this wasn't always the case.

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Could you talk a little bit, I guess,

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about the history of how Chile
arrived at this moment?

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MM: Yeah, so in 2011, 2010,

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we had an energy discussion
with incumbents

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saying the only way we could solve
our energy problems

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will be through large coal
and large hydro in Patagonia.

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And that really polarized the discussion.

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We got together as a community
after large protests

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that triggered a lot of social movements,

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and we started discussing

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how we should be able
to do our energy going forward.

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The population, public unrest,
set up almost 6,000 megawatts

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of coal fired power plants
to never be built.

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And when the government,
Michelle Bachelet's government came in,

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we pulled the plug on HidroAysén project,

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which is a big hydro project
in the Patagonia.

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And both of these conditions
enabled an opportunity

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for renewable energy to be set in.

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We put in carbon taxes,

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we put in environmental regulations,

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and we set up an energy strategy
that we did building on discussing

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and looking at the data

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in which we thought that
the 70 percent renewable energy by 2050

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was going to be a target
that we could agree on.

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This target has been long surpassed.

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Now we're thinking of reaching
that same goal by 2030.

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WPR: And what you were saying
about social protests,

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that's something that a lot of people
maybe have been following

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news of what's going in Chile
are familiar with recent social protests,

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and I think I'm curious about
how you see that factoring in

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to climate action moving forward.

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How might these social protests

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play a role in what
climate action you see?

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And, really, how is it possible for Chile
to be a leader in climate action

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while also struggling
with some of these social issues?

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MM: Well, the social issues,

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which are very profound
and important to address,

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caused, for example, COP25

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to not be able to be held in Santiago,
and to go to Madrid.

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And this also shifted a whole bunch
of the discussions and announcements

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that were done

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and we were expecting to have.

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But regardless of this,

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the fact that we have this commitment
from the government today

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shows that there's a resolution
to continue forward.

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But really the model,

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the economic model of Chile,

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was brought into question,

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because the environmental issues,
for example, are quite widespread,

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and many times you have
large coal-fired power plants

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being situated where people live

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and with higher mortality rates.

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Somebody who lives
where a power plant is installed

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has twice the rate of death

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in comparison to other people in Chile.

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So the model of having many people
be impacted for the benefit of few

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is something that caused
and triggered the social unrest.

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And it goes into the economic model itself

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of extracting, colluding,
impacting communities

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that may not see the benefits
of these economic activities.

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So while we've done a lot,
we've come a long way,

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for example in securing

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a very emblematic agreement
to phase out coal-fired power plants,

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many people that this
wasn't done fast enough

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and want this action to be brought faster.

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WPR: And it sounds like having people
be the voice and the engine

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behind making that happen

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has really been part
of this historical thread

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with climate action in Chile

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and seems like it would really
lead things moving into the future.

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MM: No, definitely -- yes.
Go ahead. Sorry.

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WPR: Go ahead. Please go ahead.

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We have a little bit of a delay.

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MM: Starting out, we are doing well,

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but I think we need
to double down our commitments.

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So even though
we have ministries involved,

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we have civil society involved,

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we need to bring in
the mainstream industry.

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I think, for example, the mining sector
has a great opportunity

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to be the solution
for the environmental issues,

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because we provide the copper,
the cobalt, the lithium

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that are required for solar PV panels,
for battery storage.

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But we need to do this in a clean manner.

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I think that's the biggest challenge
we're going to have

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in the next 20 years ahead.

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WPR: And sort of pivoting to the pandemic

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and to thinking about what's going,

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right now the entire world has obviously
been devastated by this crisis.

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What have been some of the unique
challenges that Chile has faced

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during this pandemic?

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MM: Well, definitely, as anybody,

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we are always struggling within

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taking actions today to prevent
a deeper impact in the future.

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And we started off pretty well.

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We shut off schools.

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We shut off different cities
and had a quarantine.

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But we gave the wrong signals to people

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and we didn't have a consistent effort,

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and this has brought us to have
the highest infection rates per capita

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in the world these days.

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So this goes to show that,
the same parallels with climate change.

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We need to take action now
to prevent deeper impact later.

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And I think we need
to take the lesson of this

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to continue with an effort,

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because one thing is to announce
an ambitious NDC.

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Another thing is to invest and do
the regulations that you require

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to turn this into reality.

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But there are some things
that are interesting.

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The pollution in Santiago,

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which is one of the most polluted capitals
historically in Latin America,

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has dropped substantially.

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The car-related emissions
are down almost 80 to 90 percent,

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which is pretty substantive.

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And we look at the example
of what's going on.

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Harvard University showed a study
in which they showed

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higher mortality rates
for more polluted cities.

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And this is also the case in Chile.

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For every microgram of pollution, PM2.5,
there is an increase of the fatality rate

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of nine percent.

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But the thing is, we could also look back
at what we've achieved up to now.

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Had we not taken
measures to clean the air,

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as we've done in Chile
these last 20 years,

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we would be talking about five times
more people would have died from COVID.

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We have around 800 people
that have died due to COVID directly,

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but this would have been much higher
had we not taken action.

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And in fact, due to the lower pollution,

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if we estimate and predict this
to the rest of the year,

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we will have saved as many lives
reducing the pollution

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as we have lost in COVID,

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showing that there's a pandemic
that we also need to address,

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which is the crisis on air pollution
that suffocates many cities in the world.