Rosenthal de la Puente High School, Peru	назад
Peace and the environment (English version) Год создания: 2000

PEACE AND ENVIRONMENT Introduction As process objective, the current globalization represents a new stage in the economic evolution, politics and social to planetary scale that expresses working of laws and objective tendencies of the operation of the capitalist system. This process reveals a new level and superior of development of the productive forces that it supposes the unfolding of a new pattern of capitalist accumulation. As for their economic, political and social content, the current globalization rests basically markedly in a court project neoliberal, through the one which the main circles of power to level world -big transnational corporations, governments of highly industrialized countries, and international organizations that represent the interests of the agents before mentioned - they seek to impose, to global scale, its macroeconomic politicians, its approaches about the political organization of the society, the norms and principles for the regulation of the international relationships and a certain system of values The globalization is characterized by the great speed of the changes; the internationalization and the tendency to the homogeneus and uniform in some spheres; their contradictory character; and their diverse dimensions: tecno-economic, commercial, financial, politics, social, cultural and environmental, among others. In the last two decades the environmental topic has won space in a growing way, so much in the academic forums as in the process of taking of decisions in diverse parts of the planet. From half-filled of the decade of the 80 you took hold to a process of internationalization of the debate around the bond among environment and development that he/she has important political, economic, technological, commercial, financial, social and human dimensions. In this context, the debate around the relationship among trade and environment, and their implications for the countries underdeveloped squatter a central place. In the debate about the relationship among trade, economic growth and environmental quality two extreme positions exist. Of a side, those are located that subscribe the idea about an almost automatic condtion of the environmental quality with regard to the economic growth and of this, in turn, in connection with the commercial liberalization. This way, the defenders of this position plead for the global commercial liberalization to ultranza; underestimating, even the very unequal levels of economic development among the different countries. This way they are spread to absoluticer the benefits of the free trade", in terms of elevation of the material wealth, a quicker diffusion of the technologies environmentally suitable, bigger resources dedicated to the environmental budgets, among others. In the other end those are located that spread to absoluticer the negative environmental effects that are derived of the free trade"; and they plead for the adoption of unilateral measures with the purpose of diminishing the environmental degradation. Those that sustain the defense to ultranza of the free trade assume that the economic growth in a country of low revenues drives, in the short term, to a bigger environmental degradation, but after being reached certain entrance level per layer, they spread to improve the environmental conditions with the economic growth. It is worth to point that in this analysis logic it underlies the idea that the economic growth has to be reached before you acts to protect the environment; and the suggestion that the liberalization economic/comercial and other politicians of economic growth could substitute the environmental politicians. Amid this polemic, the guessed right point of view is not in fact the one that looks for to choose between trade and economic growth, of a side, and environmental quality, of the other one; but the one that looks for to establish differences between a trade modality and economic growth, based on a vision short term that he/she translates himself in serious environmental damages; and a commercial focus, with a perspective of long term that contributes to the economic growth on sustainable bases. The politicians of commercial liberalization and the environmental ones should not only be supplemented but also to be reinforced mutually. Keeping in mind the global requirements to advance as regards sustainable development, in the commercial plane the necessity is imposed of dismantling the barriers to the international trade, so much tariff as not tariff, as well as other disloyal commercial practices carried out mainly by the developed countries. It is necessary to mention, for example that the grants to the agriculture in the Organization for the Cooperation and the Economic Development (OECD) they ascend to 350 thousand million dollars, it calculates that it duplicates the value of the exports of the underdeveloped countries, according to calculations of the Conference of United Nations on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). On one hand, these practical protectives accentuate the deterioration of the terms of exchange of the most vulnerable nations economically and they spread to brake the access from the underdeveloped countries to the world markets, with what you/they decrease the options of sustainable development of these countries significantly. For the underdeveloped economies, highly dependent of the exports of matters cousins, the deterioration of the exchange terms usually translates in more pressures on the natural resources and the environment. He/she fits to remember that in the poorest countries the basic products have ended up representing more than 90% of the total value of the exports. On the other hand, many of the practical protectives of the developed countries spread to reinforce the erosion of the environment in the own countries that apply them; this way for example, the agricultural subsidies that establish the countries of the OECD contribute to intensify the use of cultivation areas that you/they would not be attractive with agricultural ends in absence of such subsidies. Many times the thesis of the sustainable development has been an employee as pretext for some countries developed to justify the adoption of having measured protectives against other States. An example in this sense is the seizure tunny boat, decreed in May of 1991 by USA against the exports of Venezuela, Mexico and the Islas Vanuatu, based on the Law of Mammals of USA This seizure was declared illegal for the GATT and it has been pointed out that the prohibition of caring tuna didn't pursue so much to defend the dolphins (I plead employee) like to the fishing fleet of the USA as long as the measure was only referred to the part of the seas where it didn't operate the fleet of that country. Mexico was forced, in the practice, to change its methods of fishing tunier due to its incorporation to the Treaty of Free Trade of North America (TLC). As regards transfer of technologies, he/she should remember that historically one of the roads of export of contamination from the North industrialized toward the underdeveloped South has been the transfer of inefficient and polluting technologies that you/they have contributed to the diffusion of consumption patterns and of operation economic squanderes of matters cousins and of energy in the receiving countries. This tendency arrives until our days. In that referred environmentally to the international transfer of technologies suitable, the requirement of a bigger access of the underdeveloped countries to the new technological advances collides with the new corporate strategies and the current ones political commercial of the industrialized countries that they spread to impose stricter and more uniform norms for the protection of the intellectual property, like it has been demonstrated in the multilateral commercial negotiations driven to instances of the OMC. In this context, it is necessary the development of endogenous technological capacities in the underdeveloped countries, to the effects of to reduce the dependence of the cared technologies and to give solution to certain problems that are characteristic of those countries, for which available technologies don't exist in the exterior. Special attention should be offered to the possibilities of fomenting the transfer of certain technologies environmentally suitable among underdeveloped countries, as well as to the collaboration South-south as regards qualified personnel's formation, amplification of the capacities of Investigation and Development, among other areas. With relationship to the generation and diffusion of technologies environmentally suitable, it is necessary to point that until the moment, at international level, it has been advanced preferably in the development of environmental technologies of final phase, dedicated to control the contamination or to remedy the ecological damage; instead of giving bigger priority to those clean technologies guided to reduce significantly (or to eliminate) the environmental damage, from the first phases of the productive cycle, what supposes significant changes in the production patterns and consumption. According to some estimates of the OECD, the global market of the environmental technologies by the middle of the 90 was of the order of the 250-300 thousand million dollars and most of this I mount it corresponds to the trade of technologies of final phase. It is also preoccupy that, in many occasions, the supply of certain technologies to underdeveloped countries is conditioned to the acceptance by the part receiver of dangerous waste generated in developed countries and that, supposedly, they could be used as energy sources or recyclable material. The increment of the cost of treatment of the toxic waste in the industrialized countries (until about 3 thousand dollars for ton) it has stimulated the export of toxic waste of countries developed to the underdeveloped countries, where they can be buried without trying for about 5 dollars the ton. At the present time they exist near 180 multilateral agreements on environment, of which about 17 contain commercial dispositions. In this sense, it is recommended that the measures that are adopted for solve environmental problems, instead of being unilateral, they are based on the achievement of an international consent by the road of multilateral cooperation, like he/she settles down in the Declaration of River of Janeiro it has more than enough environment and development. To give pursuit to the debates about the bond between trade and environment, in 1994 he/she settled down the Committee of Trade and environment of the OMC. The basic objective of this Committee is to achieve that the politicians of international trade and the environment politicians lean on mutually. Diverse representatives of the developed countries have also expressed their concerns before the possible losses of competitiveness, employments and revenues that can be derived from the transfer of polluting companies to countries with less strict environmental legislations, denominated paradises of contamination". while the basic concerns of the underdeveloped countries are referred to the commercial barriers that affect to products elaborated with less strict environmental norms; and to the unilateral measures of certain industrialized countries. In the last years the pressures of the countries have been reinforced industrialized on the underdeveloped ones with regard to the way in that these last ones should use their natural resources. For the exporters of the South one of the main challenges of the present, to maintain or to improve their international competitive capacity, is the quick incorporation in their productive processes of the environmental norms that govern in the developed countries that they are their main markets. In this context different variants have proliferated of having labeled ecological, mainly in the countries industrialized as Canada, Japan, the Nordic countries, USA, New Zealand, Australia, and the European Union. This way, for example, in the European Union systems have settled down of having labeled to products like textile, tropical wood, paper and footwear. To grant an ecological label it is required to make an evaluation of the environmental impact of the whole cycle of life of the product - of the cradle to the sepulchre" -. TO these programs they sink others as the obligations of return of the waste that generate certain products, the reciclaje norms, containers and packings, etc. whose application supposes high costs for those who try to penetrate those more and more sophisticated and demanding markets. In this sense, it is necessary to mention, for example that the container costs and packing can end up representing between 5% and 50% of the total cost of the product. The international norms of the ISO (International Organization of Standardization) they have also been broadly diffused in the last years. The series ISO 9000 is referred the systems of administration of the quality, while the series ISO 14000 is applied to the systems of environmental administration. These normalization systems are presented as programs of voluntary and informative character that influence as much in the consumers as in the producers. It should be kept in mind that the application of norms environmental uniforms to international scale has the inconvenience that they would not respect the legitimate differences among the different countries with relationship to its development degree, it structures economic, even of entrance, among others. Consequently, the uncertainty has been reinforced with relationship to the future access to the markets of countries industrialized on the part of the exporters of countries of smaller development. The internationalization of the debate has more than enough environment and development has coincided in the time with the peak of the speech and the neoliberal practices at world level. Under these conditions, the idea about the green market", that is to say the application of neoliberal formulas to solve the environmental problems, it has also charged special peak in the last years. In more recent years, broadly diverse proposals have been debated to apply new market mechanisms at international level as part of the answer strategies before the main global environmental problems. Nevertheless, important technical, institutional barriers, and politicians still persist for their application. In the context of the negotiations of the Convencin Marco of United Nations about the Climatic Change, for example, the developed countries, in an intent to avoid, at least partially, their international responsibilities, have liderado the efforts to generalize the application from certain market mechanisms to international level. The Protocol of Kioto, of this Convention, adopted in December of 1997, includes three of the calls mechanisms of flexibility", as instruments to make complete the objectives of the Convention, in that referred to the control of the emissions of gases of effect hothouse. With relationship to the application of market mechanisms at international level, that is to say, among countries with development levels so dissimilar, it should be kept in mind that, in absence of a mark appropriate regulatorio, you erosionaran significantly the potential advantages that are attributed to this mechanisms as regards transfer of technologies and of financial resources for the sustainable development. The underdeveloped countries should consider the opportunities and the challenges that could be derived from the application of such market mechanisms to international level appropriately. Also, in the international negotiations the underdeveloped countries should plead for a mark appropriate regulatorio, in such a way that the answer strategies before the global environmental problems assure the flows of technologies environmentally suitable and of financial resources that are adjusted to the requirements of the underdeveloped world, so much in the quantitative order as qualitative. Additionally, those answer strategies should contribute to modify the production patterns and consumption substantially to international scale, keeping in mind the different levels of historical responsibility of each group of countries. After two decades of application, in a widespread enough way, of neoliberal models in Latin America are preocupantes the economic, social and environmental results with which the region faces the new millennium. In the economic plane, although it was possible to improve the dynamics of the growth, with relationship to the lost decade of the 80; the half rate of increment yearly of the GDP in 1990-99 it was of hardly 3.2%; that is to say inferior to the average of 5.5% registered in 1945-80 and at the level of 6%, estimated by the ECLAC like necessary to reduce the technological and social rezagos. In the social plane, the number of poor was increased until reaching a level record of 224 million people to the closing of 1999; and in the environmental plane the vulnerability of the region has been reinforced. The evaluation of the most recent Latin American reality, allows to speak of the insostenibilidad and inviabilidad of the patterns of economic growth that have been adopted in the region, and of the necessity of a deep reformulacin of strategies, based on development approaches, justness and sostenibilidad that consider the interests of the Latin American population's majority sectors. In general, the economic politicians applied in the region in the last two decades, far from contributing to distribute the costs of the crisis equally and of the adjustment among the population's different sectors, they have still caused a deterioration bigger than the situation of the poorest strata. This quick marginalidad process and of transformation of the marginalidad in exclusion, qualified by some authors like a process of social apartheid, he/she has highly noxious environmental implications. Indeed, the poverty has been identified environmentally as one of the main threats for a development sure in Latin America since most (80%) of the poor of the region they live ecologically in areas vulnerable. This way, to the economic and social insostenibilidad of the modality of dominant development at regional level, sink the environmental insostenibilidad, with what closes a vicious circle among underdevelopment, poverty and environmental deterioration. Latin America, with the world population's 8.4%, contributes 8.9% of the global GDP and 4.4% of the total exports of goods and services. In terms of the bond between development and environment, it is worth to remember the abundant endowment of natural resources of the region that has potentially among other things 23% of the earth above all arable, 31% of the usable water, 23% of the forests, 40% of the animal and vegetable species, 20% of the potential of generation of renewable energy under the form of hydroelectricity and a significant part of the world reservations of minerals. However, the materialization of effective strategies of sustainable development faces serious challenges for the region. >From beginnings of the eighties, to the effects ecological negatives of the crisis the extremely noxious impact of the adjustment programs was added imposed by the international monetary and financial institutions to the indebted countries. On one hand, the process of socioeconomic adjustment has been translated in a severe cutting of the environmental budgets, with the consequent reduction of the activities inspectors; postponement, redimensionamiento or cancellation of works with environmental ends; reduction to the minimum of the studies of environmental impact, among other adverse implications. Additionally, the effort exporter carried out by the indebted countries under the conditions of the adjustment has caused a remarkable pressure on certain export products, with a high environmental cost. This way, for example, more than 80% of the reservations fish comercializables in Atlantic sudoccidental and 40% of those of the Pacific sudoriental are exploited, sobreexplotadas or out. On the other hand, in the measure in that the adjustment programs have made worse the conditions of poverty of the Latin American population's wide majorities, they have also contributed, for this road, to reinforce the ecological deterioration in the region. It is necessary to remember, for example that the Latin American population's 23% doesn't have access to the drinkable water and 29% it lacks reparation services, what reveals the high degree of vulnerability of the population's poorer sectors in the face of the contamination of the waters; that it is one of the fundamental causes of the transmission of diverse illnesses like the diarrheas, the dysentery and the hepatitis. Among the main environmental problems that he/she suffers the region at the present time they are the erosion, salinizacin and reduction of the productive capacity of the floors; the deforestation; loss of the biological diversity; the atmospheric, marine contamination and of the waterways; as well as the contamination caused by urban waste and dangerous residuals. With relationship to the erosion of the floors, it is preocupante that in a region on that most of the countries base their economies in the agriculture and in the agroindustry, more 300 million hectares (more than 10% of the regional territory) they are subjected to erosion processes of moderate to very serious (PNUD, 1998 and ECLAC, 2000a). This problem is explained, in great measure, for the system of holding of the prevailing earth in the region, where the population's 10% controls more than 90% of the arable earth, what leads to the subutilizacin of some areas and the sobreexplotacin of others. In most of the cases, the erosion of the floors associates to the effects of the deforestation, the sobrepastoreo, and in smaller degree to the chemical degradation. A significant part of the environmental deterioration and of the alteration of the ecosystems in Latin America is explained by the effects of the call green revolution", undertaken in the agricultural sector after the Second World War, with a strong participation of the transnational capital. Besides the growing artificializacin of the ecosystems, this process accelerated the emigration of peasants toward urban areas, with adverse environmental implications. As it was expressed before, the erosion and the reduction of the productive capacity of the floors are closely linked to the deforestation, and they have become worse ecologically for the amplification of the agricultural frontier toward areas fragile. As for the deforestation, Latin America and the Caribbean that it possesses 57% of the tropical forests of the world, one of the highest deforestation rates has registered among the underdeveloped regions in the last 20 years, to a rhythm of about 7 million hectares that duplicates the dynamics of the deforestation in the region of the Southeast of Asia and the Pacific (PNUD, 1998). The areas that present bigger degree of loss of forests for this concept are the Cuenca of the Amazons and Argentina, if the absolute figures, and certain countries of Central America and the Caribbean are analyzed (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Santa Luca), if the relative affectations are revised to the endowments of forests of each country. The deforestation in these countries has been accelerated by diverse reasons as: new colonizations for agricultural or cattle ends; the wooden extraction with commercial purposes; the inefficient employment of traditional fuels of the biomass like the firewood and the vegetable coal; the forest fires; the construction of new nets of highways; and the incentives settled down in certain economic politicians that foment noxious activities for the environment. In that referred to the biological diversity of Latin America, the region has the biggest wealth in biodiversity of the world, concentrated mainly on the area of the tropic. One of the main concerns in this sense is the growing loss of species, many of which have not still been properly studied. For the population's wide sectors, included diverse indigenous communities, the loss of the biodiversity has been translated affectations of its production means, of its means of life, of its energy sources and of its sources of medications. In the urban space, besides the growth of marginal areas and of the contamination hdrica, they stand out the atmospheric contamination and the provoked one for the garbage and the dangerous residuals. The main causes of the atmospheric contamination, associate to the quick growth of the self-driven park, the increment of the industrial activity, the increase of the energy production, among others. Some of the Latin American cities that present higher indexes of atmospheric contamination are Mexico City, Sao Pablo and Santiago from Chile. A significant part of the atmospheric contamination is attributed to the energy sector that maintains a high dependence of the production and consumption of fossil fuels, especially petroleum, and first floor levels of energy efficiency. Presently, the fossil fuels (petroleum, coal and natural gas) they represent around 90% of the balance of commercial energy of the region; and the emissions per layer of CO2 reach a level of 2.6 annual metric tons. In these countries they have not been carried out, in coherent widespread, political way directed fundamentally to the efficient use of the energy, due to the financial and technological limitations that it faces the region. Between 1972 and 1990 more than 90% of the energy financing coming from the multilateral and bilateral agencies of development was dedicated to projects of energy generation in great scale and only 1% to projects linked with the improvement of the energy efficiency (ECLAC, 1991: 86). according to dear for the last years, the expansion and modernization of the regional energy sector would require about 20 thousand million annual dollars in investments. In this context, the rural and urban population's of low revenues majority sectors don't have access to the basic energy services with the required quality. The firewood whose inefficient use has extremely noxious effects for the health, the economy and the environment, continues occupying the first place in the structure of the residential energy consumption of Latin America, mainly in the poorest areas as Central America. Approximately, 60% of the population of the region depends on the firewood and the vegetable coal as domestic fuels; and in general, the traditional fuels of the biomass contribute more than 40% of the requirements energy totals of the poorest countries in the area, as Nicaragua (43%), El Salvador (44%), Honduras (50%), Paraguay (51%), Guatemala (61%), and Haiti (87%), according to data of United Nations (PNUD, 1999: 202-204). In Latin America they die every year some 406 thousand people a year for problems of contamination of the air, of which are victims of the contamination of the air inside their homes more than 70%, in great measure to the use of traditional fuels (PNUD, 1998: 70). Although the main responsible for the global atmospheric contamination are the industrialized countries, the underdeveloped, included countries the Latin Americans and Caribbean, they would rot it turns severely affected by the derived consequences of such phenomenons as the effect hothouse or global heating. This way, the insular States of the Caribbean and other countries of Latin America that have low costs would count for example, among those more harmed by the implications of the effect hothouse, in the relative thing to the foregone elevation of the level of the sea in next century and to the biggest probability that hurricanes, hurricanes and tropical storms take place, among other negative effects. In fact, they have already begun to feel some of these adverse consequences; you speculates that the serious affectation of the well-known coralline reefs as white of the corals is associated to the elevation of the temperatures of the ocean caused by the global heating. These environmental problems are having a high socioeconomic cost for the countries of the region, particularly in strategic sectors as the tourism, the fishing and the agriculture, among others. Among the factors of socioeconomic and environmental vulnerability of many of the Latin American and Caribbean countries are the propensity to the natural disasters (atmospheric phenomenons, fluvial floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.) and the drop capacity of answer of their economies to recover of these situations. In this sense, the last episode of The Boy's current that began in 1997, caused strong droughts and floods, and in general he/she had very negative implications for the agriculture, the fishing and the infrastructure of several countries. The total losses for this concept are considered in about 15 thousand million dollars, of which 50% corresponded to five Andean countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela). On the other hand, Central America and the Caribbean suffered serious material and human damages, derived of two strong hurricanes (Georges and Mitch). Given the magnitude of the registered damages and the requirements of the reconstruction, the impact of these atmospheric phenomenons will even allow to feel to medium term. The total material losses caused by the hurricane Mitch, according to estimates of the ECLAC, ascended to about 7 thousand million dollars (ECLAC, 1998a). About the contamination caused by the garbage and the dangerous residuals, they are preocuppy particularly, besides the problems of local handling of the urban and industrial waste, the effects of the transborder movement of dangerous residuals toward the region, maxime if one keeps in mind the lack of control systems and of evaluation of derived impacts of this traffic. Between 1989 and 1994 they registered 148 shippings of dangerous waste from countries developed toward countries Latin American and Caribbean, many times using like argument the use of the residuals like matters cousins or recyclable material in the destination countries (Clapp, 1994). On the bond between population and environment, some authors consider that Latin America has entered in a phase of demographic transition", since the rate of annual demographic growth for the region is located around 1,7% in 1993-2000, in front of 2,3% in 1960-93. Nevertheless, the populational dynamics of the region continues generating strong pressures in terms of additional requirements of foods, it dilutes drinkable and natural resources. In the industrialized countries, the rate of annual populational growth passed of 0,8% in 1960-93 to 0,4% in 1993-2000; in such a way that if they stay the current tendencies the Latin American and Caribbean population it would be duplicated in the year 2034, that is to say, 129 years before in the developed countries (PNUD, 1996 and 1999). Regarding the relationship between trade and environment, Latin America registers a high dependence of the primary activities and of the transformation sectors and of services that use natural resources in an intensive way. During the last years the basic products have arrived it is necessary to represent more than 50% of the revenues for Latin American export. Among the main basic products that it exports the region they are: petroleum and derived, coffee, copper, flour of oleaginous seeds, iron mineral, soya, wheat, corn, bananas, sugar, cotton, meat of bovine livestock, mollusks, crustaceans, and other products of the sea. This high dependence of the basic products has been reinforced during the last two decades, in such a way that the structure exporter of the region is more vulnerable at the present time that 20 years ago (to see ECLAC, 2000a: 59-62). The Latin American and Caribbean population's wide sectors that live under conditions of poverty, don't have another alternative that to depredate the environment to try to survive and, like it is underdeveloped and highly dependent economies of the exports of basic products, to the erosionarse the means is affected the main sources of exportable revenues sensibly. In 1998, for example, he/she registered a notable effort exporter in the region, still to expense of more pressures on the environmental patrimony of these countries; as answer to the international financial crisis. However, the significant increment of the volume exported in almost 8% was insufficient before the fall of the unitary value of the export products in around 9%; so that the total value of the regional exports fell in 1.2% to the closing of that year. As it has been explained, when deteriorating the environment they are affected the basic sources of the socioeconomic transformations of the countries of the region directly: the natural resources. Under these conditions, a reinsercin of America in the world markets should not be based on an effort exporter and a promotion of foreign investments that you/they rest in the exploitation to all coast and the undervaluation of the natural patrimony of the region. According to the ECLAC, Latin America already entered in the stage in that an indiscriminate and abusive exploitation of the existent resources would mean a control for the development. The Latin American countries the same as the rest of the underdeveloped countries has been severely affected by the international commercial barriers, mainly those imposed by industrialized states that brake the free access environmentally to the calls technologies suitable. Before the severe economic, commercial and financial restrictions that Latin America has faced in the last decades, the concerns in connection with the financing for the sustainable development occupy a central place in the regional socioeconomic calendar. According to preliminary calculations of the ECLAC, the requirements of the region in this sense are of the order of the 10 thousand million annual dollars (ECLAC, 1991: 109), but in the practice the flows of resources for these ends have been extremely limited. One of the formulas rehearsed from half-filled of the eighties to finance certain projects of environmental court has been by nature the exchange of debts", taking like reference the rates of the titles of foreign debt in the secondary markets. The application of this mechanism has been very limited, in great measure to the dangers that it involves in terms of potential inflationary, possible limits to the sovereignty of the indebted country, absence of an appropriate consideration of the socioeconomic and environmental priorities of the underdeveloped nations, among other reasons. Until beginnings of the present decade -period of bigger peak of this mechanism - Latin American debts had been exchanged for a I mount nominal of more than 90 million dollars, corresponding to countries like Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bolivia and Republic Of the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Jamaica and Mexico; what represented around 93% of the total of debts exchanged by nature in the underdeveloped countries (WRI, 1992). Like it can be appreciated, also in quantitative terms the reach of these formulas has been poor, and in general sense many of the expectations created with relationship to the kindness of this mechanism have vanished with the time. Given their quantitative and qualitative limitations, this mechanism is far from being the suitable instrument to link the solution of the problem of the foreign debt with the efforts to face the environmental problems of the underdeveloped countries; for what has stopped to be an attractive option for these countries. Some financing proposals for environmental projects that have won force gradually at international level in the last years, are different modalities of market mechanisms that suppose the achievement of arrangements among several countries for jointly to give execution to international commitments of reduction of contamination, starting from economic approaches. On that base, the measures of mitigation of the contamination (e.g. measured to reduce emissions of CO2 in the marks of the Convencin Marco of United Nations about the Climatic Change) they would take first in those countries where the marginal costs of mitigation are smaller, that is to say, in the underdeveloped countries. Although I lower these outlines the investors of developed countries they would cover in the essential thing the costs of the investment in the underdeveloped countries, this mechanism involves, among other things, the potential risk (mainly in absence of an appropriate monitoreo of the process) that the industrialized countries avoid the execution of their commitments of reduction of the contamination in their own territories, what would defer the adoption in these countries of substantial transformations directed to modify the current production patterns and untenable consumption. As antecedent of the proposed market mechanisms, the calls activities applied jointly have been promoted". by the middle of 1999 the number of projects of this accepted nature, approved or endorsed by the respective governments it ascended at 133, of which about 27 were located in Latin America and the Caribbean (JIQ, 1999). In general sense, the environmental deterioration that affects to the region is explained in great measure by the combination of diverse internal and external factors, among those that it is necessary to mention the historical process of decapitalization and erosion of the resources natural resultant of the subordination relationships and dependence of these countries with relationship to the industrialized North; the high environmental cost of the production patterns and consumption dilapidador of the elites in the Latin American countries; and the action of the population's majority sectors that, burdened by the situation of poverty, they spread to depredate the means and to use in an intensive way the natural resources for merely to survive. This situation of environmental deterioration has been reinforced during the last two decades, due to the prevalence of practical commercial untenable -so much to regional scale as international -, in a context marked by the application of the neoliberal pattern in Latin America