Colombia’s government agreed to declare a national emergency over the consequences of El Niño, a climate phenomenon that is expected to bring extreme drought in December.
According to the government’s environmental institute, IDEAM, this year’s Niño could become the worst since the 1950’s and will peak between November 2026 an March 2027.
During a minister’s council, President Gustavo Petro said that excessive heat and water shortages could lead to energy shortages in regions that rely on hydroelectric dams for their electricity.
Petro asked Finance Minister German Avila to transfer COP4 trillion ($1.2 billion) to disaster management agency UNGRD to double the purchase of solar panels to lessen the demand on these hydroelectric dams.
In December last year, the UNGRD already signed a COP4.2 trillion deal with electricity firm Gecelca to buy solar panels.
In order to maintain food production, the president ordered the purchase of desalination plants for the Caribbean region.
Water is what’s going to run out—we don’t know to what extent, but hopefully Bogotá won’t have to suffer through this again. So, any drinking water supply project that’s already been designed but lacks funding must be funded. Drinking water—all the desalination plants we can bring in, because we don’t build them in Colombia — in all the towns in the northern Caribbean.
President Gustavo Petro
Last but not least, Petro urged the Justice Ministry to secure “the accelerated surrender of lands, 500 thousand hectares, that have not been awarded” to landless farmers.
“Provide more land and more water to grow food, grow more food in Colombia, because the sun is going to scorch a lot of food and burn crops. And so it’s likely that we’ll be able to make up for the loss in food supply over these six months with new food supplies,” said the president.
Petro urged his ministers to be careful of corruption, which sank the UNGRD in a crisis in early 2024 and resulted in the detentions of multiple government officials.
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