Extreme UV Radiation Scorches Bolivian Highlands as President Arce Attends COP26

Bolivia’s capital city of La Paz is tucked away in the Andes Mountains (Wikimedia Commons).

Unusually high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation sweltered Bolivia’s capital city of La Paz over the past two weeks while Bolivian President Luis Arce was away at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26. The high-altitude region in the Andes Mountains of South America is prone to dangerous levels of UV radiation, but La Paz encountered an alarming UV radiation index of 21 on a scale that typically only goes up to 20 in October. The World Health Organization categorizes a UV index of 11 as “extreme” and cautions people to avoid spending time in the sun with this level of exposure.

“This is an issue that has literally had La Paz cooking” said Juan Pablo Palma, a risk management official of the municipal government. The La Paz government warned residents to use umbrellas and wear long sleeves when in direct sunlight.

The recent reduction in cloud coverage and altering rainfall patterns in the Andean highlands exacerbated the effects of UV radiation. Some Bolivian scientists argue that these patterns are an immediate effect of climate change. Luis Blacutt, a researcher at the atmospheric physics laboratory in La Paz, created climate change models to study the trend in Bolivia’s rainfall. His studies showed that the rainy season was shorter than normal despite delivering an average rainfall amount. As the development of rainy season clouds are delayed or even fail to appear, ultraviolet radiation levels accelerate with concerning effects.

The abnormal UV radiation levels’ potential to disrupt harvest and production within the Bolivian agricultural sector, a large part of Bolivia’s economy, are especially alarming. The most recent data from 2017 shows that agriculture accounted for just under 30 percent of labor employment in Bolivia and 13 percent of the country’s GDP. 

President Arce is one of the world leaders present at COP26 in Glasgow, held from October 31 to November 12. 

In his opening remarks at COP26, the socialist president criticized many developed countries for introducing a “re-colonization” process during negotiations in the international fight against climate change that he called “New Carbon Colonialism.”

Arce ​​argued that the solution to climate change lies in moving against market internationalism and toward an alternative model that promotes environmental sustainability. He further claimed that humanity must live in harmony and equilibrium with the cycles of the Earth.

The most recent figures from 2018 by the World Bank show that Bolivia’s total greenhouse gas emissions (kilotons of the CO2 equivalent) were less than one percent of the United States’ and a mere 0.04 percent of China’s total emissions. 

At the current rate of global emissions, researchers predict Bolivia will continue to witness effects of climate change. This includes more wildfires, drought, and warmer temperatures that disproportionately affect Bolivia’s poor and indigenous people, the groups most exposed and vulnerable to weather extremities. “We do not have much responsibility for global warming, but we still make efforts to counteract this situation,” Arce concluded.