Bolivia

THIS LAND-LOCKED SOUTH American republic has a land area of 424,163 sq. mi. (1,098,581 sq. km.), with a population of 9,119,152 (2007 est.), and a population density of 21.8 people per sq. mi. (8.4 people per sq. km.). Only 2 percent of the land in the country is arable, with 24 percent used for meadow or pasture, and 53 percent is forested. Largely underdeveloped, Bolivia had a per capita carbon dioxide emission rate of 0.8 metric tons per person in 1990, rising to 1.3 metric tons per person in 1997–99, and then falling to 0.90 tons by 2003. Most of the emissions come from transportation (39 percent), with manufacturing and construction accounting for 20 percent, and [Page 130]public electricity, heat production, and auto producers accounting for the rest. The relatively small part played by electricity generation comes from the heavy use of hydropower in Bolivia, which accounts for 50.1 percent of power generation. However, 48.3 percent comes from fossil fuels, mainly liquid (58 percent) and gaseous (24 percent) fuels.

The effect of global warming and climate change on Bolivia is significant; the average temperature in increased by about 0.18 degrees F (0.1 degree C) each decade since 1939, with the rate of warming doubling in the last 40 years, and then tripling in the last 25 years. With the small amount of agricultural land, global warming will continue to contribute to a declining food supply for an already poor population. Furthermore, it has been causing the ice on mountains in Bolivia to melt, leading to avalanches, occasional floods, and soil erosion.

The Bolivian government of Jaime Paz Zamora took part in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change signed in Rio de Janeiro in May 1992, and that of his successor Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada ratified the Vienna Convention in 1994. On July 9, 1998, the government of Hugo Banzer Suárez signed the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was ratified on November 30,1999, and took effect on February 16, 2005.