With mounting pressure from high-ranking  military officials and violent protests  

from far-right groups, Evo Morales resigned  as President of Bolivia on November 10th,  

2019. It was a crushing blow to Morales, his  followers, and to the democratic systems of  

Bolivia. Soon after Morales was forced from  office, a far-right, anti-indigenous senator  

rose to power and precipitated one the  bloodiest and most repressive months in the last  

40 years of Bolivian history. At its most simple  what took place on November 10th was a coup. But  

a year later, the Bolivian populace defied  this power grab and delivered a landslide  

presidential victory to Evo Morales' protege,  Luis Arce. Bolivia rejoiced at the return of MAS,  

Morales' socialist party. In under a year, Bolivia  went from this to this. But this is not the story  

of Morales' rise and fall. Instead, this the story  of what Evo Morales did (and didn't) accomplish in  

office, what Bolivia's form of socialism  can (and can't) offer to climate action,  

and what lessons we can learn from the complex  reality of Bolivia's environmental choices.

What Evo Morales Accomplished

In a wave of mass support, Evo Morales, an  indigenous coca farmer turned union organizer  

turned politician, swept into power in 2006. From  the onset, Morales and his political party, MAS,  

carved out a new indigenous socialism that starkly  countered the neoliberal capitalist agendas  

of previous presidents. With the mantle of the  presidency on his shoulders, Morales set to work.  

He filled his first cabinet with indigenous  leaders, broke free from the grips of the World  

Bank, and poured Bolivia's wealth into direct  payments, pensions, literacy programs, education,  

and infrastructure development. His agenda worked.  When Morales took office, Bolivia was South  

America's poorest nation. Just two years later  in the depths of the global financial crisis,  

Bolivia enjoyed one the highest levels of  economic growth of any country. More importantly,  

the percentage of people in poverty dropped  by half, literacy rates continued to decline,  

and the infant mortality rate was halved.  In short, Morales' socialist-informed  

development policies seemed to have worked  during his presidency. But, Morales alongside  

being an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist  was also a vocal environmental advocate.  

It's here in both his words and actions, that  we might be able to glimpse some insight into  

what a transitional socialist nation could mean  for climate change and environmental policy.

Evo Morales' Environmental Agenda

When Evo Morales set out to redistribute Bolivia's  resources to the people, he did it on the back  

of one of Bolivia's biggest industries, fossil  fuels. In order to fund his literacy, education,  

healthcare, and infrastructure programs, Morales  essentially nationalized Bolivia's hydrocarbon  

industry. He raised taxes on private gas companies  from 18% to 81%, with the expressed interest of  

then delivering those profits to the people via  direct payments or social programs. Under Morales,  

Bolivia also passed a law recognizing Mother Earth  or Pachamama as sacred giving legal precedent to  

those hoping to defend the land and air from  extractivist industries as well as invested  

18.7 million U.S. dollars in reforestation  efforts from 2012 to 2015. And in 2019,  

when forest fires were raging throughout Bolivia,  Evo Morales was on the frontlines literally  

beating back the inferno. Throughout his 13  year presidency, Morales also solidified his  

climate and environmental justice advocacy on  the world stage during UN climate conferences  

as well as organized the 2010 World  People's Conference on Climate Change  

that brought together both social movement leaders  and politicians from over 100 different countries  

in order to craft an ambitious global climate  agenda that addressed climate debt, colonialism,  

and imperialism. In short, Morales attempted  the herculean task of simultaneous bringing  

wealth to the Bolivian people while trying to  take just environmental and climate action.  

He definitely succeeded in some  areas, but he also failed in others.

The Backlash against Evo Morales

Outside the World People's  Conference on Climate Change in 2010,  

there was a group of unhappy protestors. They  were calling on Morales to take domestic action  

on the environmental destruction. Morales, inside  with leaders and organizers from across Bolivia  

and the world seeking to develop a new global  initiative on climate change, and indigenous  

protesters outside decrying Morales' recent  environmental failures. Failings that include  

increased deforestation during his presidency,  continued reliance on fossil fuel extraction,  

and proposed megadams on two of Bolivia's  waterways. This is the complicated reality  

of Morales' environmental record. He  champions the rights of the Earth and  

challenges the destructive practices of capitalist  countries like the U.S. on the world stage,  

while simultaneously greenlighting projects  like the 190-mile highway in 2011 that would run  

through a number of indigineous lands in TIPNIS  and would require the clear cutting of swaths  

of primary forests. This project epitomizes  the struggle of the Morales administration.  

On the one hand Evo Morales tried, and, for the  most part, succeeded, in reducing inequality by  

transferring the wealth created by extractivist  industries like oil, gas, and lithium into the  

hands of Bolivia's population. But this was a  short term solution meant sacrificing some of his  

original environmental goals and standards.  The TIPNIS highway is meant to traverse the  

gap between a Brazilian highway and one leading  towards Cochabomba and ultimately to maritime  

ports. The highway would connect agricultural  land to commercial and industrial sights and,  

according to the Bolivian government, would  lead to a stronger economy. But due to protests  

and pressure from certain TIPNIS indigenous  communities the project was halted in 2011 with  

an intangibles law that protected the area TIPNIS.  Opinions of the highway were mixed, however,  

some local residents saw it as a way to better  sell their crops and develop a better future,  

So, after a consultation process with local  residents and industrial interests MAS repealed  

the 2011 intangibles law in 2017 and started  planning the highway anew. The TIPNIS highway  

project sums up the Bolivian struggle. It reveals  a much larger problem at hand in Bolivia and for  

many other post-colonial countries. In order to  bring prosperity to their lands they have to,  

at least in short term, participate in a global  capitalist economy reliant on extraction.

Escaping a Colonial Capitalist History Morales by no means had an easy path ahead of  

him when he assumed the presidency in 2006. The  history of Bolivia is marred with colonialism,  

anti-indigenous violence, and extractive  corporations like silver miners and fossil  

fuels multinationals that sought to swoop  in, grab resources, and sell them elsewhere,  

leaving Bolivia little but pollution and decimated  landscapes. Unfortunately, what Bolivia does right  

now is shaped by hundreds of years of colonial  extractivism. It's industries and infrastructure  

were all built in order to fuel the corporate  juggernauts of the Global North. As a result,  

if Bolivia does want to transform the quality  of life for its people it has to participate in  

the system that created it, at least in the short  term. So, I think it's dangerous to critique the  

methods that Morales used to redistribute  wealth and access to the Bolivian people,  

at least from an environmental standpoint. Bolivia  must be seen as a transitional socialist state.  

It's trying to rapidly lift people's quality  of living with the tools it was given. Tools  

cobbled together from the scraps of colonial,  extractivist rule. Tools that, unfortunately,  

have outsized environmental impacts. But  remember, the Global North is responsible for  

92% of global historical emissions, the U.S.  military alone emits more than 100 countries  

combined. Bolivia on the other hand is responible  for 0.03% of the world's emissions and in most  

cases those emissions stem from industries working  to satiate the appetite of the Global North.

Towards an Eco-Socialist agenda

Evo Morales's socialist Bolivia is a complicated  case study full of environmental contradictions.  

At their core, I think these contradictions  stem from the struggle inherent in participating  

in extractive industries to better the situation  of his people. Morales, throughout his presidency,  

was stuck between a rock and a hard  place. Bolivia's specific circumstances  

meant Morales often had to choose between  raising the quality of life for his people  

or staying true to his environmental beliefs. In  the US and other countries of the Global North,  

which have enjoyed immense wealth, fossil  fuels, and consumption for hundreds of years,  

that choice doesn't exist. They've already blown  past their “budgets.” It's their responsibility,  

then, to quickly transition to zero-carbon, low  consuming economies. Socialism could be a just  

and effective way to get that done. But, after  watching and researching the presidency of Evo  

Morales one thing is clear to me. Socialism,  while certainly less-harmful than capitalism,  

does not eliminate environmental destruction.  In order to create an eco-socialist reality,  

global socialist agendas need to foreground  climate change and degrowth ideas. Part of this  

is developing degrowth strategies, part of this  employing smart design and effective renewable  

infrastructure, and part of this means redefining  the good life. One paper models that it's possible  

for rich countries like the U.S. to contract their  consumption rates by as much as 95% while still  

maintaining a high quality of life that includes  universal healthcare, air conditioned homes,  

and computers. Essentially, growth doesn't have  to happen in rich countries for people to live  

well. At the end of the day, The Global North  poured gasoline on the fire of climate change,  

it's their responsibility to put it out. So, while  this does mean dealing with their own emissions,  

it also means developing a global climate  reparation plan for countries that have  

contributed little to climate change, yet  will experience the brunt of its force.

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