“So far, South American countries have not acted as a single bloc or consistently as a set of blocs in these [climate change] international negotiations, despite having important common issues, for example, the management of the Amazon basin. Nevertheless, a look at the positions of Bolivia and Brazil, by far the most important regional player, in the major summits sponsored by the United Nations and other parallel processes, reveals emerging possibilities for joint action by South American countries in future processes.

Policy-making processes in South American politics include deeper participation from civil society actors than are included in conventional international summits, and this phenomenon may help radicalize international policy positions. Bolivia and Peru offer two examples. These alternative processes are likely to have increasing impacts in international negotiations around Climate Change, and could inspire challenges to fundamental negotiating processes themselves.

Gonzalo Alcade of FORO writes,