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What Does Sustainable Living Look Like? Maybe Like Uruguay	What Does Sustainable Living Look Like? Maybe Like Uruguay
2022-11-12 14:39:34 UTC	2023-07-06 18:47:34 UTC (8 months later)
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Let’s say you live in the typical American household. It doesn’t exist, not in any sense except in a data set, but it’s easy enough to imagine. Maybe it’s your aunt’s, or your neighbor’s, or a bit like your own. Since more than half of us live outside big cities, it’s probably in a middle-class suburb, like Fox Lake, north of Chicago. You picked it because it’s affordable and not a terrible commute to your job. Your house is about 2,200 square feet — a split-level ranch, perhaps. You’re in your mid-30s and just welcomed your first child. Together with your partner you make about $70,000 a year, some of which goes toward the 11,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity and 37,000 cubic feet of natural gas you use to heat the house, play video games and dry your clothes. You take six or seven plane flights a year, to visit your mom after her surgery or attend a conference, and drive about 25,000 miles, most of which you barely register anymore, as you listen to Joe Rogan or Bad Bunny. Maybe twice a month you stop at Target and pick up six or seven things: double-sided tape, an extra toothbrush, an inflatable mattress.	Let’s say you live in the typical American household. It doesn’t exist, not in any sense except in a data set, but it’s easy enough to imagine. Maybe it’s your aunt’s, or your neighbor’s, or a bit like your own. Since more than half of us live outside big cities, it’s probably in a middle-class suburb, like Fox Lake, north of Chicago. You picked it because it’s affordable and not a terrible commute to your job. Your house is about 2,200 square feet — a split-level ranch, perhaps. You’re in your mid-30s and just welcomed your first child. Together with your partner you make about $70,000 a year, some of which goes toward the 11,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity and 37,000 cubic feet of natural gas you use to heat the house, play video games and dry your clothes. You take six or seven plane flights a year, to visit your mom after her surgery or attend a conference, and drive about 25,000 miles, most of which you barely register anymore, as you listen to Joe Rogan or Bad Bunny. Maybe twice a month you stop at Target and pick up six or seven things: double-sided tape, an extra toothbrush, an inflatable mattress.
You believe that the power and goods you consume are changing the climate but do not believe in your ability to stop it. So when you come into more money, no matter your political leanings or education, you buy a bigger house, another car, more stuff. You barely notice, but in the years since 1988, when James Hansen testified that our burning of fossil fuels was destroying the conditions for life, your home has grown by about 1,000 square feet and you’ve bought another car, an S.U.V. that’s itself 25 percent larger, even though you have fewer kids. All these choices compound so quietly that if you’re lucky enough to earn over $100,000 a year, you wind up helping your relatively small social group — about a fifth of Americans — contribute around a third of household emissions. Even if you don’t, by the end of the year, your carbon bill is world-historically anomalous but normal among your neighbors: 17 tons for transportation, 14 tons for housing, eight tons for food, six tons for services, five tons for goods.	You believe that the power and goods you consume are changing the climate but do not believe in your ability to stop it. So when you come into more money, no matter your political leanings or education, you buy a bigger house, another car, more stuff. You barely notice, but in the years since 1988, when James Hansen testified that our burning of fossil fuels was destroying the conditions for life, your home has grown by about 1,000 square feet and you’ve bought another car, an S.U.V. that’s itself 25 percent larger, even though you have fewer kids. All these choices compound so quietly that if you’re lucky enough to earn over $100,000 a year, you wind up helping your relatively small social group — about a fifth of Americans — contribute around a third of household emissions. Even if you don’t, by the end of the year, your carbon bill is world-historically anomalous but normal among your neighbors: 17 tons for transportation, 14 tons for housing, eight tons for food, six tons for services, five tons for goods.
That household total, 50 tons, represents a carbon footprint of about 25 tons per person. It’s a figure that eclipses the global median by a factor of five and is nowhere close to where it needs to be if you — we — want to stave off the worst of warming’s effects: around two tons per person.	That household total, 50 tons, represents a carbon footprint of about 25 tons per person. It’s a figure that eclipses the global median by a factor of five and is nowhere close to where it needs to be if you — we — want to stave off the worst of warming’s effects: around two tons per person.
The task of shrinking our societal footprint is the most urgent problem of our era — and perhaps the most intractable. For most experts, the first steps are obvious and yield the largest and least invasive cuts. Since electricity makes up about 25 percent of the United States’ five billion or so tons of yearly emissions, it more than likely begins with decarbonizing the grid. Next comes a push to electrify the transportation sector and regulate industrial production; each contributes about 27 and 24 percent of emissions, respectively. Then come several smaller cuts, to the buildings we live in and the appliances we use, from policies already having success in Europe and Canada: replacing gas-burning furnaces with electric heat pumps, updating building efficiencies and banning air-conditioners and fridges that use hydrofluorocarbon. Exactly how much all these cuts reduce our footprints is difficult to say, because our country spans an entire continent with several climates. But modeling by Energy Innovation suggests that, even after enacting dozens of subsidies, new efficiency standards and introducing new technologies, by 2050, it might only reduce our emissions by half.	The task of shrinking our societal footprint is the most urgent problem of our era — and perhaps the most intractable. For most experts, the first steps are obvious and yield the largest and least invasive cuts. Since electricity makes up about 25 percent of the United States’ five billion or so tons of yearly emissions, it more than likely begins with decarbonizing the grid. Next comes a push to electrify the transportation sector and regulate industrial production; each contributes about 27 and 24 percent of emissions, respectively. Then come several smaller cuts, to the buildings we live in and the appliances we use, from policies already having success in Europe and Canada: replacing gas-burning furnaces with electric heat pumps, updating building efficiencies and banning air-conditioners and fridges that use hydrofluorocarbon. Exactly how much all these cuts reduce our footprints is difficult to say, because our country spans an entire continent with several climates. But modeling by Energy Innovation suggests that, even after enacting dozens of subsidies, new efficiency standards and introducing new technologies, by 2050, it might only reduce our emissions by half.
This is the problem with any climate policy, big or small: It requires an imaginative leap. While the math of decarbonization and electric mobilization is clear, the future lifestyle it implies isn’t always. Right-wing commenters sometimes seize upon this fact to caricature any climate policy as a forced retreat from modernity — Americans forced to live in ecopods — while on the left any accounting seems to cloud the urgency of the moment. A majority of emissions come from just 100 or so corporations, activists argue, a concentration of industrial production that, once decarbonized, could slash the footprint beneath every wall sconce and sandwich. Even if it were true, these arguments conveniently ignore one uncomfortable fact: Walmart, Exxon Mobil and Berkshire Hathaway didn’t burn that fuel on their own — we paid them to, or burned it ourselves, because the way we live depends on it. By any standard, American lives have become excessive and indulgent, full of large homes, long trips, aisles of choices and app-delivered convenience. If the possibilities of the future are already narrowing to the one being painted by science with increasing lucidity, it strains even the most vivid imagination to picture it widening again without a change in behavior.	This is the problem with any climate policy, big or small: It requires an imaginative leap. While the math of decarbonization and electric mobilization is clear, the future lifestyle it implies isn’t always. Right-wing commenters sometimes seize upon this fact to caricature any climate policy as a forced retreat from modernity — Americans forced to live in ecopods — while on the left any accounting seems to cloud the urgency of the moment. A majority of emissions come from just 100 or so corporations, activists argue, a concentration of industrial production that, once decarbonized, could slash the footprint beneath every wall sconce and sandwich. Even if it were true, these arguments conveniently ignore one uncomfortable fact: Walmart, Exxon Mobil and Berkshire Hathaway didn’t burn that fuel on their own — we paid them to, or burned it ourselves, because the way we live depends on it. By any standard, American lives have become excessive and indulgent, full of large homes, long trips, aisles of choices and app-delivered convenience. If the possibilities of the future are already narrowing to the one being painted by science with increasing lucidity, it strains even the most vivid imagination to picture it widening again without a change in behavior.
This isn’t an American crisis alone. All around the world, developed nations have locked themselves into unsustainable, energy-intensive lifestyles. Among those with the largest footprints are wealthy oil-producing microstates with small populations, like Qatar or Trinidad and Tobago, where the per-capita footprint pushes 60 tons. In the next tier, with the United States, are other sprawling, continent-size countries that use a lot of heating or cooling and where people tend to drive long distances, such as Canada and Australia (around 20 tons). By dint of their density and reliance on mass transit, nations in Western Europe (as well as Japan and South Korea) make up most of the next tier, which cleaves roughly into two groups: places like Germany, Norway and the Netherlands that rely more on fossil fuels (around 15 tons), and places like the United Kingdom, Denmark and France that use a higher percentage of nuclear and renewable power. Though it’s half the size of an American’s, the footprint of someone in the typical French household still remains unsustainably high: around nine tons.	This isn’t an American crisis alone. All around the world, developed nations have locked themselves into unsustainable, energy-intensive lifestyles. Among those with the largest footprints are wealthy oil-producing microstates with small populations, like Qatar or Trinidad and Tobago, where the per-capita footprint pushes 60 tons. In the next tier, with the United States, are other sprawling, continent-size countries that use a lot of heating or cooling and where people tend to drive long distances, such as Canada and Australia (around 20 tons). By dint of their density and reliance on mass transit, nations in Western Europe (as well as Japan and South Korea) make up most of the next tier, which cleaves roughly into two groups: places like Germany, Norway and the Netherlands that rely more on fossil fuels (around 15 tons), and places like the United Kingdom, Denmark and France that use a higher percentage of nuclear and renewable power. Though it’s half the size of an American’s, the footprint of someone in the typical French household still remains unsustainably high: around nine tons.
The problem of reducing our footprints further isn’t that we don’t have models of sustainable living; it’s that few exist without poverty. Imagine another typical household, this time somewhere in the rural tropics, like the Mara region in northwestern Tanzania. You live with five or six others, your husband, parents, grandmother and perhaps two kids, in a 700-square-foot house without electricity, maybe one you built by hand from sun-dried bricks. You cook with firewood and pay for 3G with the few dollars a day you make. All around you, people are clearing forests for corn and rice, damaging ecosystems that otherwise pull carbon from the air. To give your kids a better life, you move to the city, and as you make more money, you rent a bigger house, take more buses, buy an air-conditioner. All these improvements add to your quality of life, ticking you upward on the Human Development Index, but also expand your carbon footprint — the two being so closely tied they could be proxies. No matter your vocation or luck, the only real way for you to make your life better is to burn more fossil fuels. So you do — collectively elevating your country out of those with a footprint close to zero (Afghanistan, the Central African Republic) and into those around two tons: India, the Philippines.	The problem of reducing our footprints further isn’t that we don’t have models of sustainable living; it’s that few exist without poverty. Imagine another typical household, this time somewhere in the rural tropics, like the Mara region in northwestern Tanzania. You live with five or six others, your husband, parents, grandmother and perhaps two kids, in a 700-square-foot house without electricity, maybe one you built by hand from sun-dried bricks. You cook with firewood and pay for 3G with the few dollars a day you make. All around you, people are clearing forests for corn and rice, damaging ecosystems that otherwise pull carbon from the air. To give your kids a better life, you move to the city, and as you make more money, you rent a bigger house, take more buses, buy an air-conditioner. All these improvements add to your quality of life, ticking you upward on the Human Development Index, but also expand your carbon footprint — the two being so closely tied they could be proxies. No matter your vocation or luck, the only real way for you to make your life better is to burn more fossil fuels. So you do — collectively elevating your country out of those with a footprint close to zero (Afghanistan, the Central African Republic) and into those around two tons: India, the Philippines.
This is the paradox at the heart of climate change: We’ve burned far too many fossil fuels to go on living as we have, but we’ve also never learned to live well without them. As the Yale economist Robert Mendelsohn puts it, the problem of the future is how to create a 19th-century carbon footprint without backsliding into a 19th-century standard of living. No model exists for creating such a world, which is partly why paralysis has set in at so many levels. The greatest crisis in human history may require imagining ways of living — not just of energy production but of daily habit — that we have never seen before. How do we begin to imagine such a household?	This is the paradox at the heart of climate change: We’ve burned far too many fossil fuels to go on living as we have, but we’ve also never learned to live well without them. As the Yale economist Robert Mendelsohn puts it, the problem of the future is how to create a 19th-century carbon footprint without backsliding into a 19th-century standard of living. No model exists for creating such a world, which is partly why paralysis has set in at so many levels. The greatest crisis in human history may require imagining ways of living — not just of energy production but of daily habit — that we have never seen before. How do we begin to imagine such a household?
Late last year, I traveled to Uruguay in hope of glimpsing one possibility. Wedged between its larger and more routinely travelogued neighbors, Brazil and Argentina, the small Latin American country exists as something of an anomaly. With a carbon footprint hovering around the global median of 4.5 tons per capita, it falls within a narrow tier of nearly developed countries within sight of two tons per capita — the estimated amount needed to limit the world to 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. Often called the Great Exception for its relative wealth and stability in the region, it enjoys a poverty rate around 10 percent and a middle class encompassing more than half the population. It ranks first in South America for political rights and civil liberties. There are countries more prosperous, and countries with a smaller carbon footprint, but perhaps in none do the overlapping possibilities of living well and living without ruin show as much promise as in Uruguay.	Late last year, I traveled to Uruguay in hope of glimpsing one possibility. Wedged between its larger and more routinely travelogued neighbors, Brazil and Argentina, the small Latin American country exists as something of an anomaly. With a carbon footprint hovering around the global median of 4.5 tons per capita, it falls within a narrow tier of nearly developed countries within sight of two tons per capita — the estimated amount needed to limit the world to 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. Often called the Great Exception for its relative wealth and stability in the region, it enjoys a poverty rate around 10 percent and a middle class encompassing more than half the population. It ranks first in South America for political rights and civil liberties. There are countries more prosperous, and countries with a smaller carbon footprint, but perhaps in none do the overlapping possibilities of living well and living without ruin show as much promise as in Uruguay.
Something of Uruguay’s character can be read as you descend toward it. One of the smallest and least densely populated countries on Earth, it is composed almost entirely of a single sweep of grasslands, which unfolds gently and is practically uninterrupted by cities or landmarks. Its highest point, Cerro Catedral, reaches 1,685 feet. Its ratio of cattle to people: 4 to 1. Even its official name, República Oriental del Uruguay, or Republic East of the River Uruguay, seems a modest commentary on its relationship to Argentina, whose capital, Buenos Aires, lies just across the water from Montevideo, like a fun-house reflection of a busier metropolis. Flat, quiet and often overlooked, the country has been called “the paradise of fat cows.”	Something of Uruguay’s character can be read as you descend toward it. One of the smallest and least densely populated countries on Earth, it is composed almost entirely of a single sweep of grasslands, which unfolds gently and is practically uninterrupted by cities or landmarks. Its highest point, Cerro Catedral, reaches 1,685 feet. Its ratio of cattle to people: 4 to 1. Even its official name, República Oriental del Uruguay, or Republic East of the River Uruguay, seems a modest commentary on its relationship to Argentina, whose capital, Buenos Aires, lies just across the water from Montevideo, like a fun-house reflection of a busier metropolis. Flat, quiet and often overlooked, the country has been called “the paradise of fat cows.”
The sky was full of low scudding clouds when I landed in early December. In Montevideo, an ocean breeze ran down the boulevards, which were lined with eucalyptus trees and worn Art Deco apartment buildings. After a year of restrictions, the cafes stood open and busy, and the rich were already leaving for their summer homes in Punta del Este. Along the Río de la Plata, which becomes the Atlantic Ocean east of the city, people walked what they call La Rambla, separated from the beach by a crumbling brick sea wall.	The sky was full of low scudding clouds when I landed in early December. In Montevideo, an ocean breeze ran down the boulevards, which were lined with eucalyptus trees and worn Art Deco apartment buildings. After a year of restrictions, the cafes stood open and busy, and the rich were already leaving for their summer homes in Punta del Este. Along the Río de la Plata, which becomes the Atlantic Ocean east of the city, people walked what they call La Rambla, separated from the beach by a crumbling brick sea wall.
In the Cerro neighborhood, west of downtown, I sat beneath a painting of a jaguar in the living room of María Esther Francia. Francia was thin and 71 and wore a matching set of patterned pants and blouse, her dark hair held back loosely from oversize glasses. A former activist and health care worker, she had been an intimate observer of Uruguay’s past, and I was curious to hear what she made of its future. Her paintings — mostly landscapes and animals — hung everywhere in her small apartment. They suggested undercurrents. An emerald prairie extended across a brilliant horizon, while spectral figures toiled beneath in mudlike caves. Francia told me that she did not know what future Uruguay was headed toward, only that they were building upon the remains of its history.	In the Cerro neighborhood, west of downtown, I sat beneath a painting of a jaguar in the living room of María Esther Francia. Francia was thin and 71 and wore a matching set of patterned pants and blouse, her dark hair held back loosely from oversize glasses. A former activist and health care worker, she had been an intimate observer of Uruguay’s past, and I was curious to hear what she made of its future. Her paintings — mostly landscapes and animals — hung everywhere in her small apartment. They suggested undercurrents. An emerald prairie extended across a brilliant horizon, while spectral figures toiled beneath in mudlike caves. Francia told me that she did not know what future Uruguay was headed toward, only that they were building upon the remains of its history.
Francia grew up in Salto, on the Argentine border, before moving to Montevideo in the 1960s. At the time, Uruguay was prosperous but embattled, the fledgling social democracy growing so unequal that a Marxist-Leninist group called the Tupamaros had begun robbing banks to distribute money to the poor. “What I earned working was not enough to eat,” Francia said. “And there were many people in much worse condition.” Uruguay’s relatively small size and concentration (about half of its 3.5 million people live in Montevideo) had long provided the country a collective sense of purpose — literacy was close to 95 percent and health care coverage was a universal right — but also brought its inequalities to a rapid boil. One of the Tupamaros’ more famous slogans read: “Everybody dances or nobody dances.”	Francia grew up in Salto, on the Argentine border, before moving to Montevideo in the 1960s. At the time, Uruguay was prosperous but embattled, the fledgling social democracy growing so unequal that a Marxist-Leninist group called the Tupamaros had begun robbing banks to distribute money to the poor. “What I earned working was not enough to eat,” Francia said. “And there were many people in much worse condition.” Uruguay’s relatively small size and concentration (about half of its 3.5 million people live in Montevideo) had long provided the country a collective sense of purpose — literacy was close to 95 percent and health care coverage was a universal right — but also brought its inequalities to a rapid boil. One of the Tupamaros’ more famous slogans read: “Everybody dances or nobody dances.”
In 1969, just three months after Francia was married, her husband, Alfredo Cultelli, was killed in the so-called Taking of Pando, when he and other Tupamaros seized the commercial hub. Four years later, while serving a prison sentence, Francia learned that the military had dissolved Parliament. Suspending the right to vote, the ruling junta adopted a neoliberal economic agenda inspired by the Chicago school and began conducting a widespread terror campaign. The twin policies all but broke the tiny country. Industrial productivity initially shot up, as the military cut tariffs and social entitlements. But all this growth came at a price. As the writer Eduardo Galeano once put it: “In Uruguay, people were in prison so that prices could be free.” By 1980, somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 had been exiled and an estimated one in 500 was imprisoned — the highest percentage of political incarceration in the world — many of them subjected to torture, including Francia.	In 1969, just three months after Francia was married, her husband, Alfredo Cultelli, was killed in the so-called Taking of Pando, when he and other Tupamaros seized the commercial hub. Four years later, while serving a prison sentence, Francia learned that the military had dissolved Parliament. Suspending the right to vote, the ruling junta adopted a neoliberal economic agenda inspired by the Chicago school and began conducting a widespread terror campaign. The twin policies all but broke the tiny country. Industrial productivity initially shot up, as the military cut tariffs and social entitlements. But all this growth came at a price. As the writer Eduardo Galeano once put it: “In Uruguay, people were in prison so that prices could be free.” By 1980, somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 had been exiled and an estimated one in 500 was imprisoned — the highest percentage of political incarceration in the world — many of them subjected to torture, including Francia.
Then in 1982, the bottom fell out of the economy — the peso crumbled and the economy shrank by 16 percent in two years. When Francia returned from political asylum in Sweden in 1985, she found her once-prosperous country unrecognizable: The streets were so empty that residents joked that the “last person in the country had turned off the lights.” For much of the next couple of decades, unemployment and poverty fluctuated wildly, as the country struggled to free itself from collapsing economies in Brazil and Argentina and the weight of its own past.	Then in 1982, the bottom fell out of the economy — the peso crumbled and the economy shrank by 16 percent in two years. When Francia returned from political asylum in Sweden in 1985, she found her once-prosperous country unrecognizable: The streets were so empty that residents joked that the “last person in the country had turned off the lights.” For much of the next couple of decades, unemployment and poverty fluctuated wildly, as the country struggled to free itself from collapsing economies in Brazil and Argentina and the weight of its own past.
In 2009, Uruguay elected an unlikely leader — José Mujica. A former baker’s assistant and flower merchant, Mujica had become notorious as one of the guerrilla leaders of the Tupamaros, with whom he staged at least one bank robbery, before being shot and arrested in 1970. He spent 13 years in prison, escaping at least twice, suffering torture and long stretches in solitary confinement at the bottom of a well. After his election, Mujica’s image as a populist folk hero was only further burnished by his deep commitment to social welfare and simplicity. Forgoing the presidential palace, which he opened to the homeless, he chose to continue living on his chrysanthemum farm, donating 90 percent of his salary to charity and driving his 1987 Volkswagen Beetle to Parliament. Today he’s considered by many in Uruguay and throughout the world as the archetypal Uruguayan.	In 2009, Uruguay elected an unlikely leader — José Mujica. A former baker’s assistant and flower merchant, Mujica had become notorious as one of the guerrilla leaders of the Tupamaros, with whom he staged at least one bank robbery, before being shot and arrested in 1970. He spent 13 years in prison, escaping at least twice, suffering torture and long stretches in solitary confinement at the bottom of a well. After his election, Mujica’s image as a populist folk hero was only further burnished by his deep commitment to social welfare and simplicity. Forgoing the presidential palace, which he opened to the homeless, he chose to continue living on his chrysanthemum farm, donating 90 percent of his salary to charity and driving his 1987 Volkswagen Beetle to Parliament. Today he’s considered by many in Uruguay and throughout the world as the archetypal Uruguayan.
As president, Mujica inherited a disastrous energy crisis — and the makings of an extraordinary revolution. Since the 1940s, Uruguay’s power had come from a mix of hydroelectric dams and oil-fired thermal plants, but as the country grew throughout the 1990s and 2000s, it delayed plans for developing new energy sources and became increasingly reliant on its thermal plants, all but yoking the country’s economy to unstable commodity prices. Blackouts and fuel shortages spread. In 2008, Mujica’s predecessor, Tabaré Vázquez, tapped a physics professor named Ramón Méndez to be national director of energy. Méndez saw the problem as existential. While more blackouts threatened the near-term economy, continued reliance on oil undermined the country’s sovereignty. A question occupied his work: How could the country achieve energy independence, not just now but into the future?	As president, Mujica inherited a disastrous energy crisis — and the makings of an extraordinary revolution. Since the 1940s, Uruguay’s power had come from a mix of hydroelectric dams and oil-fired thermal plants, but as the country grew throughout the 1990s and 2000s, it delayed plans for developing new energy sources and became increasingly reliant on its thermal plants, all but yoking the country’s economy to unstable commodity prices. Blackouts and fuel shortages spread. In 2008, Mujica’s predecessor, Tabaré Vázquez, tapped a physics professor named Ramón Méndez to be national director of energy. Méndez saw the problem as existential. While more blackouts threatened the near-term economy, continued reliance on oil undermined the country’s sovereignty. A question occupied his work: How could the country achieve energy independence, not just now but into the future?
Many Uruguayans thought the answer was nuclear energy, but the more Méndez looked at the question, the more he felt as if nuclear was just more of the same: a stopgap. “You’re still producing waste that has to be taken away from human life for thousands of years,” he told me. After manufacturing costs for renewables dropped within competitive range of fossil fuels in 2009, their appeal quickly became apparent: Because the costs were fixed — just investment and upkeep — the country could unshackle its energy sector from commodities. “Energy is not just one thing,” Méndez said. “You have to look at the basis of the energy system — the physical aspects, social aspects, geopolitical aspects.” Uruguay’s landscape offered an additional advantage: an abundance of bright and windy ranchland suitable for large installations. In September 2008, just five months after assuming office, Méndez submitted a plan for a countrywide transition to renewable power.	Many Uruguayans thought the answer was nuclear energy, but the more Méndez looked at the question, the more he felt as if nuclear was just more of the same: a stopgap. “You’re still producing waste that has to be taken away from human life for thousands of years,” he told me. After manufacturing costs for renewables dropped within competitive range of fossil fuels in 2009, their appeal quickly became apparent: Because the costs were fixed — just investment and upkeep — the country could unshackle its energy sector from commodities. “Energy is not just one thing,” Méndez said. “You have to look at the basis of the energy system — the physical aspects, social aspects, geopolitical aspects.” Uruguay’s landscape offered an additional advantage: an abundance of bright and windy ranchland suitable for large installations. In September 2008, just five months after assuming office, Méndez submitted a plan for a countrywide transition to renewable power.
The plan was ambitious: It proposed decarbonizing the grid by 2020, decreasing the country’s energy consumption by 20 percent and creating a domestic green-energy sector from scratch. It passed the cabinet, but when Mujica took office in 2010, he suggested a new approach. Despite his party holding a majority, he believed they needed to reach an agreement with the opposition. When I asked Mujica why, he told me, “Governments pass and people remain.” If the plan required attracting international investment and building infrastructure for the next 25 years, broad political support was the only way to ensure its long-term stability. “Historically we had made some very expensive mistakes and we were all aware of that,” Mujica said. Those mistakes included a $160 million natural-gas pipeline to Argentina, which never operated at more than 5 percent capacity, because Argentina had hardly any gas to sell them.	The plan was ambitious: It proposed decarbonizing the grid by 2020, decreasing the country’s energy consumption by 20 percent and creating a domestic green-energy sector from scratch. It passed the cabinet, but when Mujica took office in 2010, he suggested a new approach. Despite his party holding a majority, he believed they needed to reach an agreement with the opposition. When I asked Mujica why, he told me, “Governments pass and people remain.” If the plan required attracting international investment and building infrastructure for the next 25 years, broad political support was the only way to ensure its long-term stability. “Historically we had made some very expensive mistakes and we were all aware of that,” Mujica said. Those mistakes included a $160 million natural-gas pipeline to Argentina, which never operated at more than 5 percent capacity, because Argentina had hardly any gas to sell them.
Mujica harbored another deeper belief too. For years, he had been arguing that the “blind obsession to achieve growth with consumption” was the real cause of the linked energy and ecological crises. In speeches, he pushed his people to reject materialism and embrace Uruguay’s traditions of simplicity and humility. “The culture of the West is a lie,” he told me. “The engine is accumulation. But we can’t pretend that the whole world can embrace it. We would need two or three more planets.” He shared his own experience in solitary confinement, and how years without books or conversation drew him closer to the fundamentals of being: nature, love, family. “I learned to give value to little things in life. I kept some frogs as pets in prison and bathed them with my drinking water,” he told me. “The true revolution is a different culture: learning to live with less waste and more time to enjoy freedom.”	Mujica harbored another deeper belief too. For years, he had been arguing that the “blind obsession to achieve growth with consumption” was the real cause of the linked energy and ecological crises. In speeches, he pushed his people to reject materialism and embrace Uruguay’s traditions of simplicity and humility. “The culture of the West is a lie,” he told me. “The engine is accumulation. But we can’t pretend that the whole world can embrace it. We would need two or three more planets.” He shared his own experience in solitary confinement, and how years without books or conversation drew him closer to the fundamentals of being: nature, love, family. “I learned to give value to little things in life. I kept some frogs as pets in prison and bathed them with my drinking water,” he told me. “The true revolution is a different culture: learning to live with less waste and more time to enjoy freedom.”
If some Uruguayans found Mujica’s words naïve, many others found his actions inspiring. Méndez, for one, praised the “shared national narrative” Mujica developed. After two months of negotiations, the government reached an agreement, after haggling over the investment’s size and proportion of state ownership. By 2016, an array of biomass, solar and some 50 wind parks had replaced the grid’s use of oil, helping slash more than half a billion dollars from the country’s annual budget. Today, Uruguay boasts one of the world’s greenest grids, powered by 98 percent renewable energy.	If some Uruguayans found Mujica’s words naïve, many others found his actions inspiring. Méndez, for one, praised the “shared national narrative” Mujica developed. After two months of negotiations, the government reached an agreement, after haggling over the investment’s size and proportion of state ownership. By 2016, an array of biomass, solar and some 50 wind parks had replaced the grid’s use of oil, helping slash more than half a billion dollars from the country’s annual budget. Today, Uruguay boasts one of the world’s greenest grids, powered by 98 percent renewable energy.
Nobody seemed more surprised by Uruguay’s turnaround than Méndez. In the morning, when I walked to La Rambla to meet him, he possessed such a distracted air of intensity that I picked him out of the crowd almost immediately: a short, graying man in his early 60s with heavy, hooded eyes, three days of scruff and the slightly craned expression of the perpetually curious. Though he’s often credited with starting a “green revolution,” he didn’t set out to transform the Uruguayan way of life, he said. There hadn’t been a climate march on Montevideo, or a revolution in the countryside — at least not in the Latin American sense. Before entering politics, in his 40s, Méndez didn’t even consider himself an environmentalist.	Nobody seemed more surprised by Uruguay’s turnaround than Méndez. In the morning, when I walked to La Rambla to meet him, he possessed such a distracted air of intensity that I picked him out of the crowd almost immediately: a short, graying man in his early 60s with heavy, hooded eyes, three days of scruff and the slightly craned expression of the perpetually curious. Though he’s often credited with starting a “green revolution,” he didn’t set out to transform the Uruguayan way of life, he said. There hadn’t been a climate march on Montevideo, or a revolution in the countryside — at least not in the Latin American sense. Before entering politics, in his 40s, Méndez didn’t even consider himself an environmentalist.
None of which was to imply that Uruguay’s transformation was accidental, Méndez clarified. Just that prevailing economic conditions and something in Uruguay’s character had afforded the transition more receptivity than anyone predicted. This was one way in which a career in theoretical physics prepared Méndez for the world of policymaking, he said: “You have to be open to the solutions being very narrow and technical, or very wide and human.”	None of which was to imply that Uruguay’s transformation was accidental, Méndez clarified. Just that prevailing economic conditions and something in Uruguay’s character had afforded the transition more receptivity than anyone predicted. This was one way in which a career in theoretical physics prepared Méndez for the world of policymaking, he said: “You have to be open to the solutions being very narrow and technical, or very wide and human.”
One of the most difficult questions Méndez faced during the transition was how to finance it. When he approached the World Bank, I.M.F. and others, their experts told him a transition on this scale wasn’t possible without state subsidies, or the tax base to support them. The country faced other disadvantages, too: It possessed no real green-energy sector, and its utilities were, and would remain, state-run, limiting a private company’s ability to control prices. So Méndez leveraged what he did have — a 25-year policy — offering long-term contracts at fixed rates. He pitched it, he said, as good-news-bad-news: “The bad news is that what you produce is not yours. The good news is that I will buy 100 percent of your production.” Now the industry standard, these Power Purchase Agreements, or P.P.A.s, have allowed many developing countries access to renewable technology previously available to only the richest.	One of the most difficult questions Méndez faced during the transition was how to finance it. When he approached the World Bank, I.M.F. and others, their experts told him a transition on this scale wasn’t possible without state subsidies, or the tax base to support them. The country faced other disadvantages, too: It possessed no real green-energy sector, and its utilities were, and would remain, state-run, limiting a private company’s ability to control prices. So Méndez leveraged what he did have — a 25-year policy — offering long-term contracts at fixed rates. He pitched it, he said, as good-news-bad-news: “The bad news is that what you produce is not yours. The good news is that I will buy 100 percent of your production.” Now the industry standard, these Power Purchase Agreements, or P.P.A.s, have allowed many developing countries access to renewable technology previously available to only the richest.
The gamble paid off, enticing more than $8 billion in investment. And as the energy sector shifted, the mind-set in the country began to shift with it, Méndez said, sometimes in surprising ways. Some bought air-conditioning units, but many kept to their formerly low-consumption habits, continuing to hang their laundry and take the bus, dozens of which in Montevideo were now electric. Others bought plug-in timers to automate their laundries to run at night or installed solar water heaters on their roofs. But for Méndez, the biggest shift was among leaders. In cabinet and business meetings the problems of the future — like how to eliminate industrial waste and phase out gas entirely — began to feel like just that, he said: problems, not crises.	The gamble paid off, enticing more than $8 billion in investment. And as the energy sector shifted, the mind-set in the country began to shift with it, Méndez said, sometimes in surprising ways. Some bought air-conditioning units, but many kept to their formerly low-consumption habits, continuing to hang their laundry and take the bus, dozens of which in Montevideo were now electric. Others bought plug-in timers to automate their laundries to run at night or installed solar water heaters on their roofs. But for Méndez, the biggest shift was among leaders. In cabinet and business meetings the problems of the future — like how to eliminate industrial waste and phase out gas entirely — began to feel like just that, he said: problems, not crises.
Even Méndez’s political opponents conceded that the plan worked better than anticipated. When I met the current minister of industry, energy and mining, Omar Paganini — a member of the center-right National Party — he told me that one of the few downsides of the transition was its sheer momentum. He explained that replacing a lot of power capacity at once requires an enormous investment, but because the costs of both renewable tech and power are declining so quickly, you inevitably overpay. This is one reason developing nations have been slow to adopt renewable energy — spikes in oil costs looked more palatable, especially after subsidies, than an expensive investment with a long payback period, which carried with it the difficulty of securing financing and the baggage of colonial schemes.	Even Méndez’s political opponents conceded that the plan worked better than anticipated. When I met the current minister of industry, energy and mining, Omar Paganini — a member of the center-right National Party — he told me that one of the few downsides of the transition was its sheer momentum. He explained that replacing a lot of power capacity at once requires an enormous investment, but because the costs of both renewable tech and power are declining so quickly, you inevitably overpay. This is one reason developing nations have been slow to adopt renewable energy — spikes in oil costs looked more palatable, especially after subsidies, than an expensive investment with a long payback period, which carried with it the difficulty of securing financing and the baggage of colonial schemes.
“We didn’t precisely know what the future would look like,” Méndez told me. He compared the confluence of events to the first microsecond after the Big Bang: “What we were building was something unknown. We were building ourselves.”	“We didn’t precisely know what the future would look like,” Méndez told me. He compared the confluence of events to the first microsecond after the Big Bang: “What we were building was something unknown. We were building ourselves.”
Late for another meeting, Méndez offered me a ride, and we climbed into his car, an old Renault with a smashed left mirror. Earlier, he pointed out several new electric taxis, and I asked if he, too, was going electric. He rubbed his fingers together, suggesting it was too expensive. “The next best thing,” he said. “I’m not buying a new car.”	Late for another meeting, Méndez offered me a ride, and we climbed into his car, an old Renault with a smashed left mirror. Earlier, he pointed out several new electric taxis, and I asked if he, too, was going electric. He rubbed his fingers together, suggesting it was too expensive. “The next best thing,” he said. “I’m not buying a new car.”
If you take La Rambla east from Montevideo, the city gradually thins into a familiar strip of gated neighborhoods, industrial parks and roadside cafes, the avenue widening into a divided country highway running beneath a canopy of LED streetlights and beside dirt frontage roads. Outside the city, on the broad and dusty plain of the pampas, is the landscape that provides the country its power.	If you take La Rambla east from Montevideo, the city gradually thins into a familiar strip of gated neighborhoods, industrial parks and roadside cafes, the avenue widening into a divided country highway running beneath a canopy of LED streetlights and beside dirt frontage roads. Outside the city, on the broad and dusty plain of the pampas, is the landscape that provides the country its power.
I was on my way to see the first commercial wind farm built in Uruguay: Sierra de los Caracoles. The Sierra looked less like mountains than a series of low, rocky hills shaped to their name: “the snails.” You could see the wind turbines — 10 in total — studded atop them for miles. I was met there by Tacuabé Cabrera, a director at the state-run utility company, known by its Spanish acronym, UTE. After we donned hard hats, Cabrera led me through a series of ranch fences, beyond which the 220-foot-high windmills stood staggered about a quarter-mile apart. A sign warned of pit vipers, and sheep roamed about the land. Above us, the blades whooshed rhythmically, their heads rotating to the wind like a crowd following a tennis match.	I was on my way to see the first commercial wind farm built in Uruguay: Sierra de los Caracoles. The Sierra looked less like mountains than a series of low, rocky hills shaped to their name: “the snails.” You could see the wind turbines — 10 in total — studded atop them for miles. I was met there by Tacuabé Cabrera, a director at the state-run utility company, known by its Spanish acronym, UTE. After we donned hard hats, Cabrera led me through a series of ranch fences, beyond which the 220-foot-high windmills stood staggered about a quarter-mile apart. A sign warned of pit vipers, and sheep roamed about the land. Above us, the blades whooshed rhythmically, their heads rotating to the wind like a crowd following a tennis match.
Cabrera’s life had followed the rough contours of his country’s energy history. A mechanical engineer, he had spent the majority of his years in fossil fuels, with many of them at Montevideo’s José Batlle y Ordóñez, then the largest thermal plant in the country. At the time, plants like his still served mainly as a backup to dams, for times of high demand or low rain, making jobs like Cabrera’s relatively simple. “The technology is simpler to maintain than renewables,” he told me. “You have maybe five energy units compared to, say, 70 separate windmills.” But as the energy crisis deepened in the 2000s, Cabrera found himself questioning that logic. “Our plants became hard to maintain,” he said. When Caracoles was commissioned in 2008, Cabrera was curious to get involved, despite facing a steep learning curve deep in his career.	Cabrera’s life had followed the rough contours of his country’s energy history. A mechanical engineer, he had spent the majority of his years in fossil fuels, with many of them at Montevideo’s José Batlle y Ordóñez, then the largest thermal plant in the country. At the time, plants like his still served mainly as a backup to dams, for times of high demand or low rain, making jobs like Cabrera’s relatively simple. “The technology is simpler to maintain than renewables,” he told me. “You have maybe five energy units compared to, say, 70 separate windmills.” But as the energy crisis deepened in the 2000s, Cabrera found himself questioning that logic. “Our plants became hard to maintain,” he said. When Caracoles was commissioned in 2008, Cabrera was curious to get involved, despite facing a steep learning curve deep in his career.
Over the next 10 years, UTE and private investors built dozens more wind and solar parks, a record-setting pace thanks in large part to a booming economy. Though it had long been argued that decarbonizing can slow an economy, Uruguay experienced uninterrupted growth for a decade. The plan seemed to be working perfectly until growth leveled out in 2018. Since wind doesn’t blow on demand and solar power can’t be stored in large capacity, renewable systems function more like reservoirs, anticipating demand with supply. This equation is simple in a growing economy — you build a bigger reservoir — but less so in a shrinking one, since P.P.A.s force you to pay for excess supply. In Uruguay, unused energy sometimes cost the utility as much as $90 million a year, according to officials. But it also allowed them to stabilize the grid and, according to the energy think tank Ember, accomplish something no country besides Denmark and Luxembourg has: shoot beyond 40 percent for wind and solar.	Over the next 10 years, UTE and private investors built dozens more wind and solar parks, a record-setting pace thanks in large part to a booming economy. Though it had long been argued that decarbonizing can slow an economy, Uruguay experienced uninterrupted growth for a decade. The plan seemed to be working perfectly until growth leveled out in 2018. Since wind doesn’t blow on demand and solar power can’t be stored in large capacity, renewable systems function more like reservoirs, anticipating demand with supply. This equation is simple in a growing economy — you build a bigger reservoir — but less so in a shrinking one, since P.P.A.s force you to pay for excess supply. In Uruguay, unused energy sometimes cost the utility as much as $90 million a year, according to officials. But it also allowed them to stabilize the grid and, according to the energy think tank Ember, accomplish something no country besides Denmark and Luxembourg has: shoot beyond 40 percent for wind and solar.
The offices for UTE are in downtown Montevideo, in the “Palace of Light,” a towering white structure flanked by electric-car charging stations. The utility employs about 6,000 people and generates about $1.8 billion a year. When I sat down with Silvia Emaldi, the newly installed president of UTE, I shared with her something Cabrera had mentioned to me: In the new world, demand might need to follow supply. As grids are turned over to energy sources with more fixed outputs, our usage may need to adjust to new limits. We may need to reorganize our most energy-intensive tasks around the hours when wind and sun are most available, or else suffer high prices, power curtailments or rationing. Did she think that was true? Emaldi allowed that it might be, but argued it was more a matter of finding equilibrium. “We’re still learning how to balance everything,” she said.	The offices for UTE are in downtown Montevideo, in the “Palace of Light,” a towering white structure flanked by electric-car charging stations. The utility employs about 6,000 people and generates about $1.8 billion a year. When I sat down with Silvia Emaldi, the newly installed president of UTE, I shared with her something Cabrera had mentioned to me: In the new world, demand might need to follow supply. As grids are turned over to energy sources with more fixed outputs, our usage may need to adjust to new limits. We may need to reorganize our most energy-intensive tasks around the hours when wind and sun are most available, or else suffer high prices, power curtailments or rationing. Did she think that was true? Emaldi allowed that it might be, but argued it was more a matter of finding equilibrium. “We’re still learning how to balance everything,” she said.
Emaldi rose and went to the window behind her. Across the harbor, a flame licked from a refinery, signaling that gas was being burned — for what, she didn’t know. “In a small country like Uruguay, we may not have wind at any given moment, so we need to be prepared,” she said. “Our job now is to better align supply and demand.” Managing spikes in demand was still a particular challenge, as was balancing usage against the weather and times of day. UTE had begun offering something called the Smart Plan, a program meant to encourage less household consumption through a simple incentive: Each customer chose a window during peak hours in which they would have to pay an increased rate, while off-peak hours extended for all through the night, when it was most windy. The hope was that by flattening peaks in demand, UTE could reduce the costly use of backup thermal power.	Emaldi rose and went to the window behind her. Across the harbor, a flame licked from a refinery, signaling that gas was being burned — for what, she didn’t know. “In a small country like Uruguay, we may not have wind at any given moment, so we need to be prepared,” she said. “Our job now is to better align supply and demand.” Managing spikes in demand was still a particular challenge, as was balancing usage against the weather and times of day. UTE had begun offering something called the Smart Plan, a program meant to encourage less household consumption through a simple incentive: Each customer chose a window during peak hours in which they would have to pay an increased rate, while off-peak hours extended for all through the night, when it was most windy. The hope was that by flattening peaks in demand, UTE could reduce the costly use of backup thermal power.
I asked if decarbonizing the grid was as transformative as some claimed it was. Emaldi agreed that it was, but also acknowledged there were more steps to take, some of them challenging.	I asked if decarbonizing the grid was as transformative as some claimed it was. Emaldi agreed that it was, but also acknowledged there were more steps to take, some of them challenging.
From my conversations with Emaldi and other government officials, there appeared to be fundamental tension in how to bring Uruguayans along in the energy transition. On the one hand, the infrastructure shift needed to happen in the background, so the public never lost confidence in the grid — that part had been surprisingly smooth. But on the other hand, it was important to keep people engaged so they would support the necessary changes to come. Emaldi and her colleagues focused their efforts on electrifying transportation and growing the green-energy sector. The government eliminated duties and taxes on electric cars and rebranded a tax on gas as a CO2 tax, with a portion funding green initiatives.	From my conversations with Emaldi and other government officials, there appeared to be fundamental tension in how to bring Uruguayans along in the energy transition. On the one hand, the infrastructure shift needed to happen in the background, so the public never lost confidence in the grid — that part had been surprisingly smooth. But on the other hand, it was important to keep people engaged so they would support the necessary changes to come. Emaldi and her colleagues focused their efforts on electrifying transportation and growing the green-energy sector. The government eliminated duties and taxes on electric cars and rebranded a tax on gas as a CO2 tax, with a portion funding green initiatives.
“What comes in the near future will change more lives,” Minister Paganini told me. “You have to get into sectors or areas that are much more difficult than just changing the generation of electricity.” You need to change human behavior.	“What comes in the near future will change more lives,” Minister Paganini told me. “You have to get into sectors or areas that are much more difficult than just changing the generation of electricity.” You need to change human behavior.