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Presented with International Rivers, Amazon Watch and more than 180 civil society organizations from around the world. Read our official letter here.

CC: Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary, UNFCCC; Dr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General, United Nations; Mr. Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, President, COP20 Peru

We are in the midst of an unprecedented international hydropower boom. Governments, international financial institutions, and corporations are promoting large dams as a supposedly cheap and “clean” energy solution to address the global climate crisis.

Scientific evidence, however, reveals that large dams emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases, including methane, which is 20 to 40 times more environmentally damaging than CO2. Large dams are also highly vulnerable to extreme droughts and floods, which are increasingly common in a changing climate. Large dams too often come with severe human rights violations, and almost never provide the energy and economic benefits to affected communities that they claim they will. As a result, large dams should never be considered “clean” or receive any financial support earmarked for renewable energy.

That’s why we must make our voices heard at COP 20, the international climate conference in Lima, Peru on December 1 - 12 and tell international leaders that large dams are not part of a clean energy future!

The largest annual international climate conference will take place in just a few days, convening the 195 parties that have signed on to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At COP20, global leaders will convene to set the stage for the next climate agreement, and look for effective actions to tackle climate change.

The World Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank, and national development banks – such as the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES) – are promoting large dams as a clean energy solution and providing the funding to implement them in developing nations.

It’s important that we deliver our message that large dams are neither clean nor renewable energy. We must insist that development funding support energy projects for people, not profits; protect free-flowing rivers; and support truly renewable energy solutions like wind, solar and geothermal.

Send a message NOW to international leaders at COP20 asking them to support truly renewable energy and the communities who depend on rivers – not destructive dams.

Learn more about the campaign against large dams.