A Transformative Approach for Latin America in theEnergy Platform Transition and the Digital Era
Health for All in a World of Redistributed Risks
M.Sc. Víctor Piriz Correa
CEO, Seniors International Consulting (SICS) Senior Programme Manager
Introduction
The energy transition and digitalisation are redefining the world’s economic, productive and social architecture. They are doing so at unprecedented speed and under growing geopolitical pressure. In this context, health—human, environmental, animal and occupational— continues, in too many cases, to be treated as an externality of development rather than as its structural condition.
In Latin America, this challenge is amplified. The region finds itself simultaneously at the centre of the global energy transition—due to its endowment of biomass, critical minerals and biodiversity—and in a historical position of vulnerability to extractive dynamics that have shifted environmental and health costs onto territories and communities with limited institutional capacity to defend themselves.
This article advances a clear thesis: the energy and digital transition does not eliminate risks; it redistributes them. If health is not explicitly integrated into governance frameworks, the transition risks reproducing—through new technologies and materials—the same patterns of inequality, disease and environmental degradation that characterised previous cycles of industrialisation.
From the Oil Crisis to the Geopolitics of Critical Materials
Since the oil crisis of the 1970s, the global economic system has sought to reduce its energy vulnerability. This process fostered efficiency, technological innovation and growth, but it also consolidated a model that systematically externalised impacts on health and the environment.
Today, the shift from fossil fuels to platforms based on renewable energy, biomass and large- scale electrification is creating a new dependency: critical metals, rare earths and global biomass flows. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) warns that the extraction and processing of these inputs are concentrated in a limited number of countries, generating geopolitical, social and health risks that have yet to be fully incorporated into public policy decision-making.
The paradox is evident: the green transition requires resources whose extraction can damage ecosystems, undermine workers’ health and intensify territorial tensions if not governed through comprehensive sustainability criteria.
Denmark and Mercosur: Beacons of Transformation, Not Exempt from Conflict
Denmark is rightly regarded as a global benchmark in the energy transition. More than 50% of its electricity comes from wind and solar sources, with increasing use of biomass, biogas and biomethane. By 2030, the country aims to operate an electricity system fully independent of fossil fuels.
However, even in this advanced context, internal tensions are emerging: land-use competition, biomass sustainability, dependence on external inputs and territorial conflicts linked to the so-called “domestic green transition”. The Danish case demonstrates that leadership in the transition does not confer immunity from systemic conflict.
In the Mercosur region—particularly in Uruguay and Brazil—biomass plays a central role. Uruguay has become a global reference by surpassing oil in its energy matrix, supported by pulp and cellulose plants that generate electricity and heat. Brazil, meanwhile, combines a strong renewable energy matrix with a bioeconomy and biofuels strategy.
These advances are undeniable. Yet they raise critical questions: What labour conditions accompany these processes? How are ecosystems effectively protected? What impacts do these transformations have on workers’ mental and occupational health? How can bioeconomy strategies avoid devolving into new monocultures and land concentration?
Green Jobs: Health Opportunity or Displacement of Harm
The narrative of “green jobs” is often presented as an automatic solution to the climate and social crisis. However, evidence from the International Labour Organization demonstrates that a job is not green if it is unsafe, precarious or makes the worker ill.
The energy transition can generate decent work and local development, but it can also reproduce: extreme outsourcing, exposure to hazardous pollutants, increased occupational accidents, chronic stress and deteriorating mental health. The difference between these outcomes is not technological; it is fundamentally a matter of governance.
Digitalisation, AI and Occupational Health: A Critical Frontier
Digitalisation and the use of generative artificial intelligence in occupational and mental health offer tangible benefits: early monitoring, scalability, support in low coverage contexts and improved continuity of care.
However, they also introduce emerging health risks: digital medicalisation of workplace distress, substitution of human relationships with automated interfaces, algorithmic biases affecting employment-related decisions, and opaque extraction and use of sensitive personal data. AI can expand care or amplify harm. The difference lies in how its implementation is governed—particularly in productive sectors linked to the energy transition, where efficiency pressures may displace social protection.
One Health as an Operational, Not Rhetorical, Framework
The One Health approach—integrating human, animal and environmental health—should not be treated as a discursive device, but as an operational framework for decision-making. Incorporating occupational health, mental health, environmental protection and territorial sustainability is not an obstacle to development; it is a condition for long-term viability.
Societiesthathistoricallymanagedresourcesinacircularmanner—includingwasteand biomass—understoodsomethingwearenowrediscovering:preventionismoreefficient than remediation, and caring for territory is caring for health
Conclusion
The energy and digital transition is inevitable. Health damage is not. If human, environmental, animal and occupational health continue to be treated as externalities, the transition will fail on its own terms—reproducing the structural errors of the past through new materials and technologies. Health can no longer remain the hidden cost of progress. It must become its condition of viability. Integrating health is not only an ethical imperative; it is a strategic necessity for any development model that aspires to be sustainable, stable and legitimate over time.
“La transición energética será sostenible solo si es, también, una transición de gobernanza y salud”.Victor
References
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