Defending life and Mother Earth

Excerpts from the Speech given at the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth at Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 22, 2010

Esteban Lazo Hernandez, Cuban Vice President

During the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, 1992, Fidel Castro said:

“If humanity is to be saved from that self-destruction, there has to be a better distribution of the wealth and technology available on the planet. Less luxury and less squander in a few countries so that there is less poverty and less hunger on a large part of the Earth.”

Today, the struggle for the defence of life today must indisputably include the necessity of abolishing the capitalist system with its lifestyle and patterns of production and consumerism that are ruining the environment and leading humanity into a headlong race to its own destruction.

Saving Mother Nature, saving humankind. File photo

It is intolerable that the total income of the 500 richest people in the world is superior to the income of the 416 million poorest people in the world.

How can it be explained that one third of the world population lacks the medical attention and medicines essential to preserving health - a situation that is being aggravated as climate change and the scarcity of water and food become greater - in a globalized world in which the population is growing, forests are disappearing, agricultural land is diminishing, the air is becoming unbreathable and the human species are facing risk of disappearing.

How is it possible that $12 trillion is being directed to rescuing bankrupt banks and to recompense speculators, while the planet’s resources are needed to save Mother Earth, to which we all belong, and humanity?

That demonstrates the priorities of the industrialized countries, which are not, precisely, to combat climate change and its irreparable consequences for human beings with the entire force of their resources.

The failure of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which took place in Copenhagen last December, is a motive of profound concern for everyone. It failed due to the lack of political will of the most developed nations to achieve ambitious commitments to reducing their emissions, and the fraudulent and exclusive practices that prevailed there.

The so-called Copenhagen Agreement was the result of exclusive negotiations and political manipulation on the part of the nation primarily responsible - both historically and now - for climate change; it does not reflect the requirements supported by science, nor does respond to the political imperative of halting the advance of this global phenomenon.

It is a necessity that the social, indigenous, scientific and world people’s movements and organizations unite, as was discussed. We have to demand of the developed countries that they acknowledge and settle their climatic debt to humanity.

The wide-ranging participation in this event is an expression that people are becoming aware of the need to fight for that objective, in which the life of all of us is at stake.

It is essential to promote a genuine process of citizens’ participation and consultation with society, and an open dialogue with and among the peoples, with the aim of undertaking urgent actions to avert greater damage and suffering to humanity and to Mother Earth, as proposed in the conference.

The developed countries carry on their shoulders the weight of 76 percent of the emissions accumulated in the atmosphere and, therefore, must assume full responsibility for the historical and current impact of their economies and lifestyles on the global climatic equilibrium.

The most recent statistics show that greenhouse gas emissions from the highly developed countries increased by 12.8 percent from 1990 to 2007.

In that same period, the United States experienced a 15.8 percent increase of its emissions and concentrated 55 percent of the total growth of all the emissions of all the developed countries.

The United States cannot continue holding the international community hostage to its domestic policy and must submit to the same rules as the rest of the developed countries.

It is unjust and unacceptable to the peoples, movements and social organizations of the South that the developed countries attempt to transfer the cost of their reductions in greenhouse gas emissions - the result of their historic responsibility in terms of climate change - to the impoverished economies of the underdeveloped countries. We demand that the Southern nations right to development be respected and that this development takes place in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment.

The developed countries must commit themselves to contributing new and additional resources needed for the execution and promotion of national programs aimed at adapting to and mitigating climate change in the developing countries.

Insufficient promises that hardly ever materialize or, when made concrete, remain at levels inferior to those initially promised, are not enough.

The shameful scenario of Copenhagen, marked by the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations and demands from the social movements and those of the civil society in general, cannot happen again.

Today, humanity’s enemies are having recourse to lies and infamies and are redoubling their threats against our peoples, against all those who are fighting for sovereignty and independence, for life and for Mother Earth.

Courtesy: Granma International