Morales: Bolivia was not alone in Cancun, it stood with the people in defense of life

By Adalid Cabrera Lemuz

La Paz, Dec 20 (ABI) – President Evo Morales denied Monday that Bolivia stood alone at the climate change conference in Cancun, saying instead that it preferred “to be on the side of the peoples of the world that defend life in the face of aggression toward the environment and the planet.”

Morales said Bolivia refused to sign the Cancun Accord “based on the principle of responsibility and the need to defend Mother Earth, which is under attack from the irrational politics of industrialization of the developed nations.”

“It is unfortunate that the industrialized countries fail to assume their responsibility and expect developing countries like Bolivia to carry on their shoulders the crisis generated by capitalism,” he said.

The Ambassador of Bolivia to the United Nations, Pablo Solón, lamented that developed countries “attempt to pay their climate debt with credits that force poor countries to assume the problems affecting the planet due to environmental contamination.”

The diplomat denounced the fact that industrialized countries want to create “fictitious markets to purchase vouchers for greenhouse gas reductions.”

Solón said “Bolivia believes this stance is not aimed at defending nature, since they prefer to spend 10 dollars to buy a reduction certificate for one ton of carbon dioxide, instead of 50 dollars to comply with that obligation within their own countries.”

Based on reports, President Morales said that the decisions approved in Cancun “are worse than those of the conference in Copenhagen last December.”

“Copenhagen established a limit to global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius and a 23 to 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, while in Cancun, that obligation was reduced to just 13 to 17 percent,” said Morales.

Morales also said that if reducing greenhouse gases by 40 percent would cause a temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius, the decisions made in Cancun would in turn put the world on the verge of a rise in temperature of 3 to 4 degrees.

“Global warming has already had consequences for the world, putting life on the planet in jeopardy due to increased droughts, floods, and ever more frequent natural disasters,” he said.

Morales said that drought prevents the production the food humanity needs to survive.

He lamented the indolence of governments that do not listen to the voice of the people and instead prefer to maintain policies that commercialize the Earth without taking into account the fact that, by choosing this path, they are causing the gradual destruction of the world.

Morales said Bolivia will stand firm in its struggle to defend the environment and Mother Earth and demand that industrialized countries change policies that kill the planet and humanity.

Last April, Bolivia organized a World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which took place in Tiquipaya and produced various recommendations for preserving nature.

Some 35,000 people representing 147 countries participated in that event, including government figures, international organizations, and social movements from around the world.

Among its recommendations was the creation of a Climate Justice Tribunal to sanction countries, corporations, and individuals that threaten the environment.

The conference also demanded that industrialized countries pay back the climate debt they have accrued based on their over-exploitation of natural resources and failure to benefit the development of the peoples.