“Earth is our life, nature our home we must defend”
The end-summit agreement at Cancun “sets up a fund to help poor people cope with climate change and halt deforestation,” Environment Correspondent Louise Gray reports from Cancun. “It keeps the UN ‘show on the road’ after [the climate summit at] Copenhagen had threatened to push the whole process off the rails.”
However, at Cancun, following COP 15, there were in fact two climate summits, Gray writes, and they could hardly have been more different. One met in “a shabby part of downtown Cancun” and hosted more than 1,000 activists waving rainbow flags and throwing flowers at the feet of their leader, Bolivian president Evo Morales. The other met “a few miles down the coast of Mexico [where] thousands of grey-faced bureaucrats [gathered] in air-conditioned halls of an equally faceless conference room.”
Although there might have been different summit flavors, as Gray describes, there were also powerful progressive voices, some of whom found a hearing and whose voices linger on the winter wind. President Evo Morales was among them. He spoke with Al Jazeera and Democracy Now. His thoughts are compelling and worth remembering when, in some future, progressive heads of state may gain significant power and standing among the UN’s 193 member states and among their own country’s substantial progressive leadership. This is some of what Morales told Al Jazeera.
Current practices are “leaving the world without ecology — an ‘ecolocide’ that leads to genocide.”
“We need limited industrial development, rational development, not industries to kill like we have now but industries to save lives.”President Evo Morales spoke with the Democracy Now program during the Copenhagen summit in 2009 and during the Cancun climate change summit. He said this.
“It is important to create an international court of climate justice. Industries, social movements, governments and international organizations who do not meet the norms that are established must be sanctioned.”
“The industrialized nations have to pay their ecological debt by reducing emissions and financing green policies.”
Included in significant debate are “the rights of Mother Earth, … proposals of peoples of the world, … how to live in harmony with Mother Earth.”
“Capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity” [transcript in translation at Democracy Now]. “Capitalism — irrational development— policies of unlimited industrialization [destroy] the environment. That irrational industrialization is capitalism. As long as we do not review or revise those policies, it’s impossible to attend to humanity and life.
“[Ending capitalism means] changing economic policies, ending luxury, and consumerism. It is ending the struggle — or this searching — for living better.
“Living better is to exploit human beings. It is plundering natural resources. It is egoism and individualism. … In those promises of capitalism, there is no solidarity or complementarity. There is no reciprocity.
“… We are trying to think about other ways of living lives and living well — not living better. Not living better — living better is always at someone else’s expense. Living better is at the expense of destroying the environment.”
During the Copenhagen conference, Morales said —
“The earth is our life. Nature is our home, our house. … If the mother is recognized as Mother Earth, it is something that cannot be sold. It is something that cannot be violated.… This is nature. This is planet earth. That is why I’ve come here — to defend the rights of Mother Earth, to defend the rights to life, to defend humanity, saving Mother Earth.”
Sources
“Cancun climate change summit: Bolivians dance to a different beat, but fail to derail the talks— As the Cancun climate change talks close, Louise Gray reports on the battle between the Bolivians and the bureaucrats.” (Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent Cancun), December 12, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8197539/Cancun-climate-change-summit-Bolivians-dance-to-a-different-beat-but-fail-to-derail-the-talks.html
“Morales warns of climate ‘genocide’ — Bolivian leader says agreement essential as climate summit remains deadlocked on final day of talks.” December 10, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/12/2010121054139149384.html
“Bolivian President Evo Morales on Climate Debt, Capitalism, Why He Wants a Tribunal for Climate Justice and Much More, December 17, 2009, “http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/17/bolivian_president_evo_morales_on_climate
“Bolivian President Evo Morales at Cancun Climate Summit: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal ‘Diplomacy of Empire,’” December 10, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/10/bolivian_president_evo_morales_on_wikileaks
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