United Nations, Apr 17 (EFE).- The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, denounced this Monday at the United Nations that “world power” is using war to avoid the necessary measures in the face of the climate crisis, which go through first of all abandon fossil fuels.
“This climate crisis is not solved unless we stop extracting oil, coal and gas,” Petro said in a speech at the inauguration of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which this year focuses on the response to change. climate.
The Colombian president, the only international leader who participated in this meeting at the United Nations, today began a tour of the United States in New York that will have its main course on Thursday with a meeting with his counterpart, Joe Biden.
In his speech, Petro underlined the key role that indigenous peoples have in protecting the environment and recalled that both their traditional knowledge and the most modern science have reached the same conclusion: “if oil is removed from the depths of the earth , humanity perishes”.
However, he pointed out, today “the global discussion is moving away from the central nucleus of the problem and is looking for make-up.”
“A world of powerful countries engaged in war, how are they going to engage in life and save humanity from the climate crisis? The war has given us the option of escaping from the solutions that the climate crisis implies,” said Petro, who considered that “pressing for peace is essential today.”
According to the Colombian leader, the war takes away the little time the world has to protect the planet and “is hiding the inability of world power to solve the climate crisis.”
THE MARKET IS NOT A SOLUTION
Petro recalled that “to stop consuming coal and gas is to remove the base of what has been the accumulation of profit in the world for a century and a half, the accumulation of capital” and made it clear that the answer cannot be left in the hands of the private sector.
“We are begging big capital from this room without saying so, because politically correct discourse prevents us from doing so: to stop accumulating, to become an ally of life, which is practically impossible,” he said.
“We can no longer expect the market, private capital, the fundamental solution to the problem of the climate crisis,” he insisted, calling for “pragmatic measures” and a strengthening of the role of States.
“The transition no longer waits. The market is not doing it. Big capital is so unaware of the options that life has on the planet that it is resorting to wars to cover the needs for a change in the system that is imperative if we want to live on this planet, ”he stressed.
Among the actions of his Government, Petro highlighted the work to protect the Amazon rainforest in Colombia, to which he plans to allocate 150 million dollars this year, and his willingness to coordinate with the rest of the countries in the region to revitalize this key ecosystem. and make it possible for the necessary money to flow for it.
During his time at the UN, the president met among others with the president of the Indigenous Forum, Darío Mejía Montalvo, also Colombian, and with the US Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, the first Native American appointed to a ministerial position. .
