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Cuban Vice-President at Copenhagen: ‘Climate Change is the Most Serious Problem Humanity Has to Cope with Today’

Cuba, 17 December,— ‘Climate change constitutes the most serious problem humanity has to cope with today,’ said Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo and stressed that human selfishness and the interest of a few developed nations in preserving today’s unfair, inequitable world order are preventing the changes that the new generations demand.

Addressing the UN Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, Lazo highlighted the full validity today of the words of Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro, spoken back in 1992 during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On that occasion, Fidel said that the very survival of the human species was being seriously threatened by the rapid and progressive deterioration of its natural habitats.

“Today’s consumer model is destroying the environment and our planet. A lasting solution cannot be to prevent the economic and social development of those who need it the most. If we are to save our planet, we need a new, more equitable distribution of wealth and the available technologies. Developed countries need to cut spending on luxuries and stop wasting resources, so that poverty and malnutrition can be significantly reduced around the world,” said the Cuban vice-president and stressed that the essence of today’s world problems is the same as that expressed by Fidel 17 years ago in Brazil.

“Today, less than two decades later, we are experiencing constant changes in rainfall, rising sea levels and global temperatures, climate variations and extreme weather events, leading to increased climatic disasters and the resulting displacement of populations and the loss of lands due to permanent flooding. Many of these negative effects are already irreversible,” said vice-president Lazo and pointed to an urgent need for the developed nations to implement actions to help the developing world to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.

“Those accountable for 76% percent of the greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere should take full responsibility for the effects on the global climate,” said Lazo and pointed to the pressing need for serious commitments on the part of the developed nations towards cutting those poisoned gas emissions.

“We aspire to a global accord, based on the strict respect for the principles adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,” said the Cuban vice-president.

Also on Thursday, Vice-President Lazo addressed participants in an encounter attended by leaders of the member states of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) and Danish social movements in Copenhagen.

He pointed out that the Climate summit has shown a lack of political will on the part of many of the developed countries especially the United States, to move over to a sustainable consumption program to save human life and the planet. In that sense, he said that the ALBA countries consider that the best alternative to solve the world economic and climate crises is to create a human development model to replace today’s consumer model.

“The most important political battle in the history of human life is being waged in Copenhagen,” said Lazo and stated that the ALBA member states (Third World nations) want to show the developed countries that there is another way forward and that a better world is actually possible.
Also on hand at the encounter were Venezuelan and Bolivian Presidents Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, respectively.

Hundreds of youths from Denmark and from other European countries were in attendance. (cubaminrex – RHC)