Evo Calls for Mobilization After Copenhagen Fiasco

Like many other political actors in the world, President Evo Morales yesterday classified the climate change summit in Copenhagen as “a failure.” He called for a world conference next April 22, Earth Day, to be recognized by the United Nations.

“In April, on International Mother Earth Day, people from across the world will convene in Bolivia and propose possible courses of action to deal with climate change,” he announced during a ceremony in Chuquisaca. He drew attention to the unyielding criticism — coming from across the globe — of the climate summit and its lack of results. For example, Argentine Chancellor Jorge Taiana pointed out that “the climate summit did not at all meet expectations and was a failure of the developed countries. They did not meet the expectations of humanity in confronting the consequences of climate change.” In the same manner, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez declared that “the countries of Alba (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) do not recognize” the so-called Copenhagen Accord because it was formed by the powerful, with the results of the summit daily criticized as insufficient on editorial pages across the globe.

The objective of the conference proposed by Morales yesterday would be to define policies to counter climate change, such as ways to limit global warming. “They have informed me that the global temperature is up 0.7 degrees Celsius and our scientists recommend at most one degree. But the capitalist countries say two degrees,” said Morales referring to the fact that, according to the agreement in Copenhagen, global temperatures can rise to a maximum of two degrees Celsius [with manageable consequences]. Morales believes that at this level “many islands of the world are going to disappear, just as Chacaltaya disappeared in Bolivia.” For these reasons, he called for all countries to participate in a world conference to change the “capitalist” politics affecting the world in the fight against climate change.

Bolivia was one of the countries opposed to the Copenhagen Accord signed last Saturday in the Danish capital. President Morales came to this country and presented his position, which principally suggested that rich countries should pay the climate debt to developing countries. But the agreement, which resulted from the Copenhagen summit, is not binding and does not have specific goals with respect to CO2 emissions. It was approved by the United Nations and rejected by Bolivia, among other countries. According to Morales, the document does not have universal consensus and was imposed on some nations. It is for this reason that they decided not to sign the final text, something for which the President was proud yesterday.

He also criticized other nations. “The big problem is that some of the African presidents were waiting for their ‘little check’ from the United States and other European countries. I told them that all of us presidents need silver (money) to invest, but when we talk about climate change, what is more important, silver or the climate?” he said during the ceremony in the municipality of Culpina.