Bolivia Proposal excluded from Cancun

Bolivian President Evo Morales lamented this Friday that his proposal as well as that of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, calling on the rich countries to halve their greenhouse gas emissions, has not been welcomed into the Cancún Summit on climate change to be held next week.

Morales indicated at a press conference that the petitions to create a Climate Justice Tribunal and to organize a global referendum on how to solve the environmental crisis, submitted by a great majority of nations, have been ignored.

The Bolivian leader said that the Cancún Summit on climate change is threatened by "a mercantilist vision of the developed countries."

"The rich countries have excluded, from the working papers, the ambitious proposals made by a world conference of social movements held in Bolivia last April, in favor of the approaches that led to the failure of the previous Copenhagen climate conference held in Denmark last December," Morales emphasized.

Morales underscored that "the two commissions that met in Germany and China to prepare the agenda have been sidelined by the introduction of another agenda which is reminiscent of the analysis at the failed Copenhagen Summit."

He said that great powers — first of all the United States, one of the major greenhouse gas emitters — "want to commodify the earth and use it for their own benefit without repairing the grave damage that they have done to humanity by the emission of greenhouse gas that causes global warming."

The Bolivian head of state believes that the Cancún Summit "ought to be a historic, unprecedented event . . . but, for that to happen, an alliance of governments with social forces of peoples is necessary, because otherwise global warming will continue to get worse."

To make that happen, President Morales called upon the nations of the world "to fight for life against capitalism, and for that we must unite and coordinate actions of governments and social movements."

Evo Morales made clear his intention to stand side by side with social movements in Cancún, in order to defend the proposals of some countries that seek to guarantee the survival of the planet earth and of humanity.

Morales Reiterates His Condemnation of US Plans

The Bolivian leader also reiterated his condemnation of the US plans to instigate coups against the member states of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

He asserted that Venezuela is "now a target of Washington’s plots."

Morales proposed that an ALBA meeting be held in Havana, Cuba or Caracas, Venezuela before the end of this year, in order to "go on the offensive and respond to US aggressions."

The original article "Morales lamenta que ignoren su propuesta en cumbre de Cancún" was published by TeleSur on 27 November 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.