Cuban President Stresses Importance of Accords of Conference on Climate Change

The Cuban leader said that the Conference of Bali brought together many heads of state and government from the so-called Third World who fight for their development and demanded fair treatment, financial resources and transference of technology from the representatives of the industrialized world who were also present there.

Fidel explained that the UN Secretary General, in front of the stubborn obstruction by the US government after 12 days of negotiations among the 190 countries represented in the meeting, on Saturday said that the human species could disappear as a consequence of climate change.

The leader of the Cuban Revolution noted that this statement turn the conference into a madhouse and that, after 12 days of futile persuasive efforts, the American representative, Paula Dobriansky, after taking a deep sigh, said: "We join the consensus."

"It is clear that the United States tried to avoid its isolation but it did not change at all its dark intentions," Fidel wrote.

"But the best was yet to come," added the Cuban leader recalling that Canada and Japan then joined the United States in front of the countries that were demanding serious commitments about the emission of gases that cause climate change.

Fidel explained that it had all been planned among NATO allies and the United States that, in a deceitful maneuver, agreed to negotiate next year in Hawaii - a US territory - a new project of agreement that would be introduced and approved in the Conference of Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009, which would replace the Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2012.

The Cuban President pointed out that Europe was to play the role of ’savior of the world’. "Several European leaders spoke asking for
international gratitude. What an excellent gift for Christmas and New Year!," satirized Fidel.

"None of them mentioned the millions of poor people who die from
diseases and starvation every year due to the current realities of the world," he stressed.

The leader of the Cuban Revolution recalled that the Group of the 77, which is comprised of 132 nations, had reached a consensus to demand from the industrialized countries a reduction of gases that cause climate change. This reduction in the year 2020 would be from 20 to 40 percent below the level achieved in 1990, and from 60 to 70 percent by the year 2050, which is technically possible.

He added that the demands included the allocation of funds for the transference of technology for the Third World.

Fidel highlighted that it is necessary to recall that these gases also cause heat waves, desertification, the melting of glaciers and the rise of sea levels, which could make entire countries or a great part of them disappear.

The Cuban President explained that the industrialized countries and the United States share the idea of turning food into fuel for luxurious cars and other wastes of consumption societies.

"What I say was demonstrated when on Saturday, December 15, the president of the United States announced that he had asked the US Senate, which had already approved it, $696 billions for military spendings in the 2008 fiscal year, including $189 billions for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," Fidel wrote.