Socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales, not satisfied with the results of the United Nations’ COP15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, announced this week that he will be hosting his own global-warming summit.
The First World Conference of the People on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth will be held in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba from April 19 to 22, coinciding with the UN-declared international day of Mother Earth. Governments, “social movements,” indigenous groups, environmentalists, and scientists are all invited, Morales said in a press conference Tuesday announcing the event.
The summit has several goals: the creation of an international climate crimes court, a world referendum on climate change, forcing rich countries to transfer technology and acknowledge and pay their “climate debts,” drafting a universal declaration of rights for “Mother Earth,” and developing a “strategy” and “position” for the next official UN Climate Change Conference in Mexico City, among others.
Another purpose of the meeting that Morales discussed is to “analyze the structural and systemic causes that drive climate change and propose ways to fund measures that enable the well-being of all humanity in harmony with nature.” But the Bolivian President made clear once again where he thought the responsibility belonged: capitalism.
Morales called the Copenhagen Conference a “failure,” blaming the outcome on “the capitalist countries, which are the enemies of humanity.” Bolivia was one of the participants that refused to ratify the agreement in Copenhagen after claiming that a small group of rich nations had reached the deal in secret without input from poor countries.
Morales was among the multitude of socialists, communists, and dictators who blasted capitalism in Copenhagen during their speeches. Some, such as Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe, blamed capitalism-caused global warming for deaths in their countries, deaths that were really caused by the countries’ governments. Morales called for an end to the capitalist system to “save the planet.”
Just the mention of Morales’ name by Venezuela’s Socialist President Hugo Chavez elicited applause from delegates in Copenhagen. The leftist speeches were widely praised and appreciated. Chavez even received a standing ovation after his speech condemning capitalism and advocating a world socialist system. The powerful organization Socialist International recently detailed their influence and participation in the COP15 conference, so the leftist fervor is hardly a surprise.
Morales’ motivation has been the topic of speculation in the press. Some commentators believe he is sincere in his belief that climate change is real and requires global socialism, while others claim he is grandstanding or trying to scam money out of rich countries. A foreign-policy piece posted on National Public Radio’s website had another idea. “Now Morales wants to be the spokesperson for global climate justice leftists,” noted NPR. “It was only a matter of time.”
While the President seemed confident that the event would be well attended, so far there is no information available about any confirmations. However, the same day Morales made the conference announcement, a senior U.S. official announced that Washington wanted to re-kindle diplomatic relations with the socialist nation and find more areas to work on together. No word yet on whether the summit is one of those areas.
But if this “First World Conference of the People” is taken seriously, it will be bad news for freedom. The proposed solutions to the alleged problem of anthropogenic global warming are, like socialism, always about more government control and the extraction of ever more wealth from individuals for the state. Morales has a radical left-wing agenda that has nothing to do with the climate.
Photo: AP Images
