[NYTr] ACN's Report: Fidel's Comments on the Bali Conference

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN)
http://ainch.ain.cu/mailman/listinfo/ingles


Cuban President Stresses Importance of Accords of Conference on Climate
Change

Havana, Dec 18 (acn) Cuban President Fidel Castro sent a letter on 
Monday to the daily prime-time radio and television program 'The Round 
Table' in which he stressed the importance of the international 
agreements reached at the recently concluded conference on climate 
change held in Bali.

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.