President Gustavo Petro spoke this Saturday before the session of Heads of State and Government of the member countries of the Ibero-American Conference, which is taking place in the Dominican Republic, in which he proposed a great agreement for the exploitation of green hydrogen, he explained initiatives such as the electrical interconnection of the Americas and the importance of investments around clean energy.
This is why, to face the climate crisis, the Head of State made a strong call for world peace. “We cannot waste time in a war, when humanity’s times are shortening due to the climate crisis,” he assured.
“Asking for peace, there and anywhere else, in my own country, becomes substantial if we want humanity to focus on its main problem that today has to do with the climate crisis and that produces, we are already seeing, hunger ”, he emphasized.
Also, he delved into the initiative that he is studying with Argentina for the creation of the Latin American Food Bank, the fight against drugs and the modification of the democratic pact.
climate crisis
During his speech, the President pointed out the region’s potential for the production of green hydrogen, of which Colombia is the fourth producer. Faced with this, he called on the plenary to explore the sources of capital that allow clean energy to be delivered to the world.
“It seems to me that we must make a great agreement on technical investments, etc., to exploit that power and make it a reality. In the end, South America, Latin America, the Ibero-American space, because here Spain and Portugal also have great advantages, we are perhaps today the world power of life”, said President Gustavo Petro.
In turn, he exposed the projects presented in other spaces such as the need to save the Amazon Jungle, the strong investments that Colombia and the region needs regarding clean energy and the electrical interconnection from Alaska to Patagonia; On this last point, the President announced that talks are already underway to structure this agreement with Panama, as a first step to materialize it.
Food Bank
In the same way, the Head of State left as a concrete proposal the union of Ibero-American countries to create “a supply bank to bring cheap food to areas of hunger.”
In this regard, President Petro pointed out that “I proposed to the President of Argentina (Alberto Fernández) that we create a Latin American food bank system, because here there is production capacity, without a doubt, of global granaries in our geographical space that we could enable without harm the forest.
The proposal derives from the failure that, according to the Colombian President, has generated the concept of food security, which consists of allowing the market to assume freely, through the market, feeding the world.
In this sense, President Petro considered that “it is necessary to return to the concept of food sovereignty. That is, to inject into the countries, which have that capacity, to use their lands or to empower their peasants, producing food for human beings as a national priority.
democratic pact
Finally, regarding the American Convention, he pointed out, among other things, that instead of weakening it, it must be strengthened and the democratic pact must be redone so that any person is protected, regardless of their political and ideological positions.
“Chapters that have to do with women’s rights, for example, rights of nature if we want to talk about the climate crisis, with social and collective rights. That American Convention would be a great scenario if the political will existed here to propose to the world a Charter, even richer in terms of a democratic project that is in question today”, the President specified.