HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 10 (ACN) Cuba’s Minister of Science, Technology and the Environment, Elba Rosa Pérez Montoya, urged today at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) to implement a new system of climate management and innovation to urgently achieve global goals, one that engages all social and economic actors and works for the benefit of adaptation and mitigation.
Pérez Montoya stressed the need to speed up and extend a new global financing goal.
“We must innovate and rethink the global financial architecture to make it more just, transparent and equitable, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities,” she said.
The Cuban minister said that at the root of the problem is the capitalist economic system, responsible for the predatory and consumerist development model that threatens to collapse human civilization and remarked, among other facts, that some years ago Cuban science started to identify effects of climate change in the country that point to a rise in air temperature of 4.5 °C and a 20%-60% reduction of rain by the end of the 21st century.
Pérez Montoya mentioned the results of the Cuban State Plan to Confront Climate Change, adopted in 2017. Known as Tarea Vida (Task Life), the plan includes the planting of 1,642 hectares of mangrove, the relocation of settlements located in coastal areas, and educational actions.
She highlighted, as goals of Task Life for the period 2021-2030, the achievement of sustainable forest management, the protection of beaches, coral reefs and mangrove swamps, and the protection of health and resilience in the tourism sector.
“Renewable energies must be increased by 24% to avoid the emission of 30.6 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” she remarked.
The minister also underscored Cuba’s commitment to continue increasing South-South cooperation, with emphasis on the needs of island developing countries and other highly vulnerable nations.
She denounced the intensification of the 60-plus-year-old economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the government of the United States, which is the main obstacle to accessing external financing and advanced climate technologies, as well as achieving sustainable development.
“Several initiatives have been presented at this COP, but their real impact will depend on the fulfillment of commitments in terms of financial resources, technology and capacity building by developed countries,” she held.
Finally, the representative of Cuba called to act with greater responsibility, and to bring the results of the negotiations closer to the political will expressed in the Leaders’ Segment of COP26.
COP26, which will session until November 12 in Glasgow, Scotland, includes the 16th meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP16) and the third meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA3).
