The Colombian president spoke at the Third Summit of Heads of State and Government between the European Union and Celac, which is taking place in Brussels.
With the proposal to achieve a decarbonized economy, President Gustavo Petro assumed this Tuesday the task of presiding over the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) in 2025, and to hold the Fifth Summit of the integration mechanism and the European Union that year, which will take place in Bogota.
The Head of State presented the axes of the task that he will lead Colombia from the Pro Tempore Presidency of Celac, and said that peace will be promoted and the condemnation of the invasions of countries, the trade of products that do not contribute to deforestation, decarbonized production, preventive treatment of migration and a climate Marshall Plan.
He stated that: “undoubtedly there is an imperial or imperialist invasion of the Ukraine, but what is the name of the one that took place in Iraq? Or in Libya? Or in Syria? Why does this one have this reaction and the previous ones of this century don’t? Wouldn’t it be better to work on a general concept that prevents anyone from invading another country? ”, he wondered.
Secondly, he supported a trade in products that do not have deforestation behind their production.
He said that the criteria for trade should be the carbon footprint and warned that the European Union has a carbon footprint three times higher than Latin America, so the region has the opportunity to be part of Europe’s production.
He then cited the importance of decarbonised production allowing the generation of “more decarbonised social prosperity”.
Regarding migration, Petro explained that “it is not contained with concentration camps, it is contained with social prosperity at the origin of migration.”
Finally, he indicated that decarbonized social prosperity implies financing the climate Marshall Plan.
In this sense, he affirmed that “a field of transformation of the financing of the energy transition of another type is required, which is not to borrow more, but to borrow less.”
He specified that the Colombian proposal, which has been presented to South America, Africa, to President (of the USA, Joe) Biden and now to the European Union, consists of exchanging debt for climate action, through a global monetary issue “That pays today’s debt holders some resources that become a budget release for each country, greater for the poorest, that directs that resource towards investment in the climate.”
On July 7, the foreign ministers of the 32 countries that make up Celac unanimously elected Colombia as the Pro Tempore Presidency of that mechanism, starting in 2025, and as the venue for the CELAC Summit with the EU in that same year.