Havana, December  13 (RHC)-- Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel participated on Saturday in the Climate Ambition Summit taking place virtually five years after the adoption of the Paris Accord.

The meeting takes place before the Conference of the Parties number 26 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), to be held in November 2021, in Glasgow, United Kingdom.

 The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, and the head of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Environment (CITMA), Elba Rosa Pérez, accompanied the Cuban President during his statement.

The United Nations Organization, the United Kingdom, and France, in association with Chile and Italy, are convening this year's meeting.

The Climate Ambition 2020 Summit seeks to reach a consensus on commitments to comply with the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adopted on December 12, 2015.

They will focus on the agenda, mitigation, adaptation, and financing of actions aimed at ending in an international context characterized by the crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speech of Cuban President, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, delivered at the Climate Ambition Summit December 12, 2020

Excellencies;

Twenty eight years ago, in a brief and memorable speech, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz set off the alarms on the most serious danger facing the human species. Global acceptance of climate change took years in materializing and it is still partial, incomplete and distant from the urgent and articulated actions that this problem demands.

Cuba did not stop working.  Our “State Plan to Confront Climate Change”, which includes national goals and international commitments, involves all sectors of the economy and the society in adaption and mitigation actions.

In September last year, Cuba submitted an update of its Nationally Determined Contribution to the United Nations Framework Convention on this subject, with far more ambitious commitments.

We established thirteen adaptation goals, identified as one of our top priorities, given our condition as Small Island Developing State; as well as five mitigation goals, particularly focused on agriculture and energy, the sectors that generate more than 90 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in our archipelago.

Our commitment is to meet 24 percent of our energy needs from renewable sources by the year 2030; reduce 50 percent of the fossil fuels used in road vehicles and increase forest areas by 33 percent.

These goals as well as the progress achieved, despite the serious limitations resulting from the blockade imposed by the government of the United States, which has been further tightened to extremes in recent months and years, confirm Cuba’s unswerving determination in this crucial area.

However, it is necessary to emphasize that capitalist production and consumption patterns are irrational and unsustainable.

It is high time for developed countries to take a fraternal leadership approach with regards to the reduction of emissions and the provision of the necessary implementation means to developing countries, in conformity with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

Climate change and the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are crying out for increased international cooperation. Let’s stop compromising human survival with our irrational selfishness.  We are all facing the same threat.

Thank you, very much.