Illustrative image taken from PL

By Guillermo Alvarado 

The opening of the high-level segment of the Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, United Kingdom, went as planned -- full of speeches ranging from paternalism to goodwill, without missing some paradoxes, lies and inaccuracies typical of these types of meetings.

The contradiction did not go unnoticed that in a meeting called to fight against global warming, several leaders of great powers traveled in private planes, moved to the convention center in helicopters or caravans of automobiles, all of them highly polluting.

Nor did the rigorous security measures go amiss, with numerous barricades in ten blocks around the meeting point of the heads of state and government, who were thus conveniently far from the cry of the streets demanding more actions and less speeches.

The meeting marked the return of the United States after the distancing of Donald Trump, but Joseph Biden, apart from dozing off during the first debates, did not carry anything new in his saddlebags, perhaps because so far he has maintained most of the environmentalist measures of his predecessor.

He said what is always said on these occasions, that there is a challenge to life and a threat to human existence "as we know it", i.e. commonplaces repeated ad nauseam, as well as taking the opportunity to criticize China, which did not want to be part of the show.

Surprise and astonishment was caused by the speech of the President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who stated that in the fight against climate change his country "is part of the solution and not part of the problem" and that it always acts responsibly and with urgent solutions.

He was not warned, it seems, that his administration has been identified as one of the most lethal for the environment and that he himself is directly responsible for deforestation and other aggressions against the Amazon.

Numerous activists denounced that the presence of nature defenders was limited with the excuse of the Covid-19 pandemic, in addition to the drastic cuts in visas made by the British authorities.

Dorothy Guerrero from the Philippines said that this is the "most exclusive climate conference in history", while U.S. indigenous leader Tom Goldtooth denounced the summit as being based on corporate interests.

As can be seen, nothing new is being shown by the so-called "last chance" to save the planet, which follows the script of the shepherd boy who deceived the people with the cry of "the wolf is coming", until one day, finally, the beast really arrived, but he was alone.