“Mother is not Violated, Mother is Sacred” are Bolivia’s President Evo Morales’ Hopeful Words for Climate Justice
Posted by Ruth Thomas-Pellicer on January 14, 2010 |
“Defense of the rights of Mother Earth. The earth is our life. Nature is our home, our house. Happily, the United Nations have declared a Mother Earth Day. If the mother is recognized as Mother Earth, it’s something that can’t be sold, it’s something that can’t be—it can’t be violated, something sacred. This is nature. This is planet earth. And that’s why I’ve come here, to defend the rights of Mother Earth, to defend the rights to life, to defend humanity and saving Mother Earth.” Says Bolivia’s President Evo Morales in an interview with DemocracyNow in the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009.
If we follow Morales’s sound advice and take sheer respect for Mother Nature –Gaea, that is– as the starting point, greenhouse politics take on a quite distinct character to the processes underway under the liberal political economy that characterize the UNFCCC. Two interrelated issues dominate the agenda with Gaea as a starting point. One is the ecological, climate, embodied debt. The other, efforts towards the creation of a Tribunal for Climate Justice.
No wonder that in Copenhagen President Evo Morales called on the United States and other wealthy nations to pay an ecological debt to Bolivia and other developing nations. On similar grounds Morales is envisioning the creation of a Tribunal for Climate Justice: “Those who do damage to Planet Earth and those who do damage need to be judged. Those who do not fulfill the terms of the Kyoto Protocol should also be judged. And for those ends, we have to organize a tribunal for climate justice in the United Nations.”
Tags: climate debt > Climate Justice Tribunal > Evo Morales > Gaea
