COP28, the meeting convened by the United Nations last year in Cairo to address the issue of Climate Change, marked a turning point in the fight against it.

At the beginning of the meeting, important scientific studies were combined that explained it as a consequence of the emission of greenhouse gases due to anthropogenic action, with the determined activity of social movements from all latitudes, strata and tendencies of the globe, which demanded decisive actions in the face of the growing materialization of the ravages that it was causing, both in the social aspect and in health and the economy.

All these studies, claims and proposals were ignored by the industrialized countries, which, together with the main oil-producing countries, imposed their own agenda of continuing and increasing the production and consumption of fossil fuels and, even, slowing down the change towards vehicles with electric energy, as expressed by senior executives of the automotive industry.

SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN.

This setback will take its toll on nature, with the inhabitants of non-industrialized countries bearing the brunt of the consequences, a situation that is particularly serious for the Latin American people. It is urgent that we decisively confront this announced reality.

Unfortunately, global geopolitical interests weigh on the actions of many leaders in our region. Let us explain the reason for such behavior. The great Western powers need to maintain their levels of industrial production, for which they need to maintain the levels of use of fossil fuels such as oil and gas and coal, vital to sustain their murderous arms industry, against the interests of all humanity.

Given that large crude oil reserves are located in the Middle East and Russia, and given the political and military volatility in these regions, they have set themselves the strategic objective of taking over the large deposits recently discovered in Latin America, such as Vaca Muerta in Argentina, Essequibo in the disputed region between Venezuela and Guyana, Guajira in Colombia, the Orinoco oil belt in Venezuela, etc. Furthermore, aware that sooner rather than later the use of fossil fuels will decrease in favor of electrification, they have also proposed to draw on the world's largest lithium reserves, located in our region.

A DISASTROUS STRATEGY

To achieve their objectives, they seek to gain the local support of political scoundrels. Proof of this behavior is the recent visit of the head of the United States Southern Command to puppet countries such as Chile and Argentina, with presidents of a clear neo-fascist bent, seeking to eliminate any progressive government with integrationist purposes.

In this order of ideas, we have seen in recent decades, coups d'état or interventions, failed or not, either with the use of military force or with the manipulation of laws in Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Haiti, Argentina, Bolivia, etc. and already, at this very moment, the presidents of Colombia and Honduras are denouncing plans to overthrow them.

A FALSE DICHOTOMY To lubricate their objectives, they spread the outdated thesis of dividing us into left and right. This Manichaeism is no longer valid. If there is any division, it is between the sectors that want to thrive in the shadow of the support of the great powers, condemning them with their burden of backwardness and poverty, and the sectors that advocate economic development, with social justice and under the aegis of humanism and solidarity.

STATESMEN, MORE THAN POLITICIANS

But to achieve the latter, we need leaders, or rather, statesmen, who rise above the miseries of everyday politics, seeking the necessary unity of our peoples, the only way out to face the serious current challenges, such as Climate Change, poverty, hunger, migration, internal conflicts, technological and industrial backwardness, etc.