Colombian President Gustavo Petro asked for the arrival of foreign direct investment in Latin America that allows accelerating the productive change in the generation of clean energy in the region and thus promote their integration.
(See: Petro calls for climate and trade agreements).
Within the framework of the World Economic Forum (WEF)Petro emphasized yesterday that the territory, especially South Americahas the potential of the Amazon jungle and the generation of clean energy as differential factors compared to the rest of the world the climate crisis.
“With the technologies discovered so far, if we build an American electrical grid, we can, in a certain way, sell our clean energy potential so that the United States can change its energy matrix, the first element to change everything in the world.”, pointed out the president during the panel ‘Leadership for Latin America’, where he shared with other heads of state and high political figures in the WEF, in Davos (Switzerland).
This commitment, added the Presidentcould lead to the creation of a common agenda, where the materials that demands this new source of clean energy, such as copper, can be used in reindustrialization processes “to generate the energy ourselves”.
(See: Petro calls for investments to accelerate clean energy construction).
“We need investments that help us develop that: we would move to a matrix of foreign investment focused on the construction of clean energy in South America, with a guaranteed market, if we go by direct network to the United States and by sea to the rest of the world.”, assured the colombian president.
On the other hand, in the panel ‘Leading change in the new normality of the earth’, the Colombian president reiterated his critical message about the current relationship between the capitalism and the fight against climate change in the search to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions by extractive industries.
In this sense, the president assured that in the event of a different capitalism, which he called decarbonized, “would have to make changes” and for this it should “explicitly say that the only way to stop the climate crisis is to achieve zero emissions”.
The head of state He specified that the decisions of the climate summits, the COP, must have binding effects, that these “are orders” and that they be fulfilled above other agreements.
Towards the end of his speech, Petro once again mentioned his proposal to carry out a debt swap for climate action. “These issues that a decarbonized capitalism would address today are not in the discussion. As long as they are gone, there is no capacity to move towards a decarbonized economy”he assured.
(See: ‘Zero use of coal, oil and gas’: Petro’s message in Davos).
In the final round, which shared assistance with figures like former Vice President Al Gore, the president closed his speech with the phrase that “zero use of coal, oil and gas”.
Reinforcement of IDB support
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will allocate US$73.5 million to promote the energy transition and the implementation of the Deforestation Containment Plan in the Amazon, the organization announced yesterday, after the bilateral meeting between Gustavo Petro and its president, Ilan Goldfan, within the framework of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
It was established that US$70 million will be directed to strengthening the energy transition policy, while the remaining US$3.5 million, which are donated by multilateral banks, are oriented to the Amazon basin for the design
and the structuring of financial mechanisms.
(See: Miniquality: creation of public policies and more challenges of the portfolio).
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