“We are experiencing a change in the world and Uruguay is no stranger”began by saying the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, during his speech this Tuesday, in the Sustainability Forumwhich Banco BBVA carries out throughout the day.
In his speech, the president stated that the path that the country is following in the field of sustainability began 30 years ago with the creation of the brand natural uruguay and the last action in this process, which he said has to continue, was the creation of the Ministry of Environmentduring his administration.
Today, “the Minister of the Environment works jointly and transversally” with the other departments when evaluating the different initiatives, added Lacalle Pou.
“In addition to the institutional framework, which works today, there is also a public investment policy”asserted the president, and highlighted the Arazatí project, the closure of 59 landfills throughout the country, electric mobility, the initiatives for green hydrogen carried out by the Ministry of Industry and the green bond created by Uruguay with sustainable goals through of the Ministry of Economy.
The president stated that caring for the environment is a concern he has had since he was youngand told an anecdote where that interest is reflected.
In 2005, the United States Department of State sent Lacalle Pou an invitation so that the then Uruguayan deputy could travel and train in that country. In that instance, the institution responsible for international relations in the United States offered him a menu with various themes so that the politician, who was beginning to take his first steps, could select among the proposals.
At that time, issues related to terrorism were on the rise, the president recalled, following the attacks of September 11, 2001, which included the hijacking of a commercial plane to crash it into the headquarters of the World Trade Center, in New York by a radicalized terrorist group. Despite this international context, Lacalle Pou chose a seminar on the environmental care.
The then white deputy went to the state of Vermont and met, in that framework, with the experts on the environment and sustainability. “They were professors and doctors” trained in that subject, who they received the Uruguayan deputy with a certain distance and they distinguished him, coldly, as “the politician” who was among them, the president recalled.
At the end of the training, Lacalle Pou addressed the group of intellectuals and told them: “The day I arrived, instead of hugging me, they pushed me; when a politician approaches they have to embrace him, not push him, because when sustainability permeates the political system, it permeates the whole of society.”
“The rulers are representatives of the will of the people,” he continued, and conveyed that it is necessary for politicians to carry out different provisions that reach the population to modify their behavior, while betting on “the development” of the country.
Sustainability should be a “long-term” effort that goes through governments, that is supported by “institutionality, democracy and the republic,” he concluded.
