The president of Colombia has warned that middle-class fears of losing a high standard of living because of green policies is driving the rise of the far right across the world.
In an interview with the Guardian at the Cop28 UN climate summit, Gustavo Petro, who is Colombia’s first leftwing president, said that the world had to find carbon-free ways of being prosperous and that his country’s rich biodiversity would be the basis of its wealth after phasing out fossil fuels.
The South American country has joined an alliance of states calling for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, with Petro saying he was trying prevent the “omnicide of planet Earth”.
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The 63-year-old former guerrilla fighter, who won power in 2022, said that Brazil needed to “transform its mindset” on the Amazon to prevent its destruction. Petro has disagreeed with the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, over the role of oil exploration in the world’s largest rainforest, which Petro has sought to rule out.
He said that conserving the Amazon rainforest was a fundamental part of global climate action and that its importance was well understood by Colombians.
Colombia is said to have become a leading voice at Cop28 in the first negotiations on whether to phase out fossil fuels, despite the country being a significant producer of coal, oil and gas.
“All consumption that makes one feel comfort, prosperity and a high standard of living in the United States, Europe, and other societies, such as China, is based on intensive consumption of carbon. When decarbonisation is proposed, that basis falls out. Of course it’s difficult to present an alternative,” Petro said.
Speaking further, he said “the fight against the climate crisis endangers [that prosperity], denies it, and to that extent there is a growing fear in the middle and upper classes of the world about what the leap to a decarbonised economy means.”
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
