Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounced capitalism and natural resource extraction as the causes of climate change during a scathing criticism at COP27 on Tuesday that did not mention his country’s history as an oil producer.
“What is the cause of climate change? The cause is the dream of trying to find happiness in the accumulation of goods,” Maduro said, citing his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. “People believe they have the right to seize, own and destroy everything that stands in the way of capital accumulation.”
Maduro also referred to a 1992 speech by Fidel Castro in Rio de Janeiro in which the Cuban leader said nations must urgently work to protect the earth’s environment. “Fidel Castro said that tomorrow will be too late, too late to do what we should have done a long time ago. He was attributing it to wild capitalism ».
