Cuba plays a leading role in G77
The united quest of the South to protect the environment
Environmental authorities and specialists of member countries of the G77 + China arrived in Havana on July 4, 2023, to engage in dialogue with respect to the use of science and technology to promote sustainable development in accordance with the needs of the climate and the environment. The G77 ministerial meeting, held in the historic Hotel Nacional in Havana, hopes to promote unity, solidarity, and cooperation for the realization of projects from the perspective of the global South. The problems that were discussed included climate change, biodiversity loss, the degradation of the soil, contamination by plastics, chemical substances and dangerous wastes, among other environmental problems.
The Group of 77 was established in Geneva in 1964 by seventy-seven non-aligned nations. It today includes 134 member countries plus China, which comprise 80% of the world population. Cuba assumed the presidency of the G77 on January 12, 2023, at which time it announced its intention to support the development of a multilateral world commercial system and to strengthen implementation of South-South cooperation.
At the inauguration of the meeting, Cuban Minister of Science, Technology, and Environment Elba Rosa Pérez Montoya pointed out that the urgent problems humanity confronts in a period of multidimensional crisis impact disproportionately the most vulnerable. She emphasized the serious damage caused by what she called a predatory consumerist model of development, which places at risk the attainment of the objectives and goals of sustainable development for 2030, adopted by the United Nations a little less than ten years ago. The consumerist model has an impact on the environment and on the quality of life of human beings, she observed. If we want to arrive to a different reality for present and future generations, it is important to implement an alternative global strategy for consumption and development.
The challenge requires, Pérez added, a strong political will and the increasing use of science, technology, and innovation. She noted that in Cuba, the strategy of Tarea Vida (Mission Survival) has been developed and implemented during the past six years. The plan was developed by Cuban scientists on the basis of predictions for the near future up to the year 2050. Cuba has outlined ambitious goals, including the increase of the forest surface by 33%, the improvement of the soils in 65% of the agricultural area, a 15% increase in the reutilization of water, the gradual reduction of single-use plastic, the prevention of crime related to wildlife, a 24% increase in the generation of energy through renewable sources, a greater use of land transportation with low energy emissions, among others. The principal obstacle in the attainment of these goals, she noted, is the criminal economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States during the last 60 years. “Without the blockade,” she observed, “our country would have for these proposals much more access to financing, material, and technology and less limitations for the development of international cooperation, especially South-South cooperation.”
The ministerial meeting of G77 + China occurred during the Fourteenth International Convention on the Environment and Development, which took place in National Aquarium of Cuba from July 3 to July 7. Approximately 1500 delegates from 24 nations, along with invited Cuban specialists, participated in the Convention. Ali Salajegheh, Vice-President of Iran as well as President of the Organization for the Protection of the Environment, was among the participants.
The Convention was presided by Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, who observed that the developed world could make financial resources available that would enable the countries of the South to acquire the highest technologies and to increase investments in education and in the formation of their scientific potential. However, the majority of the developed countries have not had the understanding or the desire to support the countries of the South, which are the most vulnerable, in the great challenge that humanity confronts. He declared that Cuba, in the implementation of its plan of Tarea Vida, has proceeded forward, without waiting for the aid of the more developed nations. He observed that the poor countries must seek the autonomous development of their own technologies and find the solutions to their own problems, which would be strengthened through unity among all. With this goal in mind, Cuba is disposed to share its modest experiences in the fields of science, innovation, and the environment.
Cuba has convoked a Summit of heads of state for September 15-16, which will address the theme of “The present challenges of development: The role of science, technology, and innovations.” Cuba is strongly positioned to play a leading role in addressing such issues, inasmuch as Cuba has developed norms of interchange between government and science, strengthened during the Covid-19 pandemic, based in: state investment in scientific research and development that is oriented to the solution of serious practical problems; structures of communication among scientists in research institutions; and regular meetings between government ministers and representatives of the scientific and research institutions. As a result, Cuba is able to arrive to a political-scientific consensus on environment and development issues and implement solutions, in spite of limited financial resources that slow its advances.
The Non-Aligned Movement is an interregional organization of governments that includes the majority of countries in G77. On July 5, in a ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Baku, Azerbaijan, Cuban Vice Prime Minister of Foreign Relations Gerardo Peñalver Portal proposed the reactivation of the Committee for the Joint Coordination of the G77 + China and the Non-Aligned Movement. He noted that the Non-Aligned Movement, with its ample and diverse membership, has the capacity to promote coordinated and united action before the great challenges of today’s world.
In his address to the Non-Aligned Movement, Peñalver declared that the countries of the South suffer the worst consequences of the multidimensional crisis of the world, which is intensified by geopolitical tensions and by efforts to perpetuate inequalities with new forms of domination. The developed states continue to interfere in the internal affairs of the countries of the South. They impose unilateral coercive measures and disseminate manipulative distortions in the media. They persist in using the issue of human rights for political purposes and in not respecting the sovereign right of the peoples to choose their political, socioeconomic, and cultural system. Meanwhile, “climate change, accelerated by the irrational and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption of capitalism and by the excessive exploitation of natural resources places in serious risk the survival of humanity.”
Peñalver declared that in the face of this scenario, “we must defend the foundational principles of the Non-Aligned Movement.” We must seek to construct a multilateral world based in unequivocal respect for the UN Charter and International Law as “indispensable conditions for peaceful coexistence among States.”
Cuba served as President of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983, when Fidel denounced the turn of the Western powers to neoliberalism. And from 2003 to 2006, when Cuba led the Movement in putting forth the principles for guiding the renewal of the Third World project and its struggle for a more just and equal world order, in which the sovereign right of nations to formulate their own strategies for development is respected.
South-South cooperation is a long-standing goal of the Third World, dating back to the 1955 meeting in Bandung, Indonesia, where the great leaders of the epoch formulated the basic principles of the Third World quest for sovereignty and definitive independence from colonial political-economic structures. The ongoing struggle has included: the establishment of the Non-Alignment Movement in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1961; the founding of the Group of 77 (G77) in 1964; the approval in 1974 by the United Nations of the Non-Aligned Movement proposal for a New International Economic Order; and the development of organizations of regional integration during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, seeking to bypass commercial and financial structures imposed by the Western powers. Today, the countries of the South are taking practical steps in the implementation of South-South cooperation, as result of: the greater productive capacity of some of the countries, like those of BRICS; the increasingly evident decadent imperialism of the West, especially the USA; the increasingly clear anti-imperialist perspective among the nations of Latin America and East Asia and the Islamic World, with China, Brazil, Argentina, Iran, and Vietnam being especially important, combined with the cooperative support of a renewed Russia; and because of the leadership role of China in forging a New International Economic Order and the persistence of Cuba in defense of its sovereignty as an example for the smaller countries.
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