Original article: El capitalismo es el “principal verdugo ambiental”: presidenta de Honduras Xiomara Castro en la COP30
During her speech at COP30 in Belém do Pará, Brazil, Honduras’ President Xiomara Castro condemned capitalism as the «main environmental executioner» and called for an end to its «atrocities» to safeguard humanity.
«Capitalism has become the main environmental executioner. It devours forests, dries up rivers, and condemns millions of people to hunger and displacement. Climate change is not a prediction, it is an open wound that bleeds in our communities,» she stated during her address at the leaders’ summit.
Castro emphasized that just as the 1994 Convention signed in the same city established the right for women to live free from violence, «the land also has the right to exist free from abuse, exploitation, and violence.»
At COP28, as president of the Coalition of Tropical Forest Countries, she revealed that 100 corporations are responsible for 71% of polluting emissions, while the Global North, with only 10% of the population, produces more than half of the gases that are destroying the climate.
She reiterated the seven urgent measures proposed at COP28 aimed at ensuring that «nature and human life are recognized as universal supreme goods. These include an immediate end to wars to ensure peace with respect to international law, condemning terrorism in all its forms, including state terrorism, and emphasized that «the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza cannot go unpunished.»
These measures also encompass eradicating the «predatory profit» that destroys forests, rivers, and ancestral lands, and reducing the «irrational consumption» of resources by industrialized nations.
The Honduran leader proposed a global initiative for creditors and international organizations to allow part of the external debt to be converted into investments for environmental development and climate mitigation; ensuring compliance with the agreements of the Global Ocean Convention, with penalties for over-exploitation and marine pollution, and including environmental crimes under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to punish companies and governments.
«If we stop the atrocities of capitalism in the forests and tropical jungles, we will be protecting humanity,» she said in her speech, extending a call to «liberate» the planet from «abuse and selfishness.»
Castro supported the initiative «Tropical Forests Forever» promoted by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, arguing that climate justice demands «recognizing the economic and moral value of the peoples who protect it.»
«Environmental justice is the foundation of social justice and defending the forest is also defending democracy,» Castro asserted. At COP30, she awarded Lula the Francisco Morazán Order in the Degree of Grand Cross Gold Plaque, reaffirming the bonds of friendship and collaboration between Brazil and Honduras.
Environmental Reinvention of Honduras
During her speech, Castro highlighted that «Reinventing Honduras» meant restoring dignity, sovereignty, and a green spirit to the country by reversing the «plundering, impunity, public-private corruption,» and the handing over of natural resources under the «narcodictatorship» imposed on the country following the 2009 coup d’état.
She noted that her government has established three environmental battalions, which have reduced deforestation in protected areas by more than 90%, and mentioned that she will sign the country’s first international agreement to mobilize sovereign climate financing, as reported by TeleSUR.
«The environmental reinvention is also an act of sovereignty,» she declared, reiterating that Honduras will not grant any new concessions over natural assets.