Like a pendulum between pessimism and hope about the future of the planet due to the climate crisis, the conversation
Ecocide and fight for biodiversity
has flowed , this Saturday at the Hay Festival in Cartagena de Indias.
In the Getsemaní auditorium of the convention center, the Colombian biologist Brigitte Baptiste, the Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum, the Franco-British lawyer Philipe Sands and the American writer Rebecca Solnit spoke about the current situation, the challenges and the urgency of preserving biodiversity of the planet.
The dialogue has been moderated by Inés Santaeulalia, head of the EL PAÍS office for the Andean Region.
The four participants are people who, from different scenarios and distant locations, have reached a common point, which is the need to draw attention to the threats that the climate crisis and environmental degradation imply for human beings.
Sands spent part of his speech speaking from the point of view of international law and the path to achieving ecocide recognition as a crime.
“The crime of ecocide will not be able to protect us from what is going to come, but it will be able to contribute to a change of consciousness,” he said.
He also explained that the crime of ecocide is gaining more and more visibility, despite being a word that has been heard worldwide for a relatively short time.
Later, he pointed out what he considers an error in today's political and legal systems with respect to the environment: human beings are being placed at the center of the discussion, and not their environment: “That is an error.
We cannot control our natural environment.
"It's going to end up controlling us."
He also added that the greatest challenge is not to avoid the destruction of the environment, but that of the species, and, although he maintains a measured level of hope, there is some pessimism in his impressions: “I am optimistic, but I must recognize that "Things are not looking very good in terms of our ability to solve our problems."
In her turns, Rebecca Solnit emphasized the need to maintain hope of achieving real change in the face of the climate crisis, one of the world's greatest challenges, not as excessive optimism, but as a way of understanding that the game is still has not been lost.
“Hope is not for when everything is easy and promising, but also for times of danger.
I see climate negativism as a way of understanding that the future has already been defined,” she reflected.
In that sense, she recalled, for example, that 20 years ago solar and wind energy were seen as something primitive to replace fossil energy, but now, she believes, the planet is closer to making it a reality.
On the other hand, he mentioned the division between activists in favor of the environmental fight and climate change deniers.
In his opinion, with those who deny changes of this type - among whom he mentions the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk - we should do the same as with the flat earthers: ignore them.
On the contrary, he continues, we must try to strengthen activists and those who work to mitigate environmental damage until they are stronger than the large hydrocarbon companies, to be listened to as much or more than them.
“Every effort we make matters, every species and place in the world we can protect matters.
I have hope, I am not optimistic, but I am not going to give up as long as I have life,” he added.
Later, when Brigitte Baptiste had the floor, the dialogue turned at times towards Colombia and its situation in the environmental struggle.
Although for the biologist the country has been very active in international climate forums, has adopted biodiversity policies and has adhered to laws and regulations, she considers that the achievements have been “disproportionately poor.”
She believes that the main obstacle is the difficulties in understanding that the commitment to biodiversity implies a change in ways of life and productive activities, two objectives that she sees as still too far away.
“It is not possible to talk about biodiversity as an abstract object with which 80% of Colombians who live in cities do not feel identified,” she said.
Along the same lines, he stated that the awareness that already exists in the country has achieved, among other things, that it will host COP16, the main summit on biodiversity in the world, but that this does not mean that this is reflected in the policies and investments that the country makes.
“There is talk of bioeconomy, of depetrolization, of limiting extractivism, but in the end, regardless of the ideological political regime that is in charge, the business remains the same,” he says.
Finally, Eliane Brum, who has lived in direct contact with the Brazilian Amazon rainforest for seven years, presents the climate fight as a conflict: “It is a real war,” she commented, different from that of Ukraine or Gaza, although both have to change climate involved.
“It is a war that involves nature, that began before us and that will continue after us and that we are losing,” she added, before explaining that, to face the climate crisis, we must make profound changes from ourselves.
This explains why she has changed her life, her understanding and her consciousness: “We must understand that the center of our world is where life is and not where the markets are;
in the Amazon, in the oceans, and not in the financial centers.”
The damage caused by climate denialism was another idea that Brum addressed in her speech, in addition to the feeling that everything she says and writes is often not listened to: “I feel like I have a barrier of denialism, illusionism and escapism, which It makes people not understand that we are at war.
These letters that I tell you get lost and do not arrive.”
However, Ella Brum goes beyond hope, which she considers “overrated,” to vindicate the need to fight and war, even without that hope: “What is that fight?
A fight that looks towards life, where delicacy, strength, small things, affections are.
"That's what makes us fight for life."
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