Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) addressed this issue at its latest annual meeting held in Costa Rica. Real World Radio interviewed Juan Almendares from Honduran organization Madre Tierra-Friends of the Earth Honduras.

“In the name of science the powerful countries are talking about reducing carbon emissions. But science without awareness is pointless. This is not about reduction, but of 0 pollution. This can only be achieved by organized peoples, by pushing the governments”, he said.

Almendares believes that unequal development of the countries within neoliberal expansion has led to “unequal consequences” in terms of impacts of climate change. “We must change the system to make the right decisions. All the capitalist system’s policies are degrading, predating, racist”.

He then talked about the escalade of authoritarianism in Honduras in the recent years, which he attributed to “an experiment of capitalism’s expansionist policies” that should be analyzed in the light of the fact that indigenous and peasants have historically been the most hardly hit.

He said a new national security doctrine is being implemented in Honduras based on the expansion of militarization. “From a geopolitical-military point of view, Honduras is important to the US”.

Almendares recalled that fifty peasants who have been killed in Bajo Aguan and said that the governments “do not rule there, it’s the agro-industrial oligarchy”.

In Honduras, there are nearly 60,000 private security guards and the authorities keep on spending millions of dollars on weapons, even though we are talking about one of the world’s poorest countries. “There is a ’colombianization’ of Honduras”, he concluded.