By Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez
Speech by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the Session on Environment, COP30, and Global Health, at the XVII BRICS Leaders’ Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 7, 2025, “Year 67 of the Revolution.”
(Shorthand Versions – Presidency of the Republic)
Dear President Lula, congratulations on the organization and success of this BRICS Summit!
Excellencies,
Very soon, Brazil will once again bring together the peoples and governments of the world to discuss and reach agreements on transcendental issues for environmental preservation and combating climate change.
The upcoming COP30 in Belém, in the Amazon, must send a clear and urgent message regarding the need to protect this vital ecosystem for global climate balance, among the many colossal challenges facing developing countries.
Environmental discussions are not advancing in the direction or at the speed required. Affluent societies resist changing their unsustainable and irrational patterns of production and consumption. Solutions are postponed, minimal commitments are made, and the political will of those who should contribute most to solving the environmental crisis is lacking.
The challenges of Global Health are no less complex. The gaps between countries and populations, the inequality in access to health services, medical supplies, and technologies, and the imposition of unilateral coercive measures exclude tens of millions of human beings from the vital right to health.
We are convinced that the solution to these problems lies in upholding the principles that have brought us here, including those contained in the historic 1992 Rio Declaration.
Special mention should be made of the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” resulting from a process of historical awareness about the obligations of this hegemonic elite toward exploited peoples. It is not merely an environmental principle, but the foundation on which international cooperation for sustainable development must be built.
Cuba, committed to honoring its obligations, presented its Nationally Determined Contribution 3.0 in February. This contribution contains specific adaptation actions, a priority given our status as a Small Island Developing State. It includes measures derived from sectoral policies in health programs, as well as the strengthening of monitoring and early warning systems in this area.
For more than sixty years, our nation has developed a policy of cooperation and training of health professionals for the developing world, and in the last two decades, the Henry Reeve health contingent has served exemplarily in disaster zones. But these solidarity efforts of a small, blockaded nation, instead of being rewarded and recognized, are shamefully persecuted by the world’s largest economic power.
Dear colleagues,
The BRICS Group offers us an alternative to change the status quo, the result of centuries of colonial exploitation, paradigms of subjugation, and archaic institutions that consolidate the economic power of the global elites, the same ones who today openly display their fascist philosophy and are complicit in the Zionist genocide against the Palestinian population.
Let us unite to promote the new international order we desire and deserve: one that guarantees peace, provides for the common good and prosperity of peoples, realizes the right to development for all countries, and is in harmony with nature. An international order where solidarity, cooperation, and integration prevail to address global challenges and threats, including the environmental crisis, and that promotes real solutions to eradicate hunger, poverty, and disease. But it is not enough to wish for it: let us fight for it! “Tomorrow will be too late.”
That warning, issued to the world 33 years ago by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz in his historic speech at the 1992 Rio Summit, resonates like an echo at every summit on the subject, as the urgency of responding to these grave challenges grows.
Cuba has not stopped working to provide answers, and the BRICS can count on us.
Success at COP30!
Thank you very much (Applause).