海角大神

鈥� A version of this post ran on the author's blog, Caracas Chronicles. The views expressed are the author's own.

Last week in Rio, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (a follow-up to聽the historical Earth Summit of 20 years ago) went through without attracting the same attention of its predecessor. Few top world leaders attended and the final document left almost everyone unsatisfied.

Hugo Ch谩vez was resigned to stay home this time, so he couldn鈥檛 repeat the Copenhagen experience of almost three years ago. But what about the Venezuelan delegation? Were they just passive observers or did they achieve something concrete? Not a bit of it鈥�

Claudia Salerno, Deputy Foreign Minister for North America and head of the delegation, previewed the role of the Bolivarian government, days before the summit began:

鈥淲hat is necessary right now is to review the deep causes of what causes the crisis of the planet鈥� Capitalism is a model that is exhausting the capacity of Earth鈥檚 regeneration鈥� and we [Venezuela] are part of the struggle against the predator of the planet that is capitalism.鈥�

QUIZ: Hugo Chavez 101 鈥� How well do you know Venezuela's president?

How her actions backed those ambitious words? Prepare to be surprised鈥�

According to Kumi Naidoo, International Executive Director for the enviromental NGO Greenpeace, Venezuela made a 鈥渟inful alliance鈥� with the United States to block the聽Oceans Rescue Plan, a proposal made to fight pollution in the high seas and protect biodiversity. Canada and Russia joined to block that proposal as well.

That wasn鈥檛 the only thing that the Venezuelan delegation blocked. A specific deadline to end all fossil fuel subsidies by 2020 was suppressed from the draft text by the objection of Venezuela and other oil producing countries. What else can be expected from the country that spends more on聽keeping its gasoline the cheapest in the World than it does on education?

The Bolivarian delegation also tried to hijack the meeting to discuss events in Paraguay and Salerno made headlines of her own by denouncing an attempt of aggression by a member of Greenpeace. The NGO denied Salerno鈥檚 claims.

Chavismo鈥檚 grandiose green rhetoric might not be so hard to swallow, if it wasn鈥檛 for its terrible, terrible environmental record at home.

Remember that big petroleum coke mountain in Anzo谩tegui? In less than a year it has almost doubled in size. Nearby, the number of oil spills in the Puerto P铆ritu Bay in the first half of the year has already surpassed the total number of spills registered on 2011. PDVSA can鈥檛 even be bothered to stop oil spills it knows are happening, even when they threaten to pollute thousands of people鈥檚 water supplies. Its聽overall environmental record is one long trail of tears.

Somehow, we have to take lectures on the unsustainability of capitalism from these guys!

Parece que para el medio ambiente no hay coraz贸n venezolano鈥�

鈥� Gustavo Hernandez Acevedo is a writer for Caracas Chronicles, the place for opposition-leaning-but-not-insane analysis of the Venezuelan political scene since 2002