Under the guidance of Evo Morales, Bolivia is one of the only sane voices at the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference in Qatar.

Yesterday, Jose Antonio Zamora Gutierrez, Minister of Environment and Water, spoke on behalf of Bolivia at COP18 in Qatar.

Of consumerism and greed, he said: "A wasteful, consumerist, exclusionary, greedy civilization generating wealth in some hands and poverty everywhere, has produced pollution and climate crisis. We did not come here to negotiate climate. We did not come here to turn the climate into a business, or to protect businesses of them who want to continue aggravating the climate crisis, destroying Mother Earth."

Of the causes of climate crisis, he said: "The causes of the climate crisis are directly related to the accumulation and concentration of wealth in few countries and in small social groups, excessive and wasteful mass consumption, under the belief that having more is living better, polluting production and disposable goods to enrich wealth increasing the ecological footprint, as well as the excessive and unsustainable use of renewable and non-renewable natural resources at a high environmental cost for extractive activities for production."

Of runaway "economic progress" milking the ecological crisis as another opportunity for growth, he said: "We denounce to the whole world the pressure from some countries for the approval of new carbon market mechanisms, although these have shown to be ineffective in the fight against climate change, and that only represent business opportunities. This is a climate change conference, not a conference for carbon business. We did not come here to do business with the death of Mother Earth betting on the power of markets as a solution. We are here to protect our Mother Earth,we came here to protect the future of humanity. The planet is not for sale, nor is our life."

Of the USA's moral ineptitude, he said: "Let's be careful of the intentions of some developed parties to make us feel resigned in front of this terrible reality, and admit the inertia and inaction of those countries that are historically responsible of global warming, sending us a message that is better to have a “pragmatic” attitude, which of course will condemn to cook planet and the extinction of the humanity."

Read the full address here.