Cuba's fight against capitalism's climate crisis.

• Author: Haywood, James
• Position: Reprint

Cuba has an energy policy whose core concept is to rely less and less on hydrocarbons and give greater space in the energy balance to renewable sources like solar, wind, tide, and water. Cuba has put in place a conservation system that starts at house level and continues to the public sector and cooperative farms, by substituting incandescent lamps by fluorescent bulbs, distributing energy-saving household appliances, and revamping the national power grid.

--Elsy Fors, Prensa Latina, June 8, 2007

Much has been written about healthcare and education in revolutionary Cuba, but the country's fight against capitalism's destruction of the environment is equally remarkable. The cleanup of Havana Bay, which involves over 40 local People's Councils, is just one example of the high priority given to the environment by the Cuban government. It is much more than a simple cleanup: Cuba's holistic approach to the environment can be seen in the way it dealt with the river Luyano, which was accumulating organic waste from four large slaughterhouses that were contaminating the water. To ensure that the pollution didn't recur, the Cubans implemented a simple yet dramatic fix: they relocated the slaughterhouses. Imagine that even being considered in a capitalist country!

Another example is a Wind Park recently opened in the municipality of the Isle of Youth to provide 10% of the municipality's electrical needs. That's impressive enough, but so too is the approach to construction: work began on it in August last year and by January one machine had already begun delivering power. What's more, because ferocious storms affect the area, the entire wind farm is designed to be dismantled within three hours.

The list of initiatives is endless, from investing in better piping to stop leaks and save water, to the South Coast Project, which is cleaning up the environment along a 142-km strip of coastline south of Havana Province and improving the lives of the people in the area at the same time.

This is really the key point--Cuba is not imposing Green policies on the masses, it is mobilizing the Cuban people to confront climate change and environmental degradation.

Cuba's response to the UN Climate Change Conference's call for 140 billion trees to be planted in 10 years is a case in point. The Ministry of Agriculture mobilized people through mass organizations such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) and the Federation of Cuban Women: 24.3% of...