"The science has spoken loud and clear," Chilean President Sebastián Piñera told us at the Council on Foreign Relations this morning. The subject was climate change.
Despite his political origins in Chile's right-wing National Renewal Party, Piñera struck a refreshing chord on climate change this morning in strongly proclaiming that, "We have to deal with it. We know what's going to happen. Our young people are asking us to exert moral leadership," and "we have the technology to do things in this area that we simply did not have 10 years ago." Chile joins scientists globally as well as the OECD, U.N., Vatican, U.S. Pentagon, NATO, businesses everywhere, China and most nations in accepting the obvious reality of climate change and its devastating consequences and seeking to do something about it.
The Harvard Ph.D. billionaire also underscored the importance of science in managing his nation's COVID-19 crisis. As a second COVID wave now brutalizes the U.S. and Europe, Piñera said that Chile "has done a good job stemming the infection with science-based policies" and is preparing for a second wave that has not yet struck. While the economic consequences of the pandemic are hitting Chile hard, with a projected year-over-year five or six percent decline in GDP - for what that measure is any longer worth - Piñera said that most Latin American nations will experience double-digit declines.
The President spoke of "confrontation and divide" in the United States and the reality that "the U.S. forgot about Latin America" in recent years and, in the process, that Latin American trade with China now surpasses trade flows with its northern neighbor. There is no doubt, as well, that some of China's exports to Latin America come from its burgeoning green economy sector, comprising revenue and jobs that could have otherwise flowed to the United States.
Interestingly, Chile is confronting the very considerable consequences of an aging population, another indisputable reality. While pointing out that life expectancy is declining in the United States, Piñera said life expectancy continues to improve in his nation and that Chileans are having far fewer children. Of course, a relatively aging population presents serious health care and pension issues, which he also underscored.
Screen shot of President Piñera.