Global Peace Is a Precondition for Combating Climate Change, Vucic Says in Baku

Alekasandar Vucic, Baku, Novemeber 12 2024 (Photo: PrintScreen rts.rs)

Speaking at the 2024 United National (UN) climate change conference COP29 in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on Nov. 12, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that global peace was a prerequisite also for combating climate change, adding that “today, no one likes to hear the word peace as all want to see the other side defeated.”  

“We need to reduce air pollution, flooding, but above all, we need to establish peace. In Ukraine and the Middle East, and only then we will be able to deal with this issue,” Vucic said, noting that those paying the price in all events were small countries and therefore new sources of financing had to be found.  

The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had to invest money in fighting climate change, Vucic said, adding: “I am yet again calling on the rich to help poorer nations.” Vucic stressed that creating a fairer and more sustainable society and a better world was a shared goal of all.

The Serbian president also said that stopping wars was paramount for to be able to look for solutions using new technologies in fighting environmental pollution and electricity shortage. “In three, four years, the US will stop exporting liquefied gas as it would be using the fuel for its gas-fired power plants. Electricity consumption has been on the rise as artificial intelligence and electrical vehicles have been ‘soaking’ electricity. In our country, electricity consumption is higher in the summer than in the winter,” Vucic noted.

He also said that US President-elect Donald Trump had been referred to by many as s a devil and misogynist, while now all want to cooperate with him. “What I was saying back then, I am also saying now. I was not making a devil face of him, I considered him as a decent man. Now, I am not putting him on a pedestal either, I still have the same opinion of him,” Vucic said.