The Colombian president also met with the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Ilan Goldfajn; and the head of State of Kenya, Ewilliam Ruto.

Petro brings a broad agenda to this summit, convened by Macron, which includes mechanisms for the protection of the Amazon rainforest, the development of clean energy, and Colombia’s proposal on the exchange of foreign debt for climate action.

On this issue, Petro proposed in a meeting to create a global Marshall Plan to address the climate crisis.

He proposed that, through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a large global issuance of special drawing rights be made available and allocated to a climate fund to free up budgetary space in the countries and thus mitigate or adapt to the climate crisis.

“It would be, practically, to finance a Marshall Plan against the climate crisis, it would be a great step for humanity, the first to overcome what could be the great problem that could imply our extinction”, he stressed.

According to the Colombian president, these special drawing rights “would stop the debt holders, which today are the pension funds of the richest countries, and would free up budgetary space in all countries to dedicate exclusively to mitigating or repairing the climate crisis.”

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