The Climate Summit organized by the White House took place virtually this year, the event was attended by the young environmental activist of Chilean and Mexican origin, Xiye Bastida.
Xiye Bastida is a 19-year-old environmental activist of Otomi-Toltec origin on her father's side and Chilean on her mother's side. Bastida lived in San Pedro Tultepec, State of Mexico until 2015, where after three years of drought they suffered serious floods caused by heavy rains, which affected the Metropolitan Area of Toluca. After this situation, her family decided to emigrate to New York.
In New York, Bastida began to get involved in environmental activism issues. In 2018, she Bastida gave a speech on the worldview of indigenous peoples at the 9th World Urban Forum organized by the United Nations, and she received the Spirit of the UN award.
Later, she began to collaborate with the global youth initiative Fridays for Future, which through marches held every Friday and other actions seeks to promote initiatives in the face of the environmental crisis, and raise awareness about taking action in this situation. Additionally, Ella Bastida is a co-founder of the Re-Earth Initiativeorganization, which promotes intersectional environmental activism. It was founded in 2020 on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The Chilean-Mexican activist is also on the committee of the Peoples Climate Movement.
During her participation in the summit, Bastida criticized the role of current economic and ideological systems and highlighted the need to propose ambitious solutions. "We already have all the solutions we need, so all we have to do is implement them," she said in one of her speeches.
However, she Bastida also recognized the progress represented by the commitment to reach zero net emissions by 2030 and not by 2050, which have been agreed by countries of the European Union and the United States.
"It's time they stopped thanking us for being activists," Bastida said at the end of her speech.
