justice

Here Nnimmo explains why initiatives such as carbon offsetting should really be called 'do nothing solutions'. 

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People take the streets in Brussels.





Philippine Movement for Climate Justice members launch their 12 days of action on the climate. Credit: LRC / Erwin B. Quinones





Friends of the Earth US demonstrate outside the White House.

Over the weekend Friends of the Earth was part of several events which brought Cancun to Brussels and recaptured the spirit of the movement for climate justice we felt so much part of in Copenhagen. For those of us not travelling to Mexico it was a chance to come together with activists and allies from across Europe and show solidarity with our colleagues fighting for a just outcome in Cancun.

The weekend began on Friday when Brussels’ regular critical mass took on an international dimension. More than 120 cyclists, including a mounted samba band, toured the part of town where the European Institutions are. “System change not climate change” was their message to European negotiators heading to COP16.

The European Assembly for Climate Justice on Saturday brought together activists from Europe, and beyond, to discuss, debate, learn, share, plan...and enjoy amazing locally-grown food. More than 150 of us debated pertinent questions like, ‘Is there such a thing as green Capitalism?’, ‘How can we challenge the current unbalanced food and agriculture system?’, ‘What are the social and environmental costs of expanding carbon markets?’ and ‘How can we change our patterns of production and consumption to ensure everyone has access to basic human needs?’. Exploring these challenging issues with people from around Europe was fascinating.

We were privileged to be joined by some exceptionally inspirational international speakers. Evguenia Tchirikova from Russia told the assembly about the the battle to defend the Khimki forest on the edge of Moscow, in which she is a leading figure. Russian authorities are trying to chop down the forest to make way for a motorway and shops. The protests have been violently suppressed. Her story brought home the local and global dimensions of environmental struggles. The Khimki forest is one forest but is emblematic of the thousands of forests, lakes and other natural resources in Russia and around the world and those who are trying to profit from their destruction.

Qalandar Bux Memon from Pakistan shared his experiences of this year’s devastating floods which left one fifth of the country under water and 10 million people without homes. Unprecedented rainfall was the biggest factor, but this was exacerbated by the climate effect on melting glaciers, and deforestation and mangrove destruction. We heard how ecological disasters affect the poorest hardest. “Climate change is not tomorrow’s problem, we are already experiencing the catastrophe,” Qalander told us – a very powerful message from someone who has witnessed first-hand the impacts of a changing climate.

Singing for the climate

After an intense and motivating day, a trip to the Brussels Christmas market for a relaxing drink was a mistake. All the outdoor heaters and disposable cups were only a reminder of the scale of the challenge, and made me feel very powerless.

But that changed the next day with the climate march organised by the Belgian Climate Coalition. Evguenia , Qualander and myself joined around 4000 other people to walk through the streets of Brussels and assemble at a mass rally to ‘Sing for the Climate’. We definitely couldn’t compete with The Beatles but our rendition of their classic ‘Hey Jude’ had the right sentiment. The song’s lyrics had been rewritten specially with lines like, “Our earth, is not for sale, So we’ll take actions, to save the climate”. Belgium holds the current rotating Presidency of the European Union and is therefore representing Europe in Cancun, and the song called on its negotiators to work for climate justice at the talks.

It was not the spectacle of the ‘The Flood for Climate Justice’ Friends of the Earth organised last year, but it was nonetheless empowering to recapture some of the energy we had experienced in Copenhagen and to again feel part of a growing international movement. And the message hasn’t changed – negotiators at the climate talks must deliver climate justice, nothing else will do.

It feels like a lot has happened to bring Cancun to Brussels already, and that was all before the negotiations had even started! Now we have two more whole weeks of activities to look forward to. The European Youth Climate Justice Convergence organised by Young Friends of the Earth Europe is just beginning. It will see a daily programme of workshops, debates, skillshares, actions and film screenings in parallel to the negotiations which will show we don’t need to be in Mexico to follow the talks, learn, and take action to demand climate justice.

It took a whole two hours of crawling on an express-way jammed by cars, buses and trucks heading to the Cancunmesse, a centre where delegates are screened before being ferried another 20-30 minutes to the Moon Palace - the venue of the talks.

For those who have visited this city, the location of the venue is rather isolated from the main city and may well have been selected for this reason. The routes are lined with armed police, including some on vehicles mounted with machine guns. The picture one comes off with is that of security overkill.

While welcoming delegates to the conference of the parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), president Felipe de Jesus Calderon Hinojosa of Mexico stated that the world must embark on the pursuit of “green development” and “green economy” as the path to sustainable development.

The president also stated that some of the steps to be taken to attain this ideal include progress on the negotiations on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) as well as development of technologies to reduce fuel emissions. Another key point was that the financing of sustainable development should start with support for the poorest and the most vulnerable countries.

These were nice words. These were also very contentious ideas. There are several red flags and concerns about REDD by indigenous groups and forest dependent peoples as well as mass social movements across the world. The idea of canvassing the extension of financial assistance to the poorest and the most vulnerable countries is also seen by critics as a possible way dividing those same nations and making them pliable to suggestions and decisions that may actually be contrary to their best interests.

another copenhagen?

Even before the Cancun conference opened there were concerns that efforts may already be afoot to rig the outcome, as was the case in Copenhagen in 2009. One concern is about a text for negotiation that is emanating from the chair of one of the working groups through an un-transparent process. Another concern has arisen from a decision of the Mexican president to invite selected heads of states to the conference. The list is not openly available, but already it is becoming clear that some uninvited presidents intend to be in Cancun.

The Copenhagen conference began and ended under a cloud of doubts and perceived undemocratic actions. At that meeting many delegations from developing and vulnerable nations believed that drafts of what would be the final outcome document were being discussed and circulated within privileged circles away from the standard practice where such negotiations took place on the open conference floor. 

Many delegates in Cancun hope that the conference will take a transparent pathway. In Copenhagen there was a steady flow of leaked documents allegedly prepared by the president of the COP. Already in Cancun there are concerns over draft text prepared by the chair of the ad hoc working group on Long-term Cooperative Action (LCA) without due mandate of the working group. The other major working group under the COP is the one that deals with the Kyoto Protocol and another text is being expected from the chair of that working group also possibly without a mandate from the working group.

the copenhagen accord and the peoples agreement

The year between conferences is spent on technical negotiations and preparations during which delegations review texts prepared by chairpersons of the working groups on the basis of the submissions made by the delegations or members. 

The document produced by the chair of the LCA appears to be something quite at variance with what many delegates expected would be the outcome of the negotiations and work done since Copenhagen. The document that delegates are to debate is allegedly based on the "Copenhagen Accord" which some delegates insist was not an agreement at the end of COP15, but was merely taken note of by that conference. Questions are being asked why such a document would now be legitimised and made the foundation for serious negotiations expected to produce a fair and ambitious agreement at the end of the conference in Cancun?  

After the Copenhagen conference ended without an agreement, the government of Bolivia hosted a first ever World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba in April 2010. The outcome of that conference was the Peoples Agreement that the government of Bolivia then articulated into a formal submission to the UNFCCC as well as the Secretary General of the United Nations.

The essential fault line between those following the path crafted by the Copenhagen Accord and those who do not accept it as the way towards a fair agreement that recognises the principle of common and differentiated responsibilities are quite serious and the resolution has deep consequences for the future of our planet and the species that inhabit it, including humankind. 

weak targets and small change

The draft text circulated by the chair of the LCA puts forward the ambition that may lead to an aggregate global temperature increase of up to 2°C as opposed to proposals made by a number of delegations that the target should be between a 1° and 1.5° temperature rise above pre-industrial levels. A 2°C temperature increase would mean catastrophic alteration to some parts of the world, with Africa being particularly vulnerable.

The text in question has also disregarded the demand by vulnerable nations that to ensure urgent and robust technology transfer for the purpose of mitigation and adaptation such transfers should not be governed by subsisting intellectual property rights regimes.

Another sore point in the text is that the financial commitment proposed does not step up to the level of ambition needed to tackle the climate crisis and is even less serious than what was suggested by the so-called Copenhagen Accord.

A coalition of civil society groups complained about the text from the chair of the LCA and also raised concerns about “the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, where the Chair of that track intends to propose his own text that will postpone adoption of legally binding emission reductions targets by the developed countries in Cancun, risks the expansion of accounting loopholes and replaces a legally-binding system with a voluntary pledge-based approach reflected in the Copenhagen Accord.”

holding on to hope

The immediate past chair of the COP in her final statement indicated that the conference must move in a way that would show that Cancun can deliver a good outcome for tackling climate change.

Papua New Guinea suggested in a first statement at this conference that where there is no consensus, decision should be made by voting. He referred to the rejection of the Copenhagen Accord at COP15 and subsequent signing on by 140 countries. The delegates take was that only a small minority of states were holding others hostage. Papua New Guinea pledged cooperation and reasonableness in the COP. The suggestion by Papua New Guinea was promptly opposed by Bolivia, India and Saudi Arabia among other states. They insisted that that consensus must be maintained as a way to reach decisions.

Besides the crawl to the COP and the fact that getting to the different venues for the side events as well as the mobilisation and civil society spaces could mean a full day travelling, one hopes that the debates will be robust. That is one of the three things that will make being cocooned in Cancun bearable. The other is the exciting camaraderie of being among great Friends of the Earth International folks. And thirdly the first day of a two-week conference is not the appropriate day to lose all hope.

Photos: The entrance to the Moon Palace where the talks will take place; Asad Rehman, climate campaigner at the FoEI delegation meeting; Meena Raman climate campaigner at the FoEI delegation meeting. Copyright: Friends of the Earth International/Sheila Menon

For about two weeks, starting from next Monday, the world will be locked into another session of negotiations on how to tackle climate change. The conference, to be held in Cancun, Mexico, has drawn less excitement than its predecessor held in Copenhagen, Denmark, a year ago.

The excitement of Copenhagen was partly driven by the false information that circulated that the Kyoto Protocol was ending at that meeting. Though there were serious, but failed efforts, made at that conference to lay the protocol to rest, its first period actually ends in 2012, while a second commitment period will be entered into as soon as the first period elapses.

But why would anyone want to kill the protocol and why should it be sustained? The Kyoto Protocol is seen by some as the only legally binding instrument to which the industrialised and highly polluting nations can be made to commit to cutting emissions at source. From this perspective, when countries fight to abolish the protocol, they are simply trying to avoid making any real commitment to tackling climate change.

leave it to the market?

One problem with the workings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the ongoing negotiations is that it bases a chunk of its reasoning and framings on the market logic. This follows the path created by the mindset that has built a vicious paradigm of disaster capitalism, in which tragedy is seen as opportunity for profit. What do we mean by this?

Rather than take steps to curtail emissions of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, some people are busy devising ways of making every item of nature a commodity placed at the altar of the market. Through this, everything is being assigned a value and many others are privatised in addition.

What makes this offensive is firstly that you cannot place a price on nature, on life. Secondly, speculators are hyping the utility of the carbon market as a means of fighting climate change. Some of the ways this manifests is through the carbon offsetting projects by which polluters in the industrialised countries continue to pollute, on the calculation that their emissions are being compensated for elsewhere.

As Friends of the Earth International stated in a recent media advisory, “Carbon trading does not lead to real emissions reductions. It is a dangerous distraction from real action to address the structural causes of climate change, such as over-consumption. Developed countries should radically cut their carbon emissions through real change at home, not by buying offsets from other countries. Carbon offsetting has no benefits for the climate or for developing countries - it only benefits developed countries, private investors, and major polluters who want to continue business as usual.”

Cancun will obviously be crawling with carbon speculators and traders, as was the case in Copenhagen. And they have good reasons to be there. They will be there because policy makers on both sides of the divide see benefits in the schemes, even though the so-called benefits are pecuniary and are actually harmful to Mother Earth. But as far as the money enters the pockets of some poor countries, the rich countries can go on polluting, having paid their "penance."

Not just money alone

The world appears deaf to the need for real actions to curb climate change, and the focus remains on money. In fact, while many of the items of the Cancun agenda have stalled, with regard to reduction of carbon emissions in the industralised nations, there is no shortage of proposals on how carbon markets can be brought in to give appearance of action.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) is one of such schemes in the scheme. Quick progress is being made on REDD and already, talks are advancing on other variants of the scheme. Indigenous and forest community people are opposed to REDD and object to its implementation, as attention is being focused on forests merely as carbon stocks for mercantile purposes. Significantly, many see REDD as not seeking to stop deforestation, but merely to reduce it.

It is also argued that that any reduced deforestation may not be sustained, as deforesters may just shift to another forest or zone to continue with their activities. In other words, REDD is a pretty fiction that may pump money into the pockets of some countries and corporations, but will marginalise forest peoples and will not help to fight climate change. The attraction, as critics have said, is that if this mechanism is linked to the carbon market, it will allow developed countries pay money to REDD-projects that preserve forests in developing countries, and in return receive carbon credits - buying the right to pollute.

There will also be strident rejection of any role at all for the World Bank in the climate finance architecture that may be devised in Cancun.

The atmosphere is set for a somber, winding series of negotiations. However, social movements and other civil society groups are set to push up the voices of the people, as already broadly articulated in the Peoples Agreement, reached at the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in April 2010 at Cochabamba, Bolivia.

The environmental justice movement that took first serious steps in Copenhagen is sure to take firmer steps on the streets of Cancun and in thousands of Cancuns being planned for a multitude of locations around the world.

The message in Cancun, if we must expect motions towards real actions to tackle climate change, is that governments must pay attention to what the people are saying, to the real challenges faced by vulnerable peoples around the world, and not lend their ears to carbon speculators.

Find out more about what we're calling for in Cancun

Commenting on today's report by Sir Muir Russell on the leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Friends of the Earth's

Executive Director Andy Atkins said:

"By confirming the integrity of the climate scientists this report shows we cannot afford to ignore expert warnings on the risks of climate change.

"The vast majority of climate scientists agree that man-made climate change is happening - if nine out of 10 pilots said that they thought that a plane was likely to crash no-one would be foolish enough to fly in it.

"Reducing our growing dependency on fossil fuels by investing in green power and slashing energy waste will also boost the economy by strengthening our energy security and create new jobs and business opportunities.

"It's time to see through the dangerous smokescreen of climate scepticism and get on with the urgent task of building a clean, safe and low-carbon future."

The last day of the World Peoples Climate Change Conference was remarkable in many ways. The day opened with a dialogue session between governments and peoples. This session clearly showed a convergence between the thinking of governments and peoples with regard to the structural causes of climate change and the ways to tackle it.

In attendance were Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The Vice President of Cuba, the Foreign Minister of Ecuador and a representative of the United Nations were also in attendance. There were official delegations from 47 countries including those from Paraguay, Panama, Mexico, Georgia, Uruguay, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Brazil, Russia, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Spain, Sweden, India, Mali, Nigeria, Mozambique, South Africa, Qatar and South Korea.

The closing session was held at the Cochabamba stadium and the atmosphere was one of a fiesta with reports of the outcome of the working groups and fiery speeches from Presidents Morales and Chavez.

Addressing the Dialogue session, Morales stated that Copenhagen was a failure for those who were not interested in tackling climate change but a success for those fighting to save Mother Earth. He thanked governments present, social movements and international organisations. He then called for “conclusions that would ensure that governments have responsibilities to our peoples.” He also called for the setting up of structures and processes for the defence of Mother Earth at national, regional and global levels. He urged that debates should be transparent and have future generations in mind.

Promoting hayaya

According to the Bolivian Minister for Foreign Affairs the conference was called for the promotion of life or hayaya as they say in Bolivia.

The Minister gave an overview of the workings of the 17 thematic groups during the conference stressing that they started online debates two and a half months before the conference with inputs from scholars, indigenous peoples, civil society groups and social movements. He said that the Bolivian government had actually expected 10,000 to 15,000 participants, but that at the end of the day over 35,000 people from 142 countries participated. Of this number 9,250 were from countries other than Bolivia.

Speaking about aspects of the work he mentioned the need for a climate tribunal where individuals and countries would be held to account for climate crimes. On climate debt, he urged that there was a need to settle it, although, he said, even if countries achieve 100% reduction in carbon emissions today, "we would not recover up to 10% of what has been lost already."

The people have spoken

Four delegates presented preliminary reports from the working groups. Among key resolutions was that the Accord of Cochabamba should be promoted and within this should be a clear recognition of climate debt to be paid without intervention of international financial institutions such as the World Bank. It also called for the promotion of a new development model away from the destructive tendencies of unbridled capitalist modes.

There was a total rejection of market mechanisms in tackling climate change, including REDD and a total rejection of the Copenhagen Accord and its voluntary emissions rejection suggestions and attempt to expand the carbon market. There was also a call for transfer of technology and adequate finance.

The people also resolved that the definition of forests in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) should be reviewed to exclude monoculture plantations. A clear call was also made to leave fossil fuels such as crude oil in the soil and extractions in forests.

Modern biotechnology in agriculture was also denounced with one delegate saying, "Mother Earth is a living being and must not be used as a slave."

The working groups did not always have easy debates, but unlike the UN climate processes they managed to reach conclusions in record time.

The world must not be held to ransom

Responses from governments came from Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela. The United Nations representative also responded.

The Cuban vice-president conveyed greetings from the president of his country as well as from Fidel Castro. He regretted the inability of governments to frontally tackle climate change, the most urgent threat confronting humanity today. He added that the essence of capitalism was recently revealed when $12 trillion was mobilised to rescue banks and reward financial speculators rather than investing in the urgent need of saving lives and the planet. He regretted that 1 billion of the population of the rich world waste 50% of the world’s energy while 2 billion people do not have access to electricity.

He then called on peoples of the world to ensure that a few rich countries do not hold everyone to ransom over the climate change negotiations.

Keeping our dignity

To Ecuador, climate change ceased being a purely environmental issue years ago. It has become an issue for geo-politics in the world. The foreign minister recognised the role of civil society in finding real solutions as vital. “There can be no serious tackling of climate change without civil society groups involvements,” he said.

Speaking about the arm-twisting strategy of the USA to get governments to agree to the Copenhagen Accord, the foreign minister revealed that the USA withdrew $2.5 million of environmental aid they had pledged to extend to Ecuador because the country refused to endorse the accord. 

In response to this the Ecuadorean minister said, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but also in dignity. We cannot allow blackmail to affect our dignity.” As a dignified country, Ecuador has offered to give the USA $2.5 million if they sign the Kyoto Protocol.  He called on other countries to add to this offer to urge the USA to sign the protocol.

Responding later to this call, President Chavez said that rather than giving money to the USA such funds should be channeled towards getting people to attend the climate talks coming up in Cancun, Mexico.

The minister urged nations to include the rights of Mother Earth in their constitutions, noting that the Ecuadorian provision allows communities to press for rights on behalf of nature, since nature on its own cannot make such demands at a court of law.

He ended the response from Ecuador by revealing that their proposal to leave the oil in the soil of the Yasuni Park means not extracting over 4000 metric tonnes of crude oil and a loss of $7 billion. He said his country is ready to bear 50% of that loss and that they expect other countries and organisations to share the burden of the other 50%. He urged other nations to adopt this important initiative as a real solution to climate change.

Learning to listen

The key message from the United Nations was that they have learned the vital need of listening to people from the conference in Cochabamba. They came here to listen especially to the voices that are never heard in official circles. "We have learned here to be more open to listen and have better communication with people from all sectors around the world."

They were also happy that the conclusions "fit" the UNFCCC.

We will go to Cancun

In his response, President Chavez thanked President Morales for hosting the conference and added that the Cochabamba conference was a continuation of the battle of Copenhagen. He recalled how both of them were almost denied space to make contributions at the Copenhagen conference and how they persisted and with the support of the Cuban vice president got some space to intervene. The Cochabamba conference was a success and also marked a rise of the moral authority of Bolivia in the climate change struggle, according to him.

He declared that no one would stop him from attending COP16 at Cancun and urged the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) states to mobilise resources to assist as many as should attend the conference in Cancun to do so. He also called for massive dissemination of the outcomes of Cochabamba as a tool for popular education, strategizing and mobilisation for the fight against climate change. 

He wondered why human beings considered themselves to be of a higher order than other species whereas we do not see ants or animals declaring war on each other while nations keep destroying each other through wars.

He recalled a saying that the earth is our aircraft, we don’t have another one and yet we are destroying it. For some countries to maintain their current consumption levels we will need five earths, he warned. He also brought to mind an article that Albert Einstein wrote that the future of mankind could only be secured through socialism.

President Chavez thereafter spent time setting out strong arguments for the construction of socialism in countries of the world, each taking cognizance of their specific contexts.

He explained that his commitment to fight for real solutions to climate change: "we are not in a permanent state of rebellion, we are just concerned about the future of the earth."

He concluded by saying that the so-called Copenhagen accord to which 120 countries have been coerced to adopt is of no higher standing than the outcomes of the Cochabamba conference. He urged that if the United Nations allows the voice of The Empire to prevail, then peoples have to take steps to ensure that their voices are heard

Taking up that line, President Morales urged that if governments do not listen to the voice of the people social movements should once more take the lead in bringing about popular revolutions to safe the earth: build alliances and structures across the continents and erect a new paradigm of relations and production that will safe Mother Earth.

He told the gathering that the outcomes of the conference will be handed over to the Secretary General of the United Nations as major document for future climate talks. 

Leaving Cochabamba

This was my first time in Bolivia. A day spent in La Paz saw me panting for breath on account of the elevation of the city above see level. Adjusting to the environment was easy due to the warmth of my hosts and many cups of coca tea.

People were friendly in Cochabamba and the FoEI squad were fantastic. With scant Spanish it was the lot of Cristina Fernandez, a volunteer, to ensure I got to my many destinations on schedule and also to communicate with so many folks that needed to be communicated with. It was a fulfilling time in need.

Looking forward to flying out of La Paz, I recalled the beautiful peaks of the Andes and look forward to flying over Lake Titicaca rated as the highest navigable lake in the world – wishing I could scoop a handful of its water as I fly over it!

To the grassroots we must take the outcomes of Cochabamba, and then to Cancun.

Further reading

Bolivian President, Evo Morales, invited Friends of the Earth to join him to brief the UN on the latest in international climate talks. Find out more

President Evo Morales of Bolivia did not mince words yesterday when he diagnosed the root cause of climate change as being capitalism and all that it entails. The President was speaking at the formal opening of the first-ever World Peoples Climate Change Summit (CMPCC).

The Tiquipaya stadium, venue of the event, was filled to capacity with about 10,000 people from the nations and continents of the world. Many more milled around the streets outside the stadium while thousands more queued in the town square waiting for accreditation to participate in the conference.

Present on the platform with the President was the Vice President of Burundi, country ambassadors and representatives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat. Seventeen thousand participants were expected at this conference but by the end of the second day up to 30,000 had registered.

Victory in Copenhagen

The opening ceremony was colourful in the literal sense with multicoloured flags waving, music by musicians from various countries and rituals carried out by leaders of indigenous peoples of the Americas. There was also poetry (written and read by this writer. See end of this report).

To President Morales, the Copenhagen climate conference was not a failure but a victory. According to him, it was a failure of governments but a victory for the peoples of the world.

"We are here today because the governments of the world could not reach an agreement in Copenhagen on cutting emissions and acting on climate change,” he said. 

"If they had reached a just agreement, this gathering would not have been necessary."
 
According to Morales, capitalism and its pursuit of profits and limitless extraction of resources in a finite world is hastening the disappearance of species, the rise of hunger, melting of glaciers and small island nations may disappear. He added that in the last 100 years, developed countries with 20% of the world’s population have generated over 76% of carbon emissions responsible for climate change. 

"Capitalism merchandises everything. It seeks continual expansion. The system needs to be changed. We have to choose between change or death,"

President Morales warned, adding, "Capitalism is the number one enemy of mankind.”

He saw a sustainable future as being possible only through actions of solidarity and complementarities as well as equity and the respect of human rights, right to water and biodiversity – the Rights of Mother Earth – a new system of rights that abolishes all forms of colonialism.

The President condemned the erosion of sustainable and traditional ways of life, indigenous knowledge and wisdom. He also condemned the introduction of genetically engineered crops as well as heavy dependence on chemicals in agriculture.
 

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth

The president said that the climate conference was called so that governments and peoples can sit together and fashion out ways to save the earth from climate change resulting from current destructive modes of production and consumption. To him, it is vital for governments to respect the views of social movements and peoples of the world. He called for the decolonisation of the atmosphere and a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. Such a charter will secure for the people of the world a right to freedom from fear of pollution as well as from fear of contamination of the food chain through genetic engineering.

President Morales called for the building of intercontinental movements, strengthening of international organisations and organisations of indigenous peoples and workers.  He reminded the gathering that in recent times nature has been sending strong signals to the world through tsunamis, floods and earthquakes. In addition to these signals, climate change portends more dangers. Urgent action is needed.

In conclusion, the president called on the peoples of the world to act together to save Mother Earth from capitalism: “There are two options before us all, two ways that we must choose from: death to capitalism or death to Mother Earth.”

Mother Earth or Barbarism

Speaking later in the day on a panel that examined the structural causes of climate change, Alvaro Garcia Linera, the Vice President of Bolivia, further explained the concept of Mother Earth. We note here that President Morales attended this session held at the Coliseo of the Univalle and sat among the participants. (That in itself constitutes a message to leaders who need to know that they need to listen and hear what the people are saying.)

"The concept of Mother Earth is not just a slogan. It means a new way of producing, a new way of relationship with nature and with one another,” he said. “This relationship is one of equality and not domination, a relationship of dialogue, of giving and receiving. It is not merely a philosophy or folklore. It is a new ethics, a new way of developing technologies and modes of production."

Recalling a statement by Rosa Luxemburg, "socialism or barbarism," Vice President Linera said that today we could say "Mother Earth or barbarism."

Affirming that capitalism was the root cause of climate change and many of the ills of the world today, Linera said that the system permits oil companies and the military complex to commit genocide, destroy the environment and reap ever-rising profits at the expense of the blood of the people.

"Nothing will change as long as capitalism reigns," he warned. “It is a system that destroys society and nature through the destruction of knowledge and positive productive forces. It is a system without conscience."

Vice President Linera called for the rebuilding of our collective environmental and social consciousness. He also called for the building of an organic relationship with nature where human beings understand that nature has rights and human beings have obligations towards nature.

In an oblique reference to carbon offsets and REDD projects, Linera warned, "We are not forest rangers for those causing pollutions and climate change. This system of indulgences cannot be accepted. It is a system of colonialism. It is not a solution."

Keep the Oil in the Soil

Speaking also on the structural causes of climate change, Maria Espinosa, a minister from Ecuador, said that climate change must not be used as a smokescreen to obscure other problems confronting the world today, including the lingering impacts of the structural adjustment programmes foisted on developing nations by the World Bank and the IMF in the 1980s. 

Espinosa informed participants that owing to Ecuador’s refusal to associate with the Copenhagen Accord drawn up by a few countries during COP15, the United States of America government has refused Ecuador an environmental aid of $2.5 million. In response, Ecuador has offered to pay the USA $2.5 million if they sign the Kyoto Protocol.

She also spoke on the Ecuadorian initiative to disallow the exploitation of crude oil in the Yasuni Park, a biodiversity hotspot and home to indigenous peoples. This move will keep 400 million metric tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere thus offering a real solution to climate change.

Earlier this writer, while speaking on the same panel, had said that the real solution to climate change is the cutting of emissions at source and that rather than waste resources on untested technologies such as those of carbon capture and storage and geo-engineering, the world should quickly move away from the fossil fuels driven civilization.  This call is captured in the well-known slogan: leave the oil in the soil, the coal in the hole and the tar sands in the land.

We also stated that the equation of energy security to national security has led some nations into military adventures which apart from being destructive in themselves consume huge fossil fuels and compound the problems of climate change. We also rejected the neoliberal systems that permit the World Bank to parade itself as a climate bank while funding dirty energy projects such as the Eskom coal plant in South Africa and a number of other fossil fuels projects elsewhere.  We called for the overturning of corporate power and halting its erosion of peoples’ sovereignty.

Transformation solutions offered included:

• Reclaiming peoples control over their resources
• Building progressive people-oriented governments and power structures and shifting away from capitalist modes of relations
• Direct action to stem climate crimes at source
• Legislation – such as the Rights of Mother Earth
• Litigation and other actions that connect civil society actions in the North and the South. Example the prosecution of Shell in the Netherlands over pollution in Nigeria.
• Leave fossil fuels in the soil
• Reject the Copenhagen Accord

The working groups continued their work throughout yesterday and many other panels with enthusiastic participation.

I will not dance to your beat

(a poem by Nnimmo Bassey)

                                                     
I will not dance to your beat
If you call plantations forests
I will not sing with you
If you privatise my water
I will confront you with my fists
If climate change means death to me but business to you
I will expose your evil greed
If you don’t leave crude oil in the soil
Coal in the hole and tar sands in the land
I will confront and denounce you
If you insist on carbon offsetting and other do-nothing false solutions
I will make you see red
If you keep talking of REDD and push forest communities away from their land
I will drag you to the Climate Tribunal 
If you pile up ecological debt
& refuse to pay your climate debt
I will make you drink your own medicine 
If you endorse genetically modified crops
And throw dust into the skies to mask the sun
I will not dance to your beat
Unless we walk the sustainable path
And accept real solutions & respect Mother Earth
Unless you do
I will not &
We will not dance to your beat

Cochabamba, Tiquipaya, Bolivia
20 April 2010

Read at the opening ceremony of the World Peoples Climate Conference Summit.

Following the catastrophic outcome of the United Nations’ climate negotiations held in Copenhagen in December 2009, a breath of fresh air wafts in as peoples from around the world gather in the first ever global summit on climate change initiated by a government in league with social movements, indigenous peoples and other civil society actors.

An assembly of governments and peoples

When the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, announced that the world would meet in Bolivia for a thorough and inclusive discussion on this vital issue of our day many may have thought that the announcement was nothing but a pipedream. To the joy of many and the consternation of some the summit is taking place as planned.

The summit attracted a registration of up to 17,000 participants and activities commenced today by way of working groups and a peoples assembly facilitated by La Via Campensina, the largest peasant farmers movement and Friends of the Earth International.

This summit stands in sharp contrast to the Copenhagen event in many ways. First, this is an assembly of governments and peoples. In Copenhagen effort was not spared in keeping civil society out of the conference. That conference was marked by lockouts of civil society, detentions of climate activists and outright brutality on non-violent protesters on the streets.

In Cochabamba the police are offering assistance and are even wearing badges indicating that they too are participants. Whereas Copenhagen showed a disdain to the voices of the people, in Cochabamba this is the essence of the meet. Having said that, we must agree that there is a similarity between the two cities: the two names begin with the letter "c" and both have ten letters.

Participants generally agree that this summit is a great opportunity for the false solutions to climate change to be fully exposed and the real solutions as well as the demands for climate justice to be clearly made. It is a step in the build-up to an unstoppable global environmental justice movement.

Declaration of Mother Earth's rights

The summit is organised around seventeen working groups and hopes to examine the structural causes of climate change and also to discuss and agree on the need for a Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights.

The working groups around which the work is organised include those planning for a Climate Justice Tribunal, the dangers of a carbon market, climate migrants and technology transfer among others. The summit is also working on the organisation of the Peoples' World Referendum on Climate Change.

The summit will not be without controversial moments. For one, there is a group of techies from Europe who are in Cochabamba to sell the idea of geo-engineering as a solution to climate change. Many groups are already up in arms against in suggestion of using the techniques suggested by geo-engineers. Among which are those that say that manipulation of nature could lead to unexpected outcomes apart from allowing individual unregulated space to take up the global commons and further pile unjust access to resources and place people at risk.

Some proposed geo-engineering solutions are the seeding of the clouds to block off the sun and thereby cool the climate as well as seeding the oceans with “pollutants” in order to enhance its carbon capture and storage capacities.

Another hot area has to do with REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation). While some groups think that REDD would bring benefits to communities, The Indigenous Environmental Network, Oilwatch, The Corner House, Transnational Institute and other NGOs believe that REDD is nothing other than "Reaping profits from Evictions, land grabs, Deforestation and Destruction of biodiversity."   It is also believed that REDD offers polluting companies the space to buy permits to carry on polluting.

In the run up to the Cochabamba summit, an International Fair on Water (towards the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth) was held here on 14-18 April 2010.

The conference declared that climate change is "a result of an extractive, destructive and polluting production pattern of which large-scale mining, oil, coal and gas extraction operations, and water dams intended to meet wasteful energy consumption needs, provide examples."

The conference went ahead to propose among others a transition from an extractive pattern to a pattern based on principles of solidarity, justice, dignity and respect for life, reciprocity and equity.

It also called for a revocation of "licences granted to transnational corporations and especially halt mining, gas, oil and monoculture tree plantations and agro-industrial, land-intensive, cattle ranching corporations. All those activities are voracious water consumers that end up in merchandise aimed at meeting an increasing consumerism."

Strengthening the environmental justice movement

Some people wonder what will be achieved in the peoples’ summit seeing the failure of the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen. Most participants here see Cochabamba as a great opportunity for the strengthening of an environmental justice movement whose birth was so loudly communicated outside the official meeting chambers of Copenhagen.

This summit also illustrates that governments ought to work with the people, after all they their legitimacy can only derive from the support of the people. President Evo Morales of Bolivia is showing very clearly that governance is about engagement with real people in efforts to tackle real problems and that governments and government organs should not be afraid of listening to the people.

The university campus (UNIVALLE) where the summit is taking place is covered with a sea of colourfully dressed participants from around the world. Business suits are a rarity here. People walk with assured steps in full dignity. Laughter rings beneath the trees and the mountains of Tiquipaya provide and excellent backdrop. 

The volcanic ash blowing over Europe may have stopped some participants from getting to Cochabamba, but that event alone illustrated the power of nature and the fact that although there is much knowledge, there are still things that remain under the control of nature. Wisdom urges humanity to respect the rights of Mother Earth and live in cooperating rather than manipulating relationships with her.
Tomorrow the summit opens.

Further information

• Read our press release on the summit
• Listen to Nnimmo's speech the summit
• Go to the official website of the summit
• Find out more about our work on climate justice

No to neoliberal illusions, yes to people's solutions!

For centuries, productivity and industrial capitalism have been destroying our cultures, exploiting our labor and poisoning our environment.

Now, with the climate crisis, the Earth is saying "enough"!

Once again, the people who created the problem are telling us that they also have the solutions: carbon trading, so-called "clean coal", more nuclear power, agrofuels, even a "green new deal". But these are not real solutions, they are neoliberal illusions. It is time to move beyond these illusions.

Real solutions to the climate crisis are being built by those who have always protected the Earth and by those who fight every day to defend their environment and living conditions. We need to globalize these solutions.

For us, the struggles for climate justice and social justice are one and the same. It is the struggle for territories, land, forests and water, for agrarian and urban reform, food and energy sovereignty, for women's and worker's rights. It is the fight for equality and justice for indigenous peoples, for peoples of the global South, for the redistribution of wealth
and for the recognition of the historical ecological debt owed by the North.

Against the disembodied, market-driven interests of the global elite and the dominant development model based on never-ending growth and consumption, the climate justice movement will reclaim the commons, and put social and economic realities at the heart of our struggle against climate change.

We call on everyone -  workers, farmers, fishermen, students, youth, women, indigenous peoples, and all concerned humans from the South and the North - to join in this common struggle to build the real solutions to the climate crisis for the future of our planet, our societies, and our cultures. Together, we are building a movement for climate justice.

We support the mobilizations against the G20 summit and on the global crisis from March 28th to April 4th, and the April 17th mobilization of La Via Campesina.

We support the call for an International Day of Action in Defense of Mother Earth and Indigenous Rights on October 12th, 2009.

We call for mobilization and action everywhere leading up to, during and beyond the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, especially on the Global Day of Action on December 12th, 2009.

In all of our work, we will expose the false solutions, raise the voices of the South, defend human rights, and strengthen our solidarity in the fight for climate justice. If we make the right choices, we can build a better world for everyone.