Bali

 

civil society in Bali

 

Climate change is now an international environmental and social justice issue with increasing active engagement from social movements and citizens, particularly affected peoples. In Bali there was an unprecedented civil society presence that highlighted the impacts of climate change and proposed solutions. Friends of the Earth believes that a global climate justice movement is necessary to ensure that the responses to climate change are socially and environmentally justice, and that demand a high level of ambition, commitment and action from political leaders.

 

Friends of the Earth took part in the development of the so-called "Solidarity Village" in coordination with La Via Campesina and Focus on the Global South. This space allowed communities affected by climate change to build relationships among themselves. They also had the opportunity to express their motivations behind their struggle for climate justice. The issues – ranging from the enforcement of land rights for forest conservation, food and energy sovereignty, privatization, trade liberalization and agrofuels – have had a common theme of corporate globalization taking over the climate agenda and the need to resist this with an alternative agenda that leads us towards sustainable societies.

 

Alliance-building work in Bali culminated in the establishment of a network of organizations such as the Durban Group, Third World Network, Via Campesina and World Rainforest Movement and Indigenous peoples organizations called Climate Justice Now! The purpose of this new coalition is to ensure that justice is put at the heart of the climate agenda – not only in UNFCCC meetings but in other spaces such as the G8 and WSF. This involves, for example, exposing false, corporate-driven solutions such as agrofuels, offsetting and carbon finance for forests and demanding massive North to South financial transfers for adaptation and mitigation, clean renewable energy, a dramatic shift in production and consumption patterns.

During the Global Day of Action (December 8 2007) Friends of the Earth International Climate and Energy Coordinator Hildebrando Velez was a speaker at the People’s Assembly before going to join the mobilization for climate justice. Hundreds of people marched in the hot afternoon sun in Denpasar with organisations such as SPI (Indonesian chapter of Via Campesina), WALHI/Friends of the Earth Indonesia and Friends of the Earth International – chanting and waving banners. Jubilee South had fantastic oversized puppets of political leaders that are spearheading the privatisation of lands, ecosystems and services at the cost of people and the environment.

 

Friends of the Earth recognizes that overconsumption of resources and production of pollution of the atmosphere by the North that is manifests in global climate change, has its roots in economic and social injustice. It is imperative that the global community recognise that the effects of these injustices are suffered most by communities who are already living in highly vulnerable environments due to excessive resource exploitation to meet the market demands of the North. These facts make our main task the consolidation of the Climate Justice movement in which we are already working. Friends of the Earth accepts the task of articulation of the organizations and affected peoples, in particular provide spaces to raise their voices to the decision makers.

 

 
 

inside negotiation halls

Strategically Friends of the Earth chose to focus on lobbying and media work on the obligations of the Annex I (global North) of both emission reductions, finance for technology sharing, deforestation and adaptation. Over the past year there has been an exceeding amount of pressure on non Annex I (global South) to accept 'contributions' of emission reductions mostly because of the international desire to have USA in future climate change agreements, as well as from IPCC reports which state that global emissions reductions are required to keep temperatures even to 2.4 degrees (which is far too high for the most vulnerable peoples and ecosystems). There is very little recognition that this is blatantly inequitable – especially since Annex I countries have failed for over ten years to fulfill their finance obligations to the South for mitigation and adaptation.

 

In Bali we saw major players of the Group of 77 developing countries (G77) and China extremely well-organised and united. China presented a very comprehensive proposal for a multi-lateral fund for technology transfer, which was supported by the G77. The G77 were also outspoken throughout the COP about the bullying tactics being applied - such as threats of trade sanctions. The EU were less strong than in the past and while they managed to retain emissions reductions of 25-40% by 2020 in one of the two main decision texts, they failed to support the proposal for a technology fund.

 

Overall, Bali delivered two main decisions which are the timetable for the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I, and the Bali Action Plan which is a collection of many different aspects of UNFCCC obligations of mitigation, technology, finance and adaptation. Both are really short on content, and negotiating timetables for the next two years. This is expected to deliver a final decision on Copenhagen in 2009 which will become the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

 

The Bali Action Plan was the decision taken first in the last plenary and was achieved after a not-seen-before backlash against the USA in which the USA was forced to reverse their position and accept that they had obligations to reduce emissions and to take special consideration of the national circumstances of non Annex I to not all be signing up for emission reduction mitigation actions – i.e. least developed countries and small island developing states who have comparative low emissions and are extremely vulnerable to climate change. This was widely reported as the 'Bali outcome' and by itself is a really weak decision because it has emissions’ reduction ranges of between 10-40% in a footnote.

However - this decision text has to be considered alongside the second major decision of the workplan of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments of Annex I - which does actually have emissions reduction ranges of 25-40% by 2020 for industrialised countries, global peak and decline of emissions by 2015 and keeping temperature below 2 degrees. This is a Kyoto Protocol decision so doesn't apply to the USA - but theoretically provides an 'in' for the USA once there is a change of administration and predicted change of policy on Kyoto. Hence Friends of the Earth International final press release of a weak 'deal' (http://www.foei.org/en/media/archive/2007/kyoto-afloat-after-attempted-sabotage/)

 

 

 

Useful links:

 

a. Interviews available at Real World Radio http://www.radiomundoreal.fm/rmr/?q=en

b. Third World Network news bulletins www.twnside.org.sg/climate.news.htm
c. Focus on the Global South www.focusweb.org and http://www.focusweb.org/players-and-plays-in-the-bali-climate-drama.html?Itemid=1

d. International Forum on Globalism www.ifg.org/baliblog.htm

e. Transnational Institute http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=17794&username=guest@tni.org&password=9999&publish=Y

This problem is made even more important because forests are a key part of the earth’s carbon and hydrological cycles. Without forests rainfall will fail in many regions. Yet forests themselves are being impacted by climate change and may already be losing their ability to regulate the planet’s climate. Further increases in temperature threaten to increase heat stress and drought, causing forests, particularly tropical forests, to become net sources of emissions, rather than stores. Furthermore, deforestation can also trigger irreversible ecosystem die-back.

 

Governments and intergovernmental organisations, including the World Bank, have responded by submitting a number of proposals concerning ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation’ (RED) and, in the case of the Bank, a proposal to launch a Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. However, these proposals, especially those that argue that forests should be included in carbon markets as offsets, fall far short of what is needed to combat climate change swiftly and effectively.

 

Carbon trading and offsetting are being used as a smoke-screen to ward off legislation and delay the urgent action needed to cut emissions and develop alternative low-carbon solutions. At the same time they encourage businesses, governments and people to continue with or even increase unnecessary polluting activities - reducing life to a commodity to be bought and sold.

 

Despite all these concerns, because carbon finance mechanisms hold the prospect of spectacular commercial profit in what may become one of the largest commodity markets in the world, they are at the top of many governmental and commercial agendas here in Bali.

 

Yet the UNFCCC’s project- and trading-based emissions reductions schemes to date have been totally ineffective in terms of their ability to significantly reduce emissions. The UNFCCC’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which was launched in Kyoto in December 1997, was intended to allow countries with emissions reductions targets under the Kyoto Protocol to invest in projects that lead to developing countries being able to reduce their emissions more cheaply.

 

The CDM has not worked. Projects have tended to lead to excessive profits for business, whilst generating investment for many projects that would have happened anyway. Several years of carbon trading have not stopped increasing rates of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, studies show they may be resulting in an overall increase in emissions. Many projects are not ‘clean’ nor are they leading to poverty alleviation or sustainable development, as intended.

 

The World Bank has an equally appalling track record in relation to carbon funding, not least because it continues to fund oil, gas and mining projects, despite recommendations from its own review which suggested most of these projects be rapidly phased out; and as a broker it has a vested interest in promoting carbon trading. Its planned Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) –intended to channel carbon finance from donors to recipient countries - could also have serious negative social and environmental impacts.

  

Carbon financing is proving intensely inequitable. Forests are the home and source of livelihoods for over 1.6 billion people, including Indigenous peoples, and forest-dependent communities. Wealthy companies and countries are able to buy the right to continue to pollute, whilst poor communities often find themselves locked into unfavourable, long-term commercial contracts. Furthermore, forest-dependent Indigenous Peoples and local communities have already found that it is they who may have to bear the real cost of climate mitigation projects based on carbon finance, while garnering none of the benefits. Some carbon finance projects are subsidizing industrial tree plantations at the expense of communities, ecosystems and food production.

 

The proposed RED policies could trigger further displacement, conflict and violence, as forests themselves increase in value they are declared ‘off limits’ to communities that live in them or depend on them for their livelihoods. Women and Indigenous Peoples are the least likely to profit from the destruction of forests and therefore also the least likely to receive compensation. Carbon finance mechanisms result in forests being transferred or sold off to large companies who aim to acquire profitable ‘carbon credits’ at some point in the future.

  

Carbon markets, like other commodities, are also proving notoriously volatile. Far from creating a predictable commercial environment and financial flows, the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme Phase I, for example, has had “very questionable effects” on “the extent to which emissions are reduced, and the extent to which it provides a stable and effective carbon price” (UK Environmental Audit Committee, 28 February 2007). The protection of forests and our climate is essential to all our futures and should not be subject to the vagaries of the market.

 

Recommendations

We are calling for governments to:

• address the direct and underlying ‘drivers’ of deforestation and the destruction of biodiversity in other ecosystems which are also critical to climate stability by reducing demand for agricultural and forest products and energy; removing trade and investment liberalisation rules that fuel deforestation; and stopping corruption.

• ensure that all forest protection programs are based upon and uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples (as laid down in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), women and local communities, by prohibiting any actions that seek to exclude Indigenous peoples and forest dependent communities from 'conservation' areas. Outstanding land and tenure questions and the free and prior informed consent of affected communities should be addressed as a prerequisite, before the implementation of any such programs.
  

• give the highest priority to halting the development, production and trade of agrofuels, and suspend all targets and other incentives, including subsidies, carbon trading and public and private finance related to the development and production of agrofuels.

• keep forests out of carbon finance mechanisms, which are unpredictable, inequitable and discourage the reduction of emissions at source. This includes keeping forests out of the Clean Development Mechanism and all carbon trading initiatives; and rejecting the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).

• ensure that developing countries are assisted in their efforts to protect their forests with well targeted, predictable and sufficient financial and other support, in the form of an international fund that rewards the complete rather than partial cessation of deforestation; supports policies that promote community-based forest management and reforestation, natural regeneration and ecosystem restoration; and finances a global forest fire fighting fund and expertise, to assist countries unable to prevent or stop out-of-control forest fires.
  

• redirect the very substantial amounts of public funds, tax exemptions and other forms of subsidies currently provided to the fossil fuel and agrofuels industries, into avoided deforestation assistance funds, the effective promotion of public transport and the development of solar, wind, geothermal, wave and energy efficiency technologies, (Government spending on energy subsidies currently totals US$250 billion per year.)

• ensure that funds are not used to compensate logging and plantation companies and others involved in large-scale deforestation.

• strengthen weak forest conservation policies and institutions, encouraging bans or moratoria on industrial logging and forest conversion, and addressing corruption and lack of enforcement.
  

• implement a moratorium on all public financing and subsidies of oil, coal and gas exploration, and rapidly phase in subsidies for clean energy alternatives with just transition programmes to phase out existing fossil fuel activities, whilst protecting ecosystems, communities and food production from agrofuels.

 

Signed by:

Amigos de la Tierra/Friends of the Earth Spain

Arbeitsgemeinschaft Regenwald und Argenschutz, Germany

Agrega a Fundacion Bariloche, Argentina

Asamblea Patagonica contra el Saquco y la Contaminacion, Patagonia, Argentina
Asociación Quechua Aymara para las Comunidades Sustentables, ANDES, Perú
Biofuelwatch
Carbon Trade Watch
Centro de Defeso dos Direitos Humanos, Brazil
COECOCEIBA/Friends of the Earth Costa Rica
Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, Colombia
Community Technology Development Trust, Zimbabwe
Cresente Fertil, Brazil
Down to Earth
Earth Savers Movement, Philippines
Ecologistas en Acción, Spain
Ecological Society of the Philippines
Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative
Environmental Science Institute, Philippines
Equations, India
FERN
Focus on the Global South
Foundation for Ecological Security, India
Freunde der Naturvoelker e.V./ Friends of Peoples close to Nature, Germany
Friends of the Earth Argentina
Friends of the Earth Australia
Friends of the Earth International

Friends of the Siberian Forests, Russia

Genethics Foundation, Netherlands
Gesellschaft fuer bedrohte Voelker, Germany

Global Forest Coalition
Global Justice Ecology Project, US
Grupo Reflexion Rural, Argentina
HATOF Foundation, Ghana
ICTI - Indonesia
ILSA, Colombia
Indigenous Environmental Network
Indigenous Peoples Biodiversity Network
International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests
Just Forests, Ireland
Kalikasan – People's Network for the Environment, Philippines
Madre Tierra/ Friends of the Earth Honduras
Mangrove Action Project
MONLAR, Movement for Land and Agriculture Reform, Sri Lanka
National Farmers Assembly, Sri Lanka
National NGOs Coordinating Committee on Desertification, Kenya
Nature Alert
NOAH/ Friends of the Earth Denmark
O le Siosiomaga Society, Samoa
Ökumenischer Arbeitskreis "Christen & Ökologie", Germany
Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition
Quaker Concern for Animals, UK
Red de Alternativas a la Impunidad y la Globalización
Regional Advisory Information and Network  (RAINS), Ghana
Rettet den Regenwald , Germany
Salva la Selva, Ecuador
Sobrevivencia/  Friends of the Earth Paraguay
Sociedad Ecologica Regional (A Ho Valle y Comarca Andina, Argentina
Sustainable Energy and Economic Network
Swiss Working Group on Colombia (Grupo de Trabajo Suiza Colombia)
Tamil Nadu Environment Council (TNEC), India
Tebtebba, Philippines
Terre des hommes-Arbeitsgruppe Schwäbisch Gmünd / Germany
Timberwatch Coalition, South Africa
Transnational Institute
Via Campesina
WALHI/ Friends of the Earth Indonesia
Watch Indonesia! Germany
World Development Movement, UK
World Rainforest Movement
Xàrxa de l'Observatori del Deute en la Globalització, Barcelona, Catalunya

Individuals:
S. Faizi, India

Friends of the Earth International groups and campaigners took part in this December 8 2007 climate change protest rally in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia