Category Archives: Posts from Anne Petermann

by | 2010-06-01 · 20:31

And the Absurdity Continues… Report from the interim UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany

photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

By Anne Petermann

Several interesting developments at the Funny Farm today and yesterday.

The Subsidiary Body on Implementation, or SBI (dontcha just love that UN-speak) met yesterday to address the question of “civil society” (their term, not mine) participation.  Sounds reasonable.  Opening the process to increased civil society participation has long been a demand of climate justice groups working in this process—considered the most closed and restricted of the various UN processes.

Yeah, well…

That wasn’t quite the purpose of the agenda item.  The topic was not raised to increase participation, but to try to avoid the “problems” of Copenhagen.  They discussed, among other things, how to prevent unpermitted protest at the Climate COP in Cancun this coming December; how to restrict the participation of civil society groups in the negotiations; and how to ensure that no Parties (participating countries) include civil society groups on their delegations.  The question of corporate representatives being included in Party delegations, however, was not an issue.  Surprise, surprise.  And as the final slap in the face, the civil society representative that had been selected by Climate Justice Now! to present an ‘intervention’ (short statement) regarding civil society’s thoughts on the question of participation was prevented from giving the statement they had been promised.  The Chair of the session simply refused to call on them.

This is a clear signal to those of us comprising so-called “civil society” that we shall have no role, not even a symbolic one, in the “official” process defining the way forward on climate change mitigation.  While the lack of meaningful participation by NGOs and social movements is nothing new, the blatant-ness of the anti-civil society attitude among the FCCC is revealing indeed, and helps set the stage for how we will be able to “participate” during the climate COP in Cancun.

Slap in the Face Number 2: Cochabamba vs Copenhagen

This UN Climate Meeting follows on the heels of the historic Cochabamba Climate Summit that took place in Bolivia in April.  This summit was called by Evo Morales as a response to the dreadful outcomes of the official Copenhagen UN climate summit where Barak Obama waltzed in with his so-called “Copenhagen Accord,” that was negotiated in secret with a small cabal of countries, subverting the many months of negotiations by 190+ countries leading up to Copenhagen.  It was roundly denounced by numerous Southern countries and never adopted by the Conference of the Parties.

The Cochabamba Summit, on the other hand, came out with very strong climate-justice based statements including a condemnation of the unjust and market-based REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) scheme, a call for repayment of climate debt, the establishment of a world tribunal on climate and environmental justice, and many other proposals to move forward with real and meaningful action on climate change.  These consensus agreements were made by 35,000 people over three days in various working groups.  Their outcomes were presented here in Bonn as official submissions to the negotiating text by both Bolivia and Venezuela.

The new draft negotiating text, however, ignores these Cochabamba agreements and instead incorporates ALL of the components of the Copenhagen Accord.

This absurdity was addressed by Climate Justice Now! through an intervention read by Camila Moreno, who represents Global Justice Ecology Project in Brazil with a GJEP desk in the Porto Alegre-based Friends of the Earth office.

Oh yeah, yet another slap in the face—while the Parties are allowed to blather on for 5 or 10 minutes each with essentially unlimited interventions, Climate Justice Now!—an network of some 200 organizations from around the world—was given exactly 60 seconds, and warned that their microphone would be cut off at exactly that.  60 seconds incidentally is about 160 words.

The upcoming Cancun Climate Conference, it seems, is beginning to look more and more like it will be a repeat of the WTO (World Trade Organization) meeting there in September of 2003, where there were massive protests on the outside and disruptions on the inside.  Between the increasing focus of the UN climate talks on trade and market-based mechanisms to “address climate change” [read: make lots of money] and the almost total exclusion of civil society, the UN Climate Convention has truly become the new World Carbon Trade Organization.

Copenhagen was not the climax of the climate justice movement, but rather its launching pad.  Or to paraphrase the motto of Redwood Summer back in 1990: “This decade is going to make the 1960s look like the 1950s.  Wouldn’t that be nice…

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by | 2010-05-31 · 21:29

Adventures in Bonn Or, The Descent into Climate Change Madness at the Maratim Hotel

Blog post 5/31/10

By Anne Petermann

Today is my father’s birthday.  It is the first birthday that he isn’t around to celebrate.  So I will dedicate today’s blog post in his memory.  He would have been 69.

The train ride from Oxford—where Fiu, Camila and I had taken a brief detour from the GE trees and Agroenergy Tour for a meeting to discuss the international campaign against genetically engineered trees—was a long one.  First the Oxford to London train—a slower local train, then the train from London to Brussels, during which—in the middle of the chunnel—the train’s electrical system fried my computer charger, then the leg from Brussels to Cologne (at 300 kilometers per hour), and the final short leg from Cologne (Köln) to Bonn.

We arrived at around 10:30pm finally at the hotel, ravenous—a slightly difficult position on a Sunday night in Germany.  Our hunger had to be put on hold, however, while we had a very frustrating time with the Hotel staff person whose English was about as good as my Spanish.  That is, barely comprehensible.  Of course the hotel used an ancient non-computerized system of reservations that involved giant grids of paper marked with pencil.  AND the reservation was not in our names so our reservations could not be located.  Naturally.  But all was not lost.  I finally located the handwritten name of our colleague in whose name the reservation had been made.  Redemption!

So off Camila and I went (Fiu sensibly retired) to attempt the task of finding an open restaurant.

We indeed found an open restaurant right around the corner—located a table and proceeded to peruse the menu.  When the waitress finally arrived, Camila asked about their delicious-sounding spargel specials—this being prime spargel season.  No, she wagged her head, the kitchen is closed.  After the next similar encounter, we asked if we would be able to find a place that was open.  Yes, was the reply, near the university.  So 10 or 12 blocks later we finally found the elusive hot meal we were so desperately seeking.  We shared a baked gnocchi with mozzarella in red sauce.  Not particulary German, but it worked.

The next day (today) started the descent into hell—that is the Maratim Hotel in Bonn.  We were all too familiar with the particular sulfuric aroma of the Maratim from our previous foray into its bowels in 2008 when we fought the good fight for a global ban on genetically engineered trees at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Conference of the Parties.  But that’s a whole ‘nother story.  This time, the fight is to stop the rampaging corporados and their henchmen from shoving false market-based solutions to climate change down the throats of the rest of the world, while the temperature slowly rises…

I escaped the asylum long enough to find a new computer charger (2 doors down from the hotel!) and a new pair of black dress shoes to replace the ones I forgot in London (my hiking shoes just didn’t quite go with my suit).  I also got the new Earth Minute recorded for KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show, which will be aired tomorrow and subsequently posted on this blog.

I did finally return to the Maratim when I could procrastinate no more, and worked on the press release that will accompany Wednesday’s launch of the report on the social and ecological impacts of wood-based agroenergy that was jointly produced by Global Forest Coalition, Global Justice Ecology Project and BiofuelWatch.

I begged out of the official reception that took place after the finish of the day’s negotiations.  Just couldn’t bear the idea of standing around on my sore feet, eating greasy food, and watching megalomaniacal beaurocrats sip wine while the forests burn.  Been there.  Done that.

Stay tuned to this blog for more adventures from Bonn…

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by | 2010-05-28 · 22:36

REDD and Wood-based Bioenergy Threaten Planet’s Forests And People

Protest outside of a Norwegian government meeting to promote "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation" (REDD) in Oslo, Norway highlights the social and ecological costs of the REDD scheme and draws attention to a scandalous Norske Hydro project that threatens to destroy Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Photo Courtesy: Friends of the Earth Norway

Anne Petermann Reports from London
Highlights Include–
• Norwegian Government Scandal in the Amazon Rainforest

• Links Between Climate and Trade
• Pacific Islander Denounces False Solutions to Climate Change

• Genetically Engineered Trees

London, England–In today’s blog post I am going to relate some of the presentations of my colleagues on the GE Trees and Bioenergy Tour which they today here in London.

The first presentation was by Almuth Ernsting of BiofuelWatch, a UK-based organization with an office in the U.S.  BiofuelWatch is very focused on trying to stop the UK from the massive increase it has planned in wood-fired electricity plants.

Some of the main points of Almuth’s presentation:

The amount of electricity the UK generates using wood is projected to increase 3.5 times by 2020.

The vast majority of this wood will be imported.

Industry likes to promote the idea that they will be using wood residues (sawdust, etc), but the reality is, demand will be met by whole tree removal logging—logging that involves the entire tree from leaves to roots, which severely compacts and depletes the soil.

Much of the wood imported by the UK is currently coming from North America.  Future imports are also planned from South America and the Baltic states.

Almuth concluded by showing a graphic from Science magazine which forecasts that the massive global increase in demand for wood-based energy will require so much land that it will lead to a total loss of natural forests and grasslands by 2050.

The next presentation by Simone Lovera, the Executive Director of Global Forest Coalition, who showed the powerpoint presentation created by Camila Moreno, who was still in Oslo fighting the good fight against REDD at a meeting on the subject convened by the Norwegian government.

Simone emphasized that the industry PR claiming that bioenergy crops will be grown on marginalized land is a myth.  She pointed out that this marginal land is never in the UK, it is always in Africa and South America—places where people are trying to reclaim their lands before they are classified as degraded land and given away for bioenergy plantations.  Water is also a crucial issue.  Eucalyptus and other monocultures for bioenergy are very water intensive.

Another project she highlighted as absolutely a scandal.  The Norwegians took over a 91% share in the largest aluminum smelter in the world as well as one of the largest bauxite mines—both in the Brazilian Amazon—and plan to power them with wood-based electricity and a new hydro-electric dam—the notorious and highly-controversial Belo Monte dam (See Video). Aluminum smelters use enormous amounts of electricity and require huge quantities of water.  So while the Norwegian government is promoting “reducing emissions from deforestation,” a Norwegian company (48% state owned) Norske Hydro is simultaneously planning a huge project that will both drown vast areas of Amazon forest and burn mountains of trees.

Meanwhile, the timber industry is being rewarded for their extremely poor land stewardship (consisting primarily of expanding monoculture tree plantations and destroying native forests), with subsidies from governments both for the pulp itself (as so-called “renewable” energy) as well as from the REDD scheme.

She pointed out that in this alarming trend, communities, local cultures, and biodiversity are being lost.  But the good news, she said, is that people are retaliating and taking over their lands again.  Tupinikim and Guarani as well as the MST and the Women of La Via Campesina have taken direct action against eucalyptus plantations in Brazil.

Certification, she insisted, is not an option.  Millions of hectares of monoculture tree plantations will always be destructive.  You cannot certify overconsumption.

In conclusion, she asked the question, which future do you prefer?  The future of monocultures or the future of diversity?

Mary Lou Malik, the Trade Campaigner for Focus on the Global South presented on the link between trade and climate change.

She began with the premise that corporate globalization is pushing the ecological impacts of the planet, and that 1/3 of trade is for non-essential goods or goods that don’t need to be imported in the first place.

The global economy, she pointed out, is causing poor countries to focus on cash crops for export that cannot be eaten, so that when trade crashes due to an economic downturn, their income dries up and people starve.  Demand for biomass from Southern will exacerbate this problem by turning more agricultural land into tree plantations.

WTO connection to the climate:

Those that are driving the false solutions are the same as the ones driving the free trade system.

How free trade prevents action on climate change:

1      The attempt by countries to create “green” standards and prohibit the import of non-energy efficient products is being rejected by the big countries in the WTO who threaten to cut off the market access of those smaller countries .

2      Through the liberalization of “Environmental goods and services”—that is supposed to allow clean technologies to flow from the North into the South.   However, most of the products that are included under this are actually fossil fuel-based, dirty or controversial (false solution) technologies.  Northern governments are already required under Kyoto to transfer clean technologies.  But putting it under trade means that recipient countries are required to give something up in return (the essence of trade).

3      TRIPS—Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights: Relevant again to climate because the newest clean technologies are all patented, ergo exorbitantly expensive and inaccessible to poor countries.

4      Trade Rules trump all other rules because they are legal and binding, whereas the UN climate agreements are non-binding.  Therefore trade rules always come out on top.  UNFCCC Article 3 states clearly that measures taken to address climate change should not constitute disguised barriers to trade.  Trade comes first. Period.

5      Pushes “solutions” to be market-based.

What we need to do:

• Change Trade not the Climate

• Get rid of market-based and other false solutions

• Refocus trade to promote transfer of clean technologies, etc.

The final presentation of the day was by Fiu Mataese Elisara, who explained the impacts of climate change and false solutions from the perspective of the peoples of the Pacific.  I will try to keep this report as much in his own powerful words as possible.

The countries of the Pacific occupy 1/3 of the surface of the globe. Ninety-five percent of the people in the Pacific are Indigenous.  We are not responsible for the crisis, yet for us it is a matter of life and death.  For this reason, when you talk about geoengineering, REDD, bioenergy and other false solutions, we are very worried, because they will not solve the problems.  We have to keep the temperature rise well below 2 degrees.  Yet the new Copenhagen Accord is predicted to lead to 4 degrees rise in temperature.

We need reductions of 80-90% of emissions by 2050 to save our islands.

Bioenergy and REDD (paying people who want to cut their forests) will make the problem worse, not better.  The conservation of native forests is done by Indigenous Peoples.  But under REDD, you have to be a deforester first before you can benefit.  So the peoples who have conserved forests are left out.  There are no guarantees that after the countries have been paid they won’t deforest a few years later anyway.   Then there’s also the problem of forest definitions.  We get crucified by forest definitions.  When the UN allows plantations and Genetically Engineered trees to be called forests, it’s a major problem.

There is also the problem of sustainable development in the South, which is focused exclusively on economics—not on social or environmental values.  Plantations funded under the CDM [through the Kyoto Protocol—ed.] are killing people whose forests are being taken away.  These negotiations are violating our rights and that climate money is literally killing our people.  The extremes in weather are also killing our people—the increase in number and severity of cyclones, for example.

Bioenergy is going to be more destructive than fossil fuels.  Land grabbing is becoming a major problem in the Pacific as well.  Eighty percent of our lands are Indigenous lands, and the opening of these lands to investors is going to devastate our people.

This is a collective issue.  It’s good we are aligning but we have a big challenge ahead of us so let’s figure out how we can work together to address this problem—to confront the World Bank and the other forces causing this problem.

We have to go out to the communities and tell them the other side of the story, so they know what is possible, and not just what the government or companies tell them.  And when we tell them, they get angry.  The students get angry and then they get involved.

This is how it can change.

Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and is reporting everyday from the GE Trees and Bioenergy Tour in Europe.  Anne also is the Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign.  Stay turned to Climate Connections for her posts.

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by | 2010-05-27 · 22:56

Anne Petermann Reporting from London

Another World is Absolutely Essential

By Anne Petermann

Today’s blog post is going to be a short one since I am on a public computer.

Today the tour moved on from The Hague to London.  While the chunnel was a
bit intimidating on the train, we arrived to sunny and–for London–warm
weather.

The conversation on the train ride with colleagues Simone Lovera of Global
Forest Coalition, Mary Lou Malik of Focus on the Global South and Fiu
Elisara of Samoa ranged from strategies for dealing with the problem of
NGOs and foundations that have bought into the REDD scam and carbon
markets in general; to our plans for the evening in London–one of the few
unscheduled chunks of time.

Fiu decided to retire, not having quite gotten used to the twelve hour
time difference, while Simone, Mary Lou and I are planning to connect with
another colleague of theirs for some stimulating conversation.

Our next event is tomorrow and it is a forum with other organizations from
around the region to discuss the dangers of wood-based agro-energy and
genetically engineered trees and what we can do about it.  There are
likely to be a few organizations that we are going to have to convince,
since so many organizations are so desperate to offer up solutions to the
climate crisis–and unfortunately many of them will only look for
solutions that allow business as usual to continue with as little change
as possible.

We, on the other hand, understand that this is not feasible.  Climate
change will mean very dramatic changes that will be most unpleasant unless
we choose as humans to make changes ourselves by choice.  This is what we
are working toward at Global Justice Ecology Project.  Creating alliances,
developing analysis and educating the public to make these changes
possible.

For another world is not only possible, it is absolutely essential.

From London,

Anne Petermann

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by | 2010-05-26 · 22:36

Anne Petermann Reporting from Amsterdam and The Hague

Camila Moreno from Brazil, speaks to the crowd about the dangers of agro-energy in The Hague. Photo: Petermann, GJEP/GFC

By Anne Petermann

(The first section is from Tuesday, May 25th, the second section from earlier today)

Ah, the red eye flight on a standing room only plane.  There’s nothing like it…

Upon emerging from the jam packed metal tube full of people where the other occupants and I had been collectively attempting (mostly futilely) to catch a few hours of sleep, and trudging through the cold hard terminal, I stepped into the cool sunshine of Amsterdam and breathed a sigh of relief.

Into the taxi and straight to the lunch organized for the participants of the annual Board meeting of the Global Forest Coalition at their International office.  Always good to see old friends and colleagues—Camila from Brazil, Fiu from Samoa, Simone from Paraguay, Yolanda from Amsterdam, Estebancio from Panama.  While the board meeting was tacked relatively last minute on to take advantage of so many people from GFC being in the same place, the real purpose of the congregation of people was to take part in a tour designed to inform decision-makers and various organizations around the EU about the dangers of genetically engineered trees (also called GM trees or transgenic trees) and wood-based agro-energy.

My job at the GFC board meeting was to represent the decisions of the GFC Coordinating Group, of which Global Justice Ecology Project is a part, that were made at the annual Monitoring, Evaluation and Planning meeting of GFC in Panama in late-January.  This was where Orin (co-Director/ Strategist of GJEP) and I had last seen many of these friends—on the island of El Porvenir in Kuna Yala, on the Caribbean coast.

Kuna Yala is the independent territory of the Kuna people, won from Panama in the early 1900s.  The ride from the airport in Panama City across Panama and over the mountains that separate Panama from Kuna Yala was simply spectacular.  Tropical forest dotted occasionally by small homesteads as far as the eye can see.

One of the major themes of the Kuna Yala meeting was the issue of REDD (the UN and World Bank scheme to supposedly reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation).  REDD has, of necessity, been a major focus of forest dependent peoples and their allies since it was announced in Bali at the UN Climate summit in 2007.  When  the World Bank held their press conference to announce their Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (their precursor to REDD) it was greeted by loud and raucous protest.Panama has already been experiencing the impacts of the implementation of REDD, and Kuna activists such as Marcial Arias, the Spanish Speaking Focal Point for Indigenous Peoples for GFC, have been very eloquent and passionate in exposing the destructive impacts REDD has had on Indigenous communities in Panama and elsewhere.

Land grabbing, “protection” of forests through the exclusion or eviction of forest dependent communities, expansion of monoculture tree plantations and massive new profits for the timber industry are just a few of the lovely side effects of REDD.

Another little known effect is the promotion of genetically engineered trees under the auspices of REDD.  In 2003, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change decided that GE trees could be used in forestry projects designed to store carbon. In addition, because the UN definition of forests is incomprehensibly unscientific, REDD projects supposedly designed to protect forests (or at least their carbon) can include transgenic trees.  The irony of allowing a forest protection scheme to include trees that will destroy biodiversity and contaminate forests with engineered traits, is yet one more reason why REDD is being rejected by peoples and organizations around the world.

Another nail in the coffin of REDD for me was my experience at the World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires last October.  This conference—which only occurs once every six years—was a revelation.  The doublespeak of the forestry companies, World Bank personnel and their co-conspirators at the big Green groups was amazing.  Their logic revolved around the best ways to profit from the implementation of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation scheme while simultaneously profiting from increased deforestation for the large-scale use of wood to produce energy (electricity, heat and liquid transport fuels)—and how to sell both as solutions to the climate crisis.  It doesn’t get much more opportunistic than that.

It is for this reason that Global Justice Ecology Project joined forces with Global Forest Coalition, BiofuelWatch and Friends of the Earth International for this GE Trees and Agro-energy tour.  Europe is galloping ahead with plans to use biomass (woodchip derived electricity) and agrofuels (large-scale unsustainable liquid biofuels) to meet their target of 20% of their energy being “renewable” by 2020.  This tour is designed to inform European decision-makers and other NGOs that we cannot look to trees to replace fossil fuels.  Projections from industry indicate that use of wood for energy production will double or even triple the demand for wood globally in the coming decades.  Being that the demand for wood is already unsustainable, how can anyone possibly suggest that we can use wood for energy production sustainably—or more ridiculously—as part of climate mitigation?

This is one false solution that must be nipped in the bud.  And that is exactly what this tour is designed to do.

From Wednesday, May 26th

The tour today stopped at The Hague in the Netherlands to speak to a room packed with Dutch Parliamentarians, other environmental and social justice organizations and even a few industry representatives.

Fiu Mataese Elisara from Samoa chaired the meeting and emphasized the importance of getting to the bottom of the concerns about wood-based agro-energy because of the critical need to find real solutions to the climate crisis and to not get bogged down in the false solutions.  Being from Samoa, he knows what he is talking about.  His is from one of the small island nations threatened with total oblivion from rising sea levels due to climate change.  Fiu is a very articulate and passionate representative of the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific.  He is also one of our New Voices on Climate Change speakers.  You can learn more about Fiu by going to his bio on our website.

Camila Moreno did the first presentation of the day, that set the tone for the event.  Camila is Global Justice Ecology Project’s representative in Brazil and also one of our New Voices On Climate Change speakers. Her presentation on the impacts of wood-based agro-energy on Brazil was extremely powerful.  She spoke not only about the impacts of monocultures in Brazil (sugarcane, soy, eucalyptus) for energy and paper, but also about the intense resistance going on in Brazil against the eucalyptus plantations, which they call Green Deserts.  She got a lot of questions from the participants about the outright rejection of certification schemes by Brazilian movements.  But as Camila, and later Deepak Rughani from BiofuelWatch, pointed out, certification legitimizes whatever is being certified.  And for the movements in Brazil, the monocultures cannot be legitimate.

Next came Dorette Corbey, of the Biomass Commission of the Dutch Parliament.  She spoke about the need for sustainability criteria, not only for so-called “renewable” energies like biomass and agrofuels, but also for all energies—including oil, natural gas and coal.  Her presentation following Camila’s set off a strong debate about sustainability criteria and certification schemes and whether or not they can be helpful or are innately harmful.

Unfortunately, following this presentation and debate Camila had to leave to catch a plane to a conference on REDD being put on by the Norwegian government in Oslo.  She and Estebancio Castro, of the Kuna Nation in Kuna Yala are both participating in this event to try to highlight the social and ecological costs of REDD and to encourage the Norwegian government to stop promoting it.  In 2007 the Norwegian government pledged $5 million to the World Bank for their Forest Carbon Partnership Facility during the World Bank’s press conference in Bali—ignoring the passionate cries of the protesters outside that this scheme was going to cause irreparable harm to peoples and ecosystems.

Deepak went next and provided a very detailed and statistics-rich presentation about the future forecasts of the amount of wood that will be needed to meet the projected growing demand for wood-based agro-energy.  It was a frightening presentation.   Think about the demand for wood doubling or tripling from its current level.  We are already losing the last of the primeval biodiversity-rich forests because current demand can’t be sustainably met.  The wood-based bioenergy path is one to certain planetary suicide.

My presentation came next and I focused on the implications of the commercialization of genetically engineered trees specifically designed to provide the products that fossil fuels do today—such as liquid fuels, jet fuel, chemicals, plastics, electricity and heat.  As fossil fuels become scarcer and harder to access—and with backlash from catastrophes like the BP-Haliburton disaster in the Gulf—fuels derived from plants are rising in importance.  But there is no way to engineer trees or anything else to take the place of fossil fuels.  There is simply not enough land to do it.  Craig Venter—the mad scientist who seeks to create new life forms—recently announced that he had succeeded in his mad objective.  He had successfully created the first fully synthetic living organism.  The purpose for these organisms?  To manufacture life forms that create “designer” enzymes that can be used to transform cellulose (from trees or other plants) into plastics, chemicals or fuel.

Of course there have been no risk assessments and this mad science is so new it is basically unregulated. Once again humans are barreling ahead without pausing to consider the possible consequences.  It is the same for GE trees.  Risk assessments have not been done.  What will be the long-term impact of ArborGen’s cold-tolerant eucalyptus trees escaping into native forest ecosystems in the U.S. South?  We do not know.  Decision-makers are not asking that question and scientists are forbidden from seeking the answer—unless they get prior permission from ArborGen.

Which brings me to the day’s last presentation, which was by Mary Lou Malig, the Trade Campaigner for Focus on the Global South who brought the whole wood-based agro-energy question back to the global trade in forest products and who is going to profit from this nightmare.

And at the end of the day, that is what it ultimately comes down to.  Who is going to profit from these potentially disastrous schemes—and who is going to stop them…

Tomorrow:  London

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by | 2009-12-18 · 22:49

Climate Agreement Reached (or not…)

Below are my initial impressions upon listening to Barack Obama’s announcement about the so-called agreement reached in Copenhagen.  Tune in tomorrow for a full analysis of the negotiations and the outcomes.

Initial reactions:

* This was a total subversion of the UNFCCC COP process.  The Obama Administration succeeded in throwing aside the legally binding Kyoto Protocol, and the two track process agreed in Bali.

* The agreement reached is not only undemocratic, it is not legally binding, it is voluntary, and its commitments made on a country by country basis.
* Obama made an agreement with “key players” in the game and essentially flipped off the rest–especially the ALBA countries.  The African countries were outraged by the backroom dealings with Ethiopia by Obama and by France–which were carried out in the name of all of Africa without their consent.
Is Global Justice Ecology Project shocked at these developments?  Nope.  It is business as usual, as predicted.  This was the reason we participated in the founding of Climate Justice Action and the organizing of the Reclaim Power action that brought together social movements around the world to begin to discuss what the new world we know we need will look like.
More tomorrow,
Anne Petermann
Executive Director

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by | 2009-12-12 · 21:00

Post #8 December 12, 2009

Photo essay of the 12 December March in Copenhagen continues after this blog post

Copenhagen Day of Action on Climate Change:

Energy in the Streets; Disappointment in the Negotiations

Late last night a draft text on the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme was released.  It was strongly condemned by NGOs from around the world.  The text of this agreement gave mere lip service to Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and to safeguards against conversion of native forests to timber plantations, not including them in the legally binding body, but rather referring to them in a preamble.

This was no surprise to those of us who have been following REDD since it was formally announced at the UN Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia in 2007.  It was clear then that this was a bunch of greenwash aimed at enriching the world’s most notorious deforesters, while providing the impetus for a massive global land grab directed at the world’s remaining forested lands—most of which are in the territories of Indigenous Peoples.

Thus we were not shocked when, at the Climate Conference last year in Poznan, all references to Indigenous Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples were struck from the text by the gang of four: the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand—who always seem to be the bad guys in these UN negotiations.

Nonetheless, for those of us who have been fighting to stop the rampant destruction of native forests for so many years, the total corruption of an agreement to ostensibly curb deforestation is a major kick in the gut.

So it was with REDD in mind that we joined the massive show of people rallying for real and effective action on climate change at Parliament Square in Copenhagen earlier this afternoon.

March organizers estimated the swarming crowd at 100,000.  The police said 50,000.  The reality being somewhere in the middle, it was certainly the largest protest against climate change ever to have taken place.  And when coupled with the marches and protests in more than 100 other countries around the world, it was massive indeed.

Orin and I can attest to the impressive crowd as we crossed through it en route to find our allies in the “system change not climate change” bloc, on the exact opposite side of the square.  After 15 or so minutes of squeezing through the crush of the crowd, we managed to find our way to the coffee cart where several of our friends were waiting in an impossible queue for something warm to drink.  After waiting for what seemed like forever, with coffees finally in hand, we and our friends made our way in the direction of the “system change not climate change” sound trucks, which were to lead the bloc, but not before one of our German comrades warmed everyone’s coffee with a dollop of whiskey.  “To help warm you up on the inside,” he explained.

Another U.S.-based colleague and I remarked that we had certainly never experienced THAT before at a U.S. protest!

We found the Climate Justice Now! bloc with our allies, and ran into Melissa, a woman we had met fifteen years before during the struggle to save the ancient redwoods in California.  She had worked with Judi Bari, our friend and colleague who had been blown up by a pipe bomb in 1990 for trying to stop the rampant logging of some of the oldest and most majestic trees on the planet—the 100 meter tall, 2,000 year old redwoods, being felled for hot tubs and outdoor furniture.  Melissa was passing out stickers that elicited naughty giggles in nearly everyone who read them. They read “fck, fck, fck the system,”—a direct response to the very mainstream “tck, tck tck” campaign initiated by some of the larger NGOs.

The march consisted of numerous blocs, spread out over several kilometers.  Orin and I made our way to the very beginning of the march, where the Indigenous Peoples’ delegation was leading the way.  Orin photographed their delegation and we then gravitated to the side where we documented each bloc as it passed, waiting for our allies with the System Change bloc.  The images he captured during the hour or more that the march flowed by are captured in the photo essay included here.

After an interminably long time, toward the end of the march we finally spied the sound trucks with the green banners that signified the beginning of the System Change bloc.  We connected with some of our allies and photographed them moving by.  After they had passed we walked toward the back of the bloc to see what else we could find, and just as we did, a mass of police vans moved in and blocked the street, cutting off a section of the march.  Another cluster of police vans cut them off from the back.  We tried to move in to take photos of the situation and document the preemptive roundup, but were roughly shoved back by police who quickly taped off the area. We watched the stand off for 40 minutes or so, alerting some of our allies to the alarming situation.

Hundreds of march participants flooded back to the scene of the round up, and we could here pounding drums along with the chant, “Let them go! Let them go!” echoing through the corridor of tall brick Danish buildings.  They were not let go, and at last report, an estimated 700 had been arrested.

We unfortunately had to leave before the conclusion of the standoff because Orin had lost his official UN press credentials somewhere in the crush of people.  Without them he would be unable to participate in the protests and other events planned inside the Bella Centre in the coming week.  So we needed to get them replaced before the registration desk closed for the night.  We found a running metro that delivered us to the Bella Centre.  We managed to avoid the incredibly long line of unaccredited people shivering in the frigid Danish air through some evasive action that took us inside to the press accreditation line and resulted in Orin procuring a new badge in record time.

In the security line for the metal detectors, we bumped into another colleague who recounted to us her experience with nearly getting nabbed in the roundup.  She told us she sensed something was up and literally ran ahead, just missing the advance of the police vans.  She continued with the march, she told us, to the very end at the Bella Centre, but was prevented from entering the UN premises, even with her accreditation badge, because she was with the march.  “So I climbed the fence,” she told us.  “I was just too cold to wait any longer.”

So much for their security…

The metro ride back toward the hotel was hellish.  The metro arrived at the Bella Center stop already crowded.  We and about four others managed to smash ourselves on, thinking not one more person could possibly fit.  We were proved wrong about 2 stops down where another half dozen people forced their way into our end of the car.  By the time we got to the Christianshavn stop, we couldn’t stand it anymore and retreated to the street to find a bus.  This stop was only a few blocks from where we had stood when the black bloc had been surrounded, and the police lights were still blazing.  Realizing quickly that this meant no buses were to come, we waved down a cab and zoomed back to the hotel to sit down, finally, warm up and to complete our computer work for the day.

This is not the last, but the first big action this week.  Tomorrow there is an action planned which intends to shut down the Copenhagen port, to call attention to the massive greenhouse gas emissions caused by the shipping industry.  Nearly every day next week some action is planned and will reach a crescendo with the “Reclaim Power” action on Wednesday—the day that the high level ministers arrive—which is intended to occur both on the inside of the Bella Centre, as well as on the outside, with both sides to meet for a “Peoples’ Assembly” to discuss real and just solutions to the climate crisis.

The big challenge of that day is the fact that the UN Climate Secretariat has announced that they are severely restricting the access of NGOs to the Bella Centre—only allowing access to a privileged handful of “observers.”

Some of us believe that this signals the end of the UN Climate process.  It has truly become the World Carbon Trade Organization and is behaving as such through meetings behind closed doors and absolute restriction of participation to only those chosen few, and their complicit, bleating, sheep-like media.

Now it is time for the people of the world who want to stop the oncoming train of climate catastrophe to stand up and “Reclaim Power.”  We will be reporting from the Reclaim Power protests in Copenhagen this coming Wednesday.

Wish us luck.

Reporting from the streets of Copenhagen,

Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

Indigenous Peoples led the march of an estimated 50,00 to 100,000. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Indigenous Peoples led the march of an estimated 50,00 to 100,000. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Comments Off on Post #8 December 12, 2009

Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen/COP-15, Indigenous Peoples, Photo Essays by Orin Langelle, Posts from Anne Petermann

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by | 2009-12-10 · 23:52

Post #6 December 10, 2009

Camila Moreno rails against REDD. Photo: Petermann/ GJEP-GFC

Outrage at CorporateHaven

by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

Emotions here at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen are beginning to run very high.

The leak to the press of a document prepared by the Danish government in collaboration with other rich countries raised a lot of ire among those countries and peoples who were excluded from this process, which apparently occurred behind some very closed and secret doors.

In response, the African delegation staged a spontaneous and angry protest in the halls of the Bella Center, chanting “two degrees is suicide!” in reference to a section of the leaked Danish that would allow for a two degree rise in global temperatures–which would lead to the deaths of millions of people in Africa due to expanding droughts and floods, as well as loss of crop productivity.

And this theme of expressing outrage over the impacts of climate change on indigenous and forest dependent communities and others was carried over with a series of events and protests today.

This morning, on Human Rights Day, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Indigenous Peoples Power Project held a “Procession, Prayer and Rally for Indigenous Rights” at the US Embassy in Copenhagen.  On the day that Obama accepted his unfathomably ironic Nobel Peace Prize, this rally took place to raise awareness about the impacts of the US energy industry’s war on Indigenous lands in the US.  Later in the day another Indigenous protest was held against the US when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar spoke at a press conference about the US commitment to renewable energy–on the very same day they announced that they were opening up the arctic to oil drilling.  Hypocritical doesn’t even begin to describe this callous and calculated PR move.

The expansion of oil drilling in the Arctic is a slap in the face to the rest of the world that came to Copenhagen hoping for leadership from Obama, and instead got the same old US obstructionism that has contributed to the negative image of the US internationally.

The Change promised by the Obama Administration seemingly refers to Climate Change.  It really has been a whole lot of hot air.

As I write this, the Indigenous Peoples Speak Out is taking place.  Global Justice Ecology Project teamed up with the Indigenous Environmental Network with co-sponsorship by Global Forest Coalition to create a space for Indigenous Peoples to share their experiences, stories and songs.  We felt this was a critically important event to highlight the voices of Peoples who are being shut out of the official climate negotiations, even though they are some of the peoples being most profoundly affected by the climate crisis.

The event started with a prayer by IEN Director Tom Goldtooth and songs by IEN youth and staff–Day Gots and Clayton Thomas-Mueller.  Throughout the afternoon Indigenous Peoples shared their stories about the histories of their people, and the impacts of fossil fuels and climate change on their communities and lands.  Powerful voices poignantly described the effects of the melting of the arctic on the islands off of Alaska, the devastating results of the rising sea levels on the islands of the South Pacific, the cancers and diseases being experienced by native peoples as a result of the energy industry.  Participants came from North and South America, Africa and the South Pacific, yet the stories they shared all echoed one another.

The undercurrent was one of profound anger and sadness.

Down the hall, a Peoples Tribunal on Climate Debt is under way, with representatives of the developing world discussing the historical obligations of rich countries to repay the South for the resources stolen over the course of hundreds of years, and for the impacts today of climate change.

Yesterday, Global Justice Ecology Project organized a panel on the UN’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation scheme.  Presenters included Sandy Gauntlett, a Maori from Aoteroa (New Zealand) who expressed his seething ire over REDD because it was doing nothing to stop the sinking of the islands of his region.  Camila Moreno was indignant over the implementation of REDD in Brazil, where some of the people most responsible for the rampant destruction of the Amazon stood to profit handsomely from this scheme.  Marcial Arias, a Kuna from Panama passionately described the displacement of Indigenous Peoples in Panama for projects designed to offset carbon emissions in the North.

The outrage is growing.  It has been simmering under the surface with year after year of inaction, and now the rapidly accelerating crisis of climate change has caused the pot to begin boiling over, and we will be seeing more and more outrage and anger over the coming days.

We will do our best to cover these protests and their messages and give you our reactions to them.

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