Tag Archives: human rights

COP 17: Global Leaders Powerfully Denounce Green Economy; Expose its impacts on peoples and ecosystems

8 December 2011

* Clown Ejected and Photographer Assaulted by UN Security *

(video of press conference follows in next blog post)

GJEP ED Anne Petermann introduces the press conference. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Durban, South Africa–During a Global Justice Ecology Project press conference today at the UN Climate Conference COP 17, Indigenous Peoples, youth, social movement leaders and ecological justice activists gave powerful testimonies about the looming impacts of the “economic integration” of carbon offsets schemes across the world through the “Green Economy.”

Speakers condemned the Green Economy as a repeat of the failed and unjust dominant economic model, predicated on the expansion of the controversial REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) offset scheme to privatize and market the carbon stored in oceans, soils, agriculture, and biodiversity – that is, every entity on earth. They further explained how this emerging economic scheme will exacerbate impacts on communities already suffering from climate change, fossil fuel pollution, and false solutions to the climate crisis.

A team of clowns dressed as Uncle Sam and his economic advisors defended the 1% global elite that the Green Economy is designed to serve.

Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, who moderated the event, opened with a quote from Einstein. “Einstein famously said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. From that perspective, this COP is insane.”

Demond D'Sa. Photo: Langelle/ GJEP

Desmond D’Sa of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance spoke next. “This conference of polluters has been a failure,” he declared. “It’s not going to assist the communities in South Durban or anywhere. Today as we sit inside this funeral parlor, we lament the deaths of our mothers, our children, and our families. The decisions we see coming out of here are in the interest of greed and corruption.” He closed his talk by invoking the anti-Apartheid call, “Amandla!” which means, ‘power to the people!’

Kandi Mossett of the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Grassroots Global Justice Alliance broke down in tears when she spoke of the mounting numbers of deaths on her home reservation in North Dakota, where natural gas fracking is destroying the water table and fracturing the community.

Referring to one of the key events of social movement groups at COP17 this week, Mossett said, “We called for a moratorium on REDD this week because this is the only thing that is going to save people – to stop these crazy policies.”

Ricardo Navarro, of Friends of the Earth El Salvador added, “Here at COP17, we are seeing nothing less than the moral collapse of governments. The politicians here do not represent us. We are the ninety nine percent, and we have to take the streets.”

Clowns, led by Uncle Sam, then took over the stage and spoke on behalf of the United States and the global elites.

“We are the ones that caused the climate crisis,” the clowns announced. “And we are the only ones that can solve it!

Uncle Sam and his economic clowns. Photo: Langelle/ GJEP

Referring to REDD, Uncle Sam declared, Forests are very messy. They contain many useless life forms. If they’re not good for the economy, I say get rid of them.”

When asked by the press, “What is your Plan B?”, Uncle Sam, portrayed by Kevin Buckland, a US-based activist and member of the Youth delegation, answered, “Mars.”

During follow up interviews in the hallway of the ICC, UN Security detained Buckland, in clown regalia, while being interviewed on camera. He was debadged and evicted for alleged violation of the UN code of Conduct. (Clown suits are not, apparently, in the dress code.)

While taking photos to document Buckland’s detention, Vermont-based photographer Orin Langelle, Co-Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, on assignment for Z Magazine, was assaulted by UN Security who shoved his camera in his face.

And so the United Nations Circus of Polluters begins to draw to its fractious end.

UN security detains a "de-clowned" Uncle Sam. Photo: Langelle/ GJEP

Note: Full Statements by Press Conference Participants below

Statement by Anne Petermann, Moderator, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

Welcome everyone. We have invited climate justice allies from around the globe to join us at this press conference to highlight the inherent dangers of the Green Economy and explain why we are uniting to blockade the “road to Rio.”

Einstein famously said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” In that light, this UNFCCC COP process is insane.

But even more insane is the direction in which it is headed. Not only in terms of setting into motion mandates that will allow business as usual until the planet is cooked, but most of all by moving forward with this so-called ‘green economy.’

The logo of COP 17 is a perfect example of this disastrous economic system and this corrupt COP process. It is a giant dead tree, painted green that is smothering the Earth.

We’ve seen for centuries how the market system of transforming resources and human labor into capital for the 1% has impacted critical ecosystems and driven entire peoples into extinction. But now they want to expand this market. They want to take the disaster of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and expand that offset scheme to every plant, animal and ecosystem on Earth.

They are developing plans now for Blue REDD, Brown REDD, Yellow REDD, Green REDD, REDD in every color of the rainbow. They want to use the carbon stored by every entity on the planet–including not just forests, but oceans and biodiversity, soils and agriculture to offset pollution from industry in the North, so they can go on polluting.

Already we are confronted not only by the climate crisis, but also by the food crisis, the water crisis, the biodiversity crisis, and the crisis of the oceans. And the Green Economy, in squeezing control of the natural world into fewer and fewer hands of the 1% will exacerbate these problems and drive planet earth to the point where, as Native American activist and poet John Trudell said, “Civilized man may make survival by civilized man impossible.”

Statement by Desmond D’sa, South Durban Community Environmental Alliance.

This Conference of Polluters has been a failure. It’s not going to assist the communities back home where I come from, or any communities anywhere in the world. Today as we sit inside this funeral parlor, we lament the deaths of our mothers, our children, and our families.

This funeral parlor has increased misinformation, it has withheld information, and it has not been transparent. The decisions are not in the interest of mankind, the decisions we see coming out of here are in the interest of greed and corruption.

We have to say to today in no uncertain terms, that the conference is a failure. It has wasted resources that could have been used to bring about better things in the world.

We the citizens of the world, the 99% we will continue to fight them in every corner of the world, we will continue to hold them accountable.

Speaking united with one voice we will continue to do this.

Down with the corrupt governments! Amandla!

 

Kandi Mossett. Photo: Langelle/ GJEP

Statement by Kandi Mosset, Indigenous Environmental Network and GGJA

Hello. I am Eagle woman

This is the seventeenth Conference of the Polluters. And what have they done in that time? Nothing!

I grew up on a reservation. We are watching our people die. While I was here my cousin died. He was only 36 years old. Heart attacks, cancers, asthma. Everybody is being affected by the dirty industries on the reservation–industries allowed to continue polluting because of offsets. Because of REDD.

We called for a moratorium on REDD because that is the only thing that is going to save people – to stop these crazy policies. As Indigenous Peoples, as traditional people, we know better than anybody, better than these high level people, how to live upon the land. We resist these people that say ‘we will make the decisions for you.’

I can’t tell you what it’s like to keep going to these funerals, when the coffins are getting smaller and smaller.

I’m not here to compare our struggles; I’m here to unite. Because there is strength in unity and we must unite.

Decolonize the COP and unoccupy the sky!

Ricardo Navarro. Photo: Langelle/ GJEP

Statement by Ricardo Navarro, Friends of the Earth El Salvador

We are here to express our disappointment. We are facing a big threat to the future of humanity. The scientists say they are guaranteeing a world that is 5 degrees warmer, by the end of the century.

To allow this to happen is criminal. Politicians are criminals for allowing this to happen. We are talking about the future of humanity, our sons, our daughters.

The message we are getting here is that politicians do not represent us.

We have to take the streets. We are the 99%, and we have to take the streets.

We are seeing nothing less than the moral collapse of governments.

Statement by Uncle Sam (clown Kevin Buckland):

Hello.  I am Uncle Sam.  I was pleased to be a part of the World Corporate Climate Summit, which I helped organize over the weekend here in Durban.  Oh yeah and the COP 17 whatever process.

But I’m here today at this press conference because I have a dream.  I have a dream that one day corporations will not be judged by the actions that they take, but by how much of the Earth’s surface they control.  But this dream is threatened.  It is threatened by regulation.  Human rights laws, environmental regulations, unions.  All of these stand in the way of progress.   It is not right.  It is not just.  We have paid good money to our government partners to ensure the outcomes of these talks, and by god, we mean to see those outcomes realized.  Neoliberalism must prevail or all life on earth will be threatened.  And by all life on earth, I mean, of course, the 1%.

Uncle Sam is interviewed by the media, shortly before being detained by UN security. Photo: Langelle/ GJEP

After all, we, the 1% have a very long track record, going back hundreds of years, of improving upon nature.  Nature is very slow and inefficient. For example, nature eliminates the weak and sick one individual at a time; where we eliminate entire ecosystems and peoples!  It is a much more efficient process.

With the Green Economy, we, the 1%, are now taking our experience and advancing it to the next level.   It’s like this COP 17 logo.  Note that it depicts a giant dead tree, painted green, that is covering the earth.  This is what we are about.  This is the progress we are moving toward.  Currently, forests are made up of living trees that take years to grow, must be cut down, debarked, and sawed into lumber or pulped for paper.  Forests are very messy, with lots of extraneous life forms and human communities that serve no purpose. With the green economy, we can use new technologies–geoengineering, synthetic biology, nanotechnology and genetic engineering –to develop trees that sprout from the earth, grow to a massive size, are perfectly square, and fall to the ground, ready for harvest.  And we will engineer them to be green so they will make people feel good.

It’s a win-win.  We eliminate the surplus human population and monopolize the planet’s resources, channeling them for the benefit of us, the 1%.

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Land Grabs, REDD, Rio+20, UNFCCC

Durban COP 17: Waste Pickers Tout Only Truly Green Solution to Municipal Waste, Decry Dirty Energy (news and photos)

Note:  This morning the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers held a “permitted” protest inside the UN compound here in Durban.  After the first photo is a media release from GAIA (Global Alliance of  Incinerator Alternatives)  explaining the position of Waste pickers internationally.  The protest was almost stopped by UN security, telling organizers that they needed their signs and banners approved by the UN before they could be displayed.  The protest went on anyway. The waste pickers went to their approved area and then emptied trash on the ground, chanted, showed their signs and then cleaned up the area.  I have a photograph of an UN security person believed to be Flemming Rosendkrans.  He wore no identification badge and refused to tell me his name.  He dictated the orders to organizers along with a mysterious woman who also said she was with the UN and also refused to disclose her identity after I identified myself showed her and the badgeless officer my UN accredited press credentials.  That photo and and additional photos follow GAIA’s copy below.  All photos by  Orin Langelle/GJEP on assignment for Z Magazine.

Waste Pickers Tout Only Truly Green Solution to Municipal Waste, Decry Dirty Energy

Durban, December 5, 2011 Waste pickers attending COP17 today called for a Green Climate Fund with direct community access and an end to CDM “waste-to-energy” projects. Representatives from three continents highlighted the fact that waste pickers are the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the waste sector.

Millions of people worldwide make a living from waste picking. They collect, sort and process recyclables, reducing the amount of waste that is sent to landfills and saving valuable natural resources. Today, an increasing number of waste pickers are processing organic waste, diverting it from landfills and therefore reducing methane gas pollution. Waste pickers could further reduce GHG emissions given proper support.

To secure this support, a waste picker delegation has come to COP17 to raise their concerns surrounding current climate financing mechanisms and to advocate for more just alternatives that are directly accessible by waste pickers. Waste pickers from three different continents spoke against disposal technologies that undermine their livelihoods, such as incinerators and waste-to-energy projects.

Harouna Niass, a waste picker from Dakar, Senegal, spoke about the formation of Book Diomm Waste Pickers Association with 800 members, and the threat they face from CDM-backed landfill gas companies competing to extract methane and force the waste pickers off the landfill.

“Waste pickers should be included and given more respect because we take care of our environment,” Niass said.

 Simon Mbata, with the South African Waste Pickers’ Association, discussed the importance of supporting waste pickers.

“We demand a Green Climate Fund that is directly accessible to waste pickers and an end of support for CDM projects which compete directly with us,” Mbata said.

Neil Tangri, with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, provided background on CDM-backed projects and the Green Climate Fund. Suman More, a waste picker with SWaCH cooperative in Pune, India, discussed incinerator alternatives.

About the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers:

The Global Alliance of Waste Pickers brings together waste pickers organizations from Africa, Asia and Latin America. To learn more about waste pickers’ experiences and to support fair and just solutions to climate change, visit our blog www.globalrec.org

Read GAIA’s case studies on CDM projects on Municipal Waste Management:

The CDM incinerator in Chengdu Luo Dai, China: http://www.no-burn.org/downloads/luodai.pdf

The Bisasar landfill in Durban, South Africa: http://www.no-burn.org/downloads/bisasar.pdf

The Usina Incinerator in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil: http://www.no-burn.org/downloads/Rio-de-janeiro.pdf

Mysterious UN woman on left refused to disclose her name. The man in the center who wore no identification badge and refused to identify himself is believed to be Flemming Rosendkrans.

Waste pickers dumped waste collected from the UN and then picked it up in their protest

Waste picker makes sure all the trash is picked up at the end of the protest

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization

Riot Police Block Most Affected by Climate Change from Entering Climate Conference

Cross Posted from Common Dreams Published on Friday, December 2, 2011 by Agence France Presse
by Alexander Joe and Marlowe Hood

DURBAN, South Africa ­ Bearing the message that their livelihoods were in peril, hundreds of women farmers tried Friday to gatecrash UN climate talks in Durban, where they were peacefully held back by police.

The women, from 10 countries across southern Africa, converged on the conference to testify how storms and heatwaves, intensified by climate change, were wreaking havoc on an already meagre sustenance.

Many wore green-on-black T-shirts reading “Rural Women Assembly” and carried hand-scrawled banners, including one that said: “Women Are the Guardians of Seed, Life and Earth.”

About 50 police in full riot gear prevented the women and other protesters from entering the venue.

There were no arrests or injuries, and the atmosphere was more festive than feisty. But the women — from Angola to Zimbabwe — had a serious appeal to make.

“We are getting a lot of difficulty and suffering with water,” said 75-year-old Betty Nagodi, from an arid region of northern South Africa.

“Now we don’t know when it will rain. And then when it does, the hail knocks down all the tomatoes, butternut and other things,” she said, fanning herself under the shade of a towering acacia.

Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns could adversely affect water flows on the Limpopo river system, leading to production shortfalls and conflict over water use, according to a report earlier this month by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

“We have seen how climate change has disrupted the seasons, completely changing agricultural production cycles. It affects our lives very directly,” said Fatima Shabodien, an activist from Cape Town, South Africa, also taking part in the rally.

“We are here to call attention to the impact of climate change on the livelihoods of rural women.”

For Lilian Kujekeko of Zimbabwe, the diplomats and politicians negotiating behind closed doors — “most of them men” — needed to know that global warming was not an abstraction, and that in Africa it was women who were bearing the brunt.

“We are the ones who suffer most of the consequences of climate change. We look after families. So why are we not there in the conference?” she asked emphatically.

Weather in her home region has become increasingly erratic in recent decades, she said, with one recent heatwave peak topping 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

The region’s staple crop, maize (corn), is “very sensitive” to fluctuations in rainfall, she noted.

A report on climate change and extreme weather earlier this month by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts more droughts for large swathes of Africa, raising the spectre of famine in regions where daily life is already a hand-to-mouth experience for millions.

Factor in the biggest population boom of any continent over the next half-century and the danger of food “insecurity” in Africa becomes even greater, it cautions.

Some 15,000 diplomats, experts and campaigners at the talks under the 194-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are trying to breathe life into international negotiations tasked with fighting the threat of climate change.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and local grassroots groups have announced a protest march under the banner of “climate justice” for Saturday, and said they expect a turnout of up to 20,000.

The 12-day talks enter a high-level phase next week with the arrival of ministers, ending on December 9.
© 2011 AFP

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Land Grabs, UNFCCC, Water

Preview: Photo Essay Feature–Global Day of Action in Durban

Note:  Just in from the streets of Durban.  Thousands protest Conference of Polluters.  These photos are just a sample.  Feature photo essay will be posted soon.  Stay tuned.  Below photos: Langelle/GJEP.

-The GJEP Team

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Photo Essays by Orin Langelle, UNFCCC

Today: ACTION IN FRONT OF THE U.S. CONSULATE: “THE U.S. MUST STOP OBSTRUCTING CLIMATE JUSTICE FOR THE 99%”

A festive and peaceful action in front of the U.S. Consulate in Durban, as part of the 1000 Durbans Global Day of Action for Climate Justice. The action will feature speakers who will testify to the impacts of U.S. government and corporate pollution on their communities and land. Speakers will also share recommendations to the U.S. government and speak out against the positions that Jonathan Pershing and the State Department have taken thus far. The action will also feature powerful visuals for photographers and the broadcast media.

People from impacted communities within the U.S. and the Global South. Organized by the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) www.ggjalliance.org, a multi-sector alliance of U.S.-based community organizing groups building an international movement for peace, democracy and a sustainable world. Speakers Include:

Ahmina Maxey, Zero Waste and the East Michigan Environmental Action Coalition (Detroit) Francisca Porchas, Labor Community Strategy Center and the Bus Riders Union (Los Angeles) Chavanne Jean-Baptiste, Peasant Movement of Papaye and La Via Campesina (Haiti) Francois Paulette, Smith’s Landing Treaty 8 Dene First Nation, Indigenous Environmental Network (Alberta, Canada)

“We won’t let the U.S. off the hook,” says Ahmina Maxey of the East Michigan Environmental Action Coalition, a lead organization of GGJ. “As members of communities disproportionately affected by U.S. pollution and land grabs, we will be holding dirty U.S. corporations and the State Department accountable for the global mess they have made,”

“The U.S. government and associated corporations are the 1% responsible for the majority of pollution affecting the 99% of the world, including the 99% in Los Angeles,” says Francisca Porchas of the LA-based Labor Community Strategy Center, another lead organization of GGJ. “We will be taking action to demand that the U.S. immediately reduce carbon emissions to 50% of current levels by 2017, and to stop obstructing progress towards paying climate debt and forging an internationally binding deal.”

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Pollution, UNFCCC

KPFK in Los Angeles airs reports Tuesday through Friday from the UN Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa–1st Dispatch

Note:  For the third year in a row GJEP has teamed up with KPFK Pacific Radio’s Sojourner Truth Show with Margaret Prescott.  KPFK’s show yesterday featured our Earth Minute weekly feature with GJEP’s Anne Petermann and an interview with Bobby Peek, a Durban local and Goldman Prize winner.   Peek is the director of  groundWork’s and has received international recognition for his campaigning work in the South Durban basin around toxic industry and waste issues.

 He has also been active in campaigning locally and internationally around the Thor Chemicals debacle.

-The GJEP Team on the ground in Durban, South Africa

To listen to this week’s show, go to:

http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_111129_070010sojourner.MP3

For Bobby Peek’s interview, please go to to minute 20:36

This week’s Earth Minute can be found at minute 32:25

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Filed under Climate Change, Energy, Pollution, UNFCCC

On the Ground Coverage of the UN Climate Conference in Durban Starts Next Week

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project’s Climate Connections blog carries hard-to-find  news from around the world on the impacts of, and peoples’ resistance to social and ecological injustice.

We will be blogging daily from the UN Climate Conference and alternative movement activities in Durban, South Africa from 28 November through 10 December 2011.  For the latest from the inside negotiations and the outside 99% opposition to the commodification of life, please stay tuned to climate-connections.org.

Additionally for the third year, we are  partnering with Margaret Prescod’s “The Sojourner Truth” show on KPFK’s Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, CA with a fifteen minute update (approximate) with people in Durban, Monday through Friday (28 Nov – 10 December).  Live at 7 am Pacific (-8 GMT) or listen to the archives.  From the halls of injustice to dissent in the streets.

-The GJEP Team

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biodiversity, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Independent Media, Political Repression, UNFCCC

Video: Agrofuels: Industrial Agriculture’s Latest Attack on the People and the Planet

Note: GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann was interviewed for this film at a Rising Tide event in 2008.  The film details the devastating ecological and social impacts of agrofuels.   The trailer for the film is below.

–The GJEP Team

http://Ciclovida.org

Released in October 2011: a half-hour in depth educational supplement to the feature film:

Agrofuels: Industrial Agriculture’s Latest Attack on the People and the Planet

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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering