Tag Archives: rio+20

Rio+20: This is not the “future we want” – Bolivian social movement response to the UN draft agreement

From the Bolivian Climate Change Platform:

A warning from civil society to governments that the agreement consolidates the “green economy” and false solutions.

We reject the document “The future we want” that has been approved initially and is about to be ratified by heads of state of member governments of the United Nations, and we warn civil society and progressive governments that the content of this document will deepen the structural causes that have caused the socio-environmental crisis that we face, and will not resolve this crisis, by further liberalizing the economy and the commodification of nature.

The document states that the objectives put forward in Agenda 21 in Rio in 1992 and the three Conventions: Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), as well as the progress made over the years, are still valid. But these important principles, including common but differentiated responsibilities, are only included in the introduction as a declaration when they should be an important part of the entire text.

In its current form, the text reaffirms and deepens the current neo-liberal economic model. It promotes “inclusive and sustainable” economic growth with various references throughout the text without putting forward proposals or changes to the dominant economic system. The multiple crises we are facing are recognised but all the responses are still within the framework of neo-liberal model and seek to deepen the free market without recognising the underlying structural causes.
Continue reading

Comments Off on Rio+20: This is not the “future we want” – Bolivian social movement response to the UN draft agreement

Filed under Climate Change, Rio+20

Earth Audio Podcast: Ta’kaia Blaney and Jeff Conant on KPFK Sojourner Truth Show

Interview with Ta’kaia Blaney, 11-year-old indigenous activist from the Sliammon nation, and Jeff Conant of Global Justice Ecology Project on KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show, June 20, 2012.

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod and the Sojourner Truth show for weekly Earth Minutes every Tuesday and Earth Segment interviews every Thursday–as well as daily interviews during international gatherings such as the Peoples’ Summit in Rio.

Click here to listen/download

Comments Off on Earth Audio Podcast: Ta’kaia Blaney and Jeff Conant on KPFK Sojourner Truth Show

Filed under Climate Change, Earth Radio, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Rio+20, Tar Sands

Earth Audio podcasts: Achim Steiner of UNEP and Pat Mooney of the ETC Group at the Rio+20 Peoples’ Summit

Achim Steiner, head of UNEP defends his model of the Green Economy while ETC Group’s Pat Mooney looks on.

At a panel session at the Peoples’ Summit, Pat Mooney of the Canadian technology watchdog organization ETC Group challenges UN Environment Program Director Achim Steiner’s concept of the green economy. Mooney says the model would hand control of the world’s biomass over to the same corporations and financial institutions responsible for the current ecological and financial chaos. June 16, 2012.

click here to listen/download

Comments Off on Earth Audio podcasts: Achim Steiner of UNEP and Pat Mooney of the ETC Group at the Rio+20 Peoples’ Summit

Filed under Earth Radio, False Solutions to Climate Change, Green Economy, Rio+20

Three hundred people breach earthen dam, free Xingu River from Belo Monte mega-dam project

Cross-posted from Amazon Watch via Earth First Newswire

June 15, 2012, Belo Monte, Brazil. While the Brazilian Government prepares to host the Rio+20 United Nations Earth Summit, 3,000 kilometers north in the country’s Amazon region indigenous peoples, farmers, fisherfolk, activists and local residents affected by the construction of the massive Belo Monte Dam project began a symbolic peaceful occupation of the dam site to “free the Xingu River.”

 

In the early morning hours, three hundred women and children arrived in the hamlet of Belo Monte on the Transamazon Highway, and marched onto a temporary earthen dam recently built to impede the flow of the Xingu River. Using pick axes and shovels, local people who are being displaced by the project removed a strip of earthen dam to restore the Xingu’s natural flow.

Residents gathered in formation spelling out the words “Pare Belo Monte” meaning “Stop Belo Monte” to send a powerful message to the world prior to the gathering in Rio and demanding the cancellation of the $18 billion Belo Monte dam project (aerial photos of the human banner available upon request).
Continue reading

Comments Off on Three hundred people breach earthen dam, free Xingu River from Belo Monte mega-dam project

Filed under Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Latin America-Caribbean, Rio+20

Water Warriors reject corporate control of water at Peoples’ Summit

From IBON International

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, June 16, 2012 — “Water is life! Not for profit!”  was the resounding message of the water warriors gathered at the plenary discussion on Water as Commons in Countering Green Economy, Privatization and Commodification during the opening of the Cupula dos Povos in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Around 100 participants attended the plenary discussion at the Blue Pavilion. The first session was devoted to analyzing the structural causes of the lack of access to water due to privatization.

Maria Teresa Lauron of IBON International traced the history of water privatization at the international level and shared Manila’s own experience with water privatization. According to Lauron, “the World Bank’s policy shift from the promotion of public water to privatization began n the 1970s to widen the access of investments for surplus capital from highly industrialized countries which were experiencing falling rates of profit at that time.”
Continue reading

Comments Off on Water Warriors reject corporate control of water at Peoples’ Summit

Filed under Actions / Protest, Green Economy, Rio+20, Water

Action Alert: Tell the US at Rio+20: We Reject the “Greed” Economy!

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance is a national alliance of grassroots organizations building a popular movement for peace, democracy and a sustainable world. GGJ is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this week with a delegation of 16 leaders of grassroots organizations from impacted communities in the US to call out the false solutions to the economic and ecological crises at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. 

We call on the US government to take a stand against the worst tendencies of “Green Capitalism” and the “Greed Economy,” and instead invest in solutions to the root causes of the ecological and economic crises that put our communities to work, cool the planet, and transition to local economies.

Sign the Petition TODAY!

We have five demands:

1. Stop destructive climate projects and unsustainable energy developments including the Canadian Tar Sands, the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, and proposed oil drilling in the off-shore Outer Continental Shelf areas of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of Alaska.

“The Canadian Tar Sands has allowed the Indigenous peoples of Canada to become economic hostages.  We have inherent Constitutionally Protected Rights that say we can always go to the land to hunt, fish, and forage; however, we are being deliberately ignored by the industry and by our Governments.  The US has an obligation to ensure they participate in ethical protocols and procedures.  Supporting an industry that is displacing a people and desecrating their lands is not acceptable! — Crystal Lameman, Indigenous Environmental Network, Beaver Lake Cree Nation in Northeast Alberta, Canada.

Continue reading

Comments Off on Action Alert: Tell the US at Rio+20: We Reject the “Greed” Economy!

Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Green Economy, Rio+20

Declaration of Kari-Oca II adopted by five hundred Indigenous representatives in sacred ceremony

By Jeff Conant, for Climate Connections

Signing of the Kari-Oca Declaration. Photo: Ben Powless

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 19, 2012 — Over five hundred Indigenous Peoples from Brazil and throughout the world gathered at Kari-Oca II, an encampment seated at the foot of a mountain near Rio Centro, to sign a declaration demanding respect for Indigenous Peoples’ role in maintaining a stable world environment, and condemning the dominant economic approach toward ecology, development, human rights and the rights of Mother Earth.

“We see the goals of UNCSD Rio+20, the “Green Economy”, and its premise that the world can only ‘save’ nature by commodifying its life-giving and life-sustaining capacities as a continuation of the colonialism that Indigenous Peoples and our Mother Earth have faced and resisted for 520 years”, the declaration states.

Hundreds of Indigenous representatives plan to march from Kari-Oca on Wednesday, June 20, to deliver the declaration to world leaders at the opening of the Rio+20 Summit. Continue reading

Comments Off on Declaration of Kari-Oca II adopted by five hundred Indigenous representatives in sacred ceremony

Filed under Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Rio+20

New report to expose how corporations ‘capture’ the U.N.

From Friends of the Earth International

June 19, 2012, Rio de Janeiro – On June 19, 2012, on the eve of a key United Nations Summit due to take place June 20-22 in Rio De Janeiro [1], Friends of the Earth International will launch a new report exposing the increasing influence of major corporations and business lobby groups within the UN. [2]

“Governmental positions have been increasingly hijacked by narrow corporate interests linked to polluting industries and business sectors seeking to profit from the environment, the climate and the financial crises,” said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.
Continue reading

Comments Off on New report to expose how corporations ‘capture’ the U.N.

Filed under Corporate Globalization, Rio+20