Category Archives: False Solutions to Climate Change

by | 2012-12-06 · 10:40

Doha: Forest groups denounce false solutions to forest loss at UN climate summit

From Global Forest Coalition, Biofuelwatch and Global Justice Ecology Project

For immediate release – 6 December 2012

UK alleges it will address drivers of climate change – but aims to subsidise a massive expansion of wood-based biomass industry

Doha, Qatar – As negotiations failed to finalise an agreement on a controversial forest policy called REDD+ [1] during the ongoing UN Framework Convention on Climate Change talks in Doha, Qatar [2], forest groups published a letter challenging claims that the drivers of forest change are being addressed by countries within the REDD+ negotiations.

Negotiations on REDD+ turned sour in Doha as developing countries realised they can expect very little funding for this highly controversial forest scheme over the coming years. “The REDD honeymoon is obviously over” states Simone Lovera, executive director of the Global Forest Coalition, who followed the talks.

Furthermore, at the same time that REDD+ is being promoted within the UNFCCC to supposedly protect forest carbon, there is a massive expansion of the biomass industry underway, which will generate increased international trade in wood. This is being actively supported by governments such as that of the UK, and will dwarf any attempts made to protect forests within the UNFCCC.

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Filed under Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, GE Trees, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Illegal logging, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial agriculture, Land Grabs, REDD, UNFCCC

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by | 2012-12-05 · 13:30

Making Contact Radio: Saving or Selling the Planet? REDD, Climate Change and Indigenous Lands | National Radio Project

Note: This episode of Making Contact is based upon the Global Justice Ecology Project DVD “A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests,” produced earlier this year.

To order a copy of the DVD, which includes two bonus features, email: info@globaljusticeecology.org

To listen to the Making Contact episode, click the link below:

making contact

Saving or Selling the Planet? REDD, Climate Change and Indigenous Lands | National Radio Project.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Carbon Trading, Chiapas, Climate Change, Earth Radio, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Illegal logging, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration

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by | 2012-11-27 · 15:30

Earth Minute: Why Doha is not where climate justice will happen

Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Pacifica Los Angeles for a weekly Earth Minute each Tuesday and a weekly Earth Watch interview each Thursday.

This week’s Earth Minute addresses the UN climate talks in Doha, Qatar, and why many climate justice organizations have decided not to attend this year’s climate conference, and are organizing with social movements and communities instead.

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Filed under Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, Earth Minute, Earth Radio, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Geoengineering, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Oil, REDD, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Synthetic Biology, UNFCCC

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by | · 13:50

Q&A with Patrick Bond: COP18, another ‘Conference of Polluters’

Note: Most people who are paying attention have pretty meager hopes for success in Doha.  In the interview below, Patrick Bond explains why Doha will certainly be one of many failures in the history of the UNFCCC ‘Conference of Polluters’.  From corporate influence to bribery and bullying by the US and World Bank, the odds are stacked against anyone hoping for real climate solutions this time around.  As Bond-a longtime friend and colleague of GJEP-alludes to in the interview, real solutions are going to come from the ability of social movements to overcome corporate tyranny.

-The GJEP Team

By Busani Bafana, November 27, 2012.  Source: Inter Press Service

Professor Patrick Bond

There is no political will among rich nations to find funding for developing countries experiencing the brunt of changes in global weather patterns, and the current climate change conference will fail to do so, according to Professor Patrick Bond, a leading thinker and analyst on climate change issues.

“The elites continue to discredit themselves at every opportunity. The only solution is to turn away from these destructive conferences and avoid giving the elites any legitimacy, and instead, to analyse and build the world climate justice movement and its alternatives,” Bond, a political economist and also the director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, told IPS.

As the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) began in Doha, Qatar on Monday Nov. 26, Bond described past COPs as “conferences of polluters”. He believes COP18 will be no different.

“Qatar is an entirely appropriate host country for the next failed climate conference. On grounds of gender, race, class and social equity, environment, civil society voice and democracy, it’s a feudal zone, and the Arab world’s best mass media, Doha-based Al Jazeera, can’t tell the truth at home,” said the professor and author of the book, “Politics of Climate Justice”.
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Filed under Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, UNFCCC, World Bank

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by | 2012-11-19 · 15:36

Should Chiapas farmers suffer for California’s carbon?

Note: Jeff Conant is the former Communications Director for Global Justice Ecology Project.  In March of 2011, he and Orin Langelle, then Co-Director of GJEP, went to Amador Hernandez in Chiapas, Mexico to investigate the threatened forced relocation of the community and its relation to REDD+ and the California-Chiapas-Acre, Brazil climate deal.

–The GJEP Team

By Jeff Conant, November 13 2012. Source: Yes! Magazine

Photo: Jeff Conant

“We are not responsible for climate change—it’s the big industries that are,” said Abelardo, a young man from the Tseltal Mayan village of Amador Hernández in the Lacandon jungle of Chiapas. “So why should we be held responsible, and even punished for it?”

Abelardo was one of dozens of villagers who had traveled to the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas to protest an international policy meeting on climate change and forest conservation. At a high-end conference center, representatives from the state of California and from states and provinces around the world were working out mechanisms intended to mitigate climate change by protecting tropical forests. The group was called the Governor’s Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF), and California’s interest was in using forest preservation in Chiapas as a carbon offset—a means for meeting climate change goals under the state’s 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act.

Such an agreement among subnational governments is unprecedented, and California officials view it as an important way for the world’s eighth largest economy to help the developing world. But judging from the reaction on the streets of San Cristóbal, Mexican peasants see it differently. The lush, mountainous state of Chiapas has a long history of human rights abuses, and the Mexican government has forcibly evicted indigenous families from their lands in the name of environmental protection. To indigenous peasants in the Lacandon jungle, the pending agreement has all the hallmarks of a land grab.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Carbon Trading, Chiapas, Climate Change, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Green Economy, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD

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by | 2012-11-15 · 15:27

Special Report! KPFK Earth Watch: GJEP’s Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle, and Clayton Thomas-Muller of Indigenous Environmental Network

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director Anne Petermann, Board Chair Orin Langelle, and Board Member Clayton Thomas-Muller are on the ground in Los Angeles today for a special one hour nationally-aired episode of the Sojourner Truth show.

-The GJEP Team

GJEP executive director Anne Petermann, GJEP board chair and photojournalist Orin Langelle, and GJEP board member and Indigenous Environmental Network’s Tar Sands Campaigner Clayton Thomas-Muller join Sojourner Truth for a special Earth Watch.  They discuss the interlinkages between climate change, indigenous rights, tar sands, genetically engineered trees, and the global struggle for climate justice.


Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show for weekly Earth Minutes every Tuesday and Earth Watch interviews every Thursday.

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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, Earth Radio, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Tar Sands

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by | 2012-11-06 · 10:30

KPFK Sojourner Truth Earth Minute: WW4 Report’s Bill Weinberg on Hurricane Sandy

Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show for weekly Earth Minutes every Tuesday and Earth Segment interviews every Thursday.

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Filed under Climate Change, Earth Radio, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change

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by | 2012-10-26 · 16:45

As international talks stall, Romney, Obama omit climate change from debates

Note: Free Speech Radio News interviewed Executive Director Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project for this story.  –The GJEP Team

October 23, 2012. Source: Free Speech Radio News

In the final debate between President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, the conversation veered from Middle East foreign policy to education to the upcoming threat of a budget sequester. But despite a campaign season marked by droughts, natural disasters, resource-driven conflicts and failed global carbon negotiations, both candidates were completely silent on climate change. Some environmental experts say the increasingly unstable climate will impact nearly every major issue the next president must tackle, including key decisions in US foreign policy. FSRN’s Alice Ollstein reports.

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Earth Radio, False Solutions to Climate Change, Independent Media, Posts from Anne Petermann

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