Category Archives: False Solutions to Climate Change

by | 2011-12-15 · 16:33

THE DURBAN CLIMATE SCAM

Cross-Posted from Wihd Wihd Online on Dec 15, 2011 

  • Agreement with “legal force” is “planned” to be ready only by 2015, effective only 2020 
  • Second commitment period for enfeebled Kyoto Protocol

Imagine a mother tells her car-washing twins, who let the water just run from the hosepipe while they are already drying and polishing their beloved SUV – with idling engine and full-blast rap blurring from the speakers – to shut the engine, the car-stereo and first of all the water-tap.

And then imagine the two teens would, while turning the speakers even louder and let the engine revs roar, answer: “Well, we actually thought about this already twenty minutes ago and maybe we should, but we have to first built consensus – so please come back in about three minutes and thereafter, starting from around ten minutes from now, we will tell you if we will shut something down, who of us might shut what and to which extend or if we decide to not shut anything down at all.”

Everybody would assume that upon such response sparks would fly immediately in this scene of the mother and her twins.

But while Mother Earth tells us since the industrial revolution to plug our pollution and to not poison clean air or spoil precious water, and she actually had told us since the agricultural revolution to not cut forests for beef production, the governmental delegates in Durban, all grown up men and women, hug each other and clap and tap each others shoulders – most likely just in relief that no real sparks did fly, which deep down in their own consciousness they realize should actually have created a gigantic and holy fire-blast, cleaning the whole place from all the lies and deceptions.

But nothing like that happened, thanks and no-thanks also to armed Big-Brother-Preparedness of the UN inside and war-hardened South-African security forces outside the conference centre.

While the initial scenario is exactly what happened in Durban – there are only two differences: It’s not minutes, it’s years set as pondering time with no action, and the car-washers are the adult uncles and aunties, who were reminded only by some moderate voices of a few youth and young at heart and brain to better take care. Most of the young global population, who know that it is their future and no any longer the future of those expiring role models holding on to the steering wheel by all means, had no say and even didn’t want to go to this circus.

But who cares, some renegotiable pseudo-promises were printed on recycling papers for the mainstream media to further brainwash and massage the masses about a “landmark achievement”. That’s what counts and also that all available money was spent as well as some new honey-pots were opened for the already rich friends and friends of friends as well as “of course” oneself to prosper.
Distracted by the few coins thrown into their direction, even some representatives of indigenous peoples leave South Africa with the feeling they had achieved something. Well, for people on death-row every day more until the drop-door is opened might be worth celebrating, but is it just and is it a way forward for all? The answer is clearly no! It’s not people’s democracy, its diplomatic democrazy like when eight wolves and one sheep sit around the evening fire and vote what they will have for dinner.

Alas, used to these conference-dances on economic- and war-volcanoes already, the political god-fathers and -mothers, with their two-letter vehicles of EU, US or AU, their entourage on their three or four letter bicycles in tow and the UN bandwagon rumbling along, dance off to the next show ground: Rio+20, with another vision-blurring agenda already set in place and set in motion by the corporate players in the background – so that nothing will change for the better or for all and most importantly nothing must be allowed to change for the present monetary system based on global to local injustices just to prevail. Casino politics with the hope the world turns to shambles already before someone could hold these “officials” responsible.

But it is now only a question of time when the youth and the mentally young and bright finally and really will stand up and close the taps – anywhere and everywhere – and especially on overpaid and under-performing politicians and their entourage. Turning their back on unworthy state-governments is a first step, but certainly not enough, everybody realized.

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by | 2011-12-14 · 14:28

Communitive Organizing: Local is Global

Joaquin Quetzal Sanchez is an organizer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a friend, comrade and office-mate in GJEP’s Oakland office. On returning from Durban, South Africa just now, I discovered Joaquin’s note in my in-box. Among other powerful statements here, Joaquin mentions a moment in Durban when Tere Almaguer, of PODER! in San Francisco, had the chance to directly challenge Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board,  “by reminding Chairwoman Nichols that Nichols did not speak for the 1,000′s of low-income people of color in California who are opposed to California’s cap and trade program.”
Still exhausted after the long trip home from yet another Conference of Polluters, Joaquin’s article reminds me why we go to the trouble of attending these global power summits — because those in Power need to be kept on constant alert that they do not represent the 99% — and sooner or later they are going to have to get out of the way. — Jeff Conant, for GJEP

Communitive Organizing: Local is Global

By Joaquin Quetzal Sanchez, Cross-posted from Queer Resilience in the Climate Crisis,  December 9, 2011

 

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, dubbed the Conference of Pollutors by many in the global movement arena, or COP17, is concluding in Durban, South Africa. Last year, I made the journey to the 10-day conference, COP16, in Cancún, México, where I was ejected from the conference after participating in an act of civil disobedience in protest of the closed-door and high-stakes negotiations that excluded the participation of 1,000′s of campesinos y campesinas in Cancún, and the 99% of people who will be most devastated by climate change. The action I participated in caught the attention of media outlets around the world and most notable in the US was the coverage of the action by Democracy NOW!

Yes, of course it felt cool to see my face and the beautiful brown faces of my peers televised to millions across the world. Yes it was neat to hear my name come out of Amy Goodman’s mouth in the affirmative, and not as a racialized, criminally profiled Latino we’re used to hearing about on the 10 o’clock news. Cooler than the 15 seconds of “fame”, though, is what was achieved during this encuentro of progressive media, grassroots organizing and global solidarity. Before we get to what was and continues to be achieved, I want to provide some more context about where we are.

Industrialization, in the United States especially, has done quite a job of instilling in our consciousness social order and consumer options, even in the minds of those of us who consider ourselves progressive or change-makers. Industrialization has positioned us as consumers with options. While my parents’ generation was a generation that was primarily positioned to consume actual products (i.e. sub-prime mortgages, credit, citizenship), the mutations of the global capitalist economy, from the US (land-based) to the speculative pockets of the “1%”, has left my generation with fewer material options and instead has presented us and subsequent generations with a full menu of identity politics to consume.

The backdrop to this menu of identity politics is a social order, or the way power is organized, also known as hierarchy, which in essence forms power-containers– the ranks or levels of an hierarchy that is navigated through the identities we embody and use to access a power-container, like “white, heterosexual, male”, or the identities we embody and use to critique a power-container, like “queer, woman of color”. As individuals from both sides of the spectrum, we’ve learned to use our identities to access and critique power. As individuals through our experiences navigating and negotiating power, we’ve gained a taste of a major transformation of power. As community, it is our opportunity to bring forth the transformation never before seen, the transformation to restore social and ecological harmony. Are we all on board?

I can only speak from my experience as an environmental justice rights activist and organizer, and as a joto xicano. Having worked within community-based organizations, I have observed some organizational practices that force a separation between “local, community work” and “movement work”. Understandably, many community-based organizations are funded to conduct “community-level” work, but we, as queer and trans folks, people of color, indigenous people, immigrants, women, young people, or any combination of these identities, must be brave and define community for ourselves. From this place, “community” can come to mean the housing complex and neighborhood we live in and our homelands and the homelands of our parents and the spiritual spaces we share with those closest to us who might live hundreds or thousands of miles away. We must not limit the terms of community, instead continue to figure out the conscious means to transform community and make community stronger. It is from this communitive consciousness that we can build the relationships with peoples’ struggles against capitalism around the world.

Over the years I have heard much criticism, from executive directors of non-profit organizations especially, about the choices made by community organizers to participate in “movement” work: national or international conferences, alliance-building gatherings, or convenings that require organizers and leaders to travel to another city.

From what I observe, the biggest reason for censoring organizers’ participation in movement-work is the perception that movement work compromises local work. Often, this patriarchal critique (the “either/or”, “all or nothing” kind of thinking) ventriloquizes itself through heterosexual males or females of color, or white lesbian women or white gay men at these “community-based” organizations. Fast-forward to the present and the most recent round of internal-negotiations at community-based organizations took place as it pertains to the UN Climate Negotiations taking place in Durban.

Acknowledging the real, material, financial, and resource needs of community-based organizations, I write this as an invitation to strengthen and example of how we might redefine “community” in powerful ways. Tere Almaguer is a veteran organizer working with PODER in San Francisco for over 10 years. Tere, along with other PODER staff, and the hundreds of PODER members, have successfully campaigned to convert public lands in San Francisco’s Mission District into public benefits for immigrant families, creating public spaces to for members to share costumbres and recreate the tradiciones that have sustained PODER families for hundreds of years in their homelands, traditions of caring for one another, trusting one another and relying on one another.

In California during 2011, PODER began organizing around climate justice issues affecting PODER members, particularly around cap-and-trade, a false solution to climate change and greenhouse gas emission reductions being put forward at the state-level by private research, private interest groups and a California government agency, the California Air Resources Board, that has ignored the thousands of calls made by low-income people of color in California. Cap-and-trade grants pollution permits to pollutors in exchange for finance ($) or carbon-offests (planting trees on the other side of the world). Thus, cap-and-trade does nothing to ensure the low-income communities of color, the communities MOST affected by pollution and carbon emissions, are alleviated of the environmental and climate burdens that already exist in their local communities.

After organizing political education trainings, preparing and taking direct action throughout the state, Tere and the youth at PODER, along with allied organizations throughout the state such as Communities for a Better Environment and Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, have not been able to bring down cap-and-trade, in spite of the cries from communities throughout the state.

Tere had the opportunity to travel to Durban, South Africa for COP17 with a delegation of grassroots leaders, indigenous climate activists and allies from the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Global Justice and Ecology Project. While Tere was in Durban, PODER members were back home making the connections between their land reclamation work in the Mission District in San Francisco and the debate about REDD’s and carbon market schemes that forcefully displace indigenous peoples and allows polluting sources to continue polluting in low-income communities, indigenous communities, and communities of color in the US.

After more than a week of protesting and meeting people representing struggles for climate justice throughout the world, Tere found herself attending a session at COP17 where Mary Nichols, the chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, was delivering a new way of talking about the cap-and-trade scheme in California that promises GHG reductions for all Californians. Tere intervened in Mary Nichols’ otherwise seamless presentation by reminding Chairwoman Nichols that Nichols did not speak for the 1,000′s of low-income people of color in California who are opposed to the program.

The 1% and private interests groups operate at all levels of the social order we have inherited. Mary Nichols works for a California state agency, is paid with taxpaying dollars, has ignored the widely supported demands of state residents, yet had the resources and time to attend an international conference in Durban, South Africa to advertise a carbon market she is championing. As communitive, conscious organizers and community-based organizations, the hard work at home is compromised if we don’t meet our opponents in the key, strategic places where they arise. It is my hope that as COP17 concludes in Durban and as the countries most responsible for climate change withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, that we begin to look to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20, taking place June 2012, and other international and national convergences in the future; that as we engage in these transnational/translocal politics, we keep in mind- our opponents have become and maintain the “1%” through their exploitation of land, time and people. As the “99%”, our call is to reclaim land, time and the rights of people from the 1%, and, like the desert maguey following the water, that sometimes requires travel.

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Filed under Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Rio+20, UNFCCC

by | 2011-12-13 · 19:07

Indigenous Peoples Condemn Climate Talks Fiasco and Demand Moratoria on REDD+

December 13, 2011 – Indigenous leaders returning from Durban, South Africa condemn the fiasco of the United Nations climate change talks and demand a moratorium on a forest carbon offset scheme called REDD+ which they say threatens the future of humanity and Indigenous Peoples’ very survival. During the UN climate negotiations, a Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD+ and for Life was formed to bring attention to the lack of full recognition of Indigenous rights being problematic in the texts of the UN climate negotiations.

“It was very disappointing that our efforts to strengthen the vague Indigenous rights REDD safeguards from the Cancun Agreements evaporated as the Durban UN negotiations went on. It is clear that the focus was not on strong, binding commitments on Indigenous rights and safeguards, nor limiting emissions, but on creating a framework for financing and carbon markets, which they did. Now Indigenous Peoples’ forests may really be up for grabs,” says Alberto Saldamando, legal counsel participating in the Indigenous Environmental Network delegation.

Berenice Sanchez of the Mesoamerica Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network says, “Instead of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80% like we need, the UN is promoting false solutions to climate change like carbon trading and offsets, through the Clean Development Mechanism and the proposed REDD+ which provide polluters with permits to pollute. The UN climate negotiation is not about saving the climate, it is about privatization of forests, agriculture and the air.”

Tom Goldtooth, Director of Indigenous Environmental Network based in Minnesota, USA does not mince words. “By refusing to take immediate binding action to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions, industrialized countries like the United States and Canada are essentially incinerating Africa and drowning the small island states of the Pacific. The sea ice of the Inupiat, Yupik and Inuit of the Arctic is melting right before their eyes, creating a forced choice to adapt or perish. This constitutes climate racism, ecocide and genocide of an unprecedented scale.”

Of particular concern for indigenous peoples is a forest offset scheme known as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Hyped as a way of saving the climate and paying communities to take care of forests as sponges for Northern pollution, REDD+ is rife with fundamental flaws that make it little more than a green mask for more pollution and the expansion of monoculture tree plantations. The Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD+ and for Life, formed at the Durban UN climate negotiations, call for an immediate moratorium on REDD+-type projects because they fear that REDD+ could result in “the biggest land grab of all time,” thus threatening the very survival of indigenous peoples and local communities.

“At Durban, CDM and REDD carbon and emission offset regimes were prioritized, not emission reductions. All I saw was the UN, World Bank, industrialized countries and private investors marketing solutions to market pollution. This is unacceptable. The solutions for climate change must not be placed in the hands of financiers and corporate polluters. I fear that local communities could increasingly become the victims of carbon cowboys, without adequate and binding mechanisms to ensure that the rights of indigenous peoples and local forested and agricultural communities are respected,” Goldtooth added.

“We call for an immediate moratorium on REDD+-type policies and projects because REDD is a monster that is already violating our rights and destroying our forests,” Monica González of the Kukapa People and Head of Indigenous Issues of the Mexican human rights organization Comision Ciudadana de Derechos Humanos del Noreste.

The President of the Ogiek Council of Elders of the Mau Forest of Kenya, Joseph K. Towett, said “We support the moratorium because anything that hurts our cousins, hurts us all.”

“We will not allow our sacred Amazon rainforest to be turned into a carbon dump. REDD is a hypocrisy that does not stop global warming,” said Marlon Santi, leader of the Kichwa community of Sarayaku, Ecuador and long time participant of UN and climate change meetings.

##

NO REDD Resources http://noredd.makenoise.org/

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Filed under Biodiversity, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Pollution, REDD, UNFCCC

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by | 2011-12-08 · 10:55

Corporate Clown Cast Out of Climate Circus

CODE of CONDUCT CONSERVED; ELITES ELATED as CLIMATE COLLAPSES!

After a press event held by Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP) at COP17 in Durban, South Africa today, one of the panelists, Kevin Buckland, was ejected from the Summit.

Kandi Mossett, Ricardo Navarro, and Clown. Photo: Conant/GJEP

His offence? Clowning around.

The press conference also included Desmond d’Sa of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, Ricardo Navarro of Friends of the Earth El Salvador, Kandi Mossett of the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project. The topic at hand was the failure of COP17 to meet the needs to the great majority of the world’s population, and social movements’ concerns that the looming emergence of the so-called “Green Economy” is bringing a wave of landgrabs, speculative bubbles, and the increasing commodification of all forms of life.

In a gesture intended to stimulate critical thought, to bring levity to the profoundly gloomy conclusions of the COP, and to garner media attention for the grassroots community perspectives that are summarily excluded from this high level global event, a team of clowns, with Buckland as their ringleader, were invited by GJEP to speak on the panel.

Buckland, who has been involved with Occupy COP17 as part of the youth delegation, began his statement to the media with the statement, “I have a dream. My dream is that one day corporations will be judged not for their actions, but for the amount of the earth’s surface that they control.”

Unfortunately, the United Nations failed to get the joke.

While being interviewed following the press conference, Buckland was grabbed and hauled away. His badge was taken, and he was barred from the International Conference Center.

See the interview here:

Photographer Orin Langelle, on assignment for Z Magazine (and, in full disclosure, also the co-Director of Global Justice Ecology Project), followed the clown and his UN Police escort, and received his own share of rough treatment. UN Police “shoved the camera into my face,” says Langelle. The photographer’s vocal reaction, defending his status as a journalist, drew more attention by both UN Security and delegates.

The incident serves to reveal that, in the words of Andrea Palframan, one of the filmmakers who shot the video above, “these negotiations are so corporate controlled that there really is not place for civil society here anymore.”

The backstory, with analysis:

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Green Economy, Media, UNFCCC

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by | · 10:45

UN Security Ejects Youth Delegate Dressed as Uncle Sam Clown; Tells Journalists to Delete Photos

Cross-Posted from GEAR (Global Economic Accountability Research) [Note: GEAR is a fiscally sponsored project of Global Justice Ecology Project]

(GEAR video of press conference below post)

December 8, 2011.
Durban, South Africa

At 12:15pm today, after a press conference hosted by Global Justice Ecology Project, a GJEP panelist dressed as a clown was de-badged and removed from the UNFCCC negotiations.

“Uncle Sam,” identified as Kevin Buckland, art ambassador for 350.org, was stopped in the middle of an interview immediately following the press conference and was escorted out of the building by security. Buckland has been appearing as “Uncle Sam,” the ringleader of a band of corporate clowns, at several outside rallies and events over the past two weeks of the UN climate talks here in Durban, South Africa.

Buckland was informed by UN security that he was breaking the NGO code of conduct, despite repeated affirmations that he was merely giving an interview, and not participating in an action.  This is only the latest in a string of incidents here at COP17 where civil society has been muzzled by “code of conduct” rules arbitrarily imposed by UN security.

Journalist Orin Langelle of Z Magazine and Global Justice Ecology Project was told by UNFCCC Security Guards to stop taking photos and had his camera shoved into his face. Two civil society observers had their cameras taken by security while filming the expulsion process.

Global Justice Ecology Project’s press release promised “…a strong denouncement of the Green Economy, and an end with a band of clowns blowing bubbles and highlighting the absurdity of the whole UNFCCC process.” Buckland, who has organized and performed numerous pieces of political street theatre, was invited to the press conference to provide a satirical view of the corporate capture of the UN climate process, and of the market schemes being advanced under the guise of the new “Green Economy.”

Other panelists during the press conference, including Desmond D’Sa of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance,  Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project, Kandi Mosset of the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Ricardo Nevarro of Friends of the Earth El Salvador, the former President of FOE International, were not bothered after the press conference. Buckland was the only panelist to appear in clown regalia.

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Hydrofracking, Nuclear power, Posts from Anne Petermann

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by | · 10:18

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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by | 2011-12-07 · 11:26

Godwin Ojo from Nigeria, Joins Call for Moratorium on REDD+

by Jeff Conant, GJEP

Godwin Ojo, Berenice Sanchez, and Tom Goldtooth Calling for REDD Moratorium at COP17

When a newly formed group came together at COP17 in Durban to call for a moratorium on REDD+, it was no surprise that some of the conveners were Indigenous Peoples; while there is disagreement within and among Indigenous Peoples’ groups about if and how to reject or accept REDD proposals and the promise of money that they offer, there has been a vocal core of Indigenous Peoples Organizations against REDD for several years.

But the newly formed group, which calls itself Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD and for Life, also includes several Africans. The President of the Ogiek Council of Elders of the Mau Forest of Kenya, Joseph K. Towett, said as the Global Alliance was launched, “We support the moratorium because anything that hurts our cousins, hurts us all.”

REDD proposals are still nascent on much of the African continent, but with the World Bank and the UN FAO pushing “Climate Smart” agriculture and a “landscape approach” to soil carbon as analogues to REDD in Africa; with increasing criticism coming down on REDD+-related projects in Uganda, Cameroon, Congo, and Kenya; and with the UNREDD Program offering $4 million in REDD funding to Nigeria, concern about REDD in Africa is growing.

One of the speakers calling for a moratorium on REDD with the Global Alliance was Godwin Ojo, from Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria. Ojo began by saying “Forest are not carbon sinks, they are food baskets.”

Ojo, like the Indigenous Peoples Organizations from the Americas, Indonesia, and elsewhere, was concerned about the links between REDD and forest plantations: “A rubber plantation about 100 kilometers from where I live has deprived hundreds of farmers of their livelihood. It has violated their rights.”

“We find that most policies affecting indigenous peoples are designed without our participation. If this trend continues, it will lead to a vicious cycle of poverty, and a vicious cycle of violence. This is why we are joining this moratorium – because our forests are our life.”

“We are out with strong support for a moratorium on REDD programs because REDD is an instrument to take away our rights to livelihood. We are opposed to REDD because our forest are not commodities. We have joined this coalition to bring a stop to REDD projects and to alert the world that there will likely be an uprising from below if our voices are not taken into account.”

Photo Credit: Anne Petermann/GJEP

“At the moment,” he went on, “REDD is being used as a divisive instrument to cause confusion, to cause chaos and violence in the communities. It is taking away the rights of indigenous people to community lands, which is then leading to land scarcity, to land being put into markets. The forests and its resources are being privatized, are being marketized.”

Ojo said there are no REDD payments being made yet in Nigeria, “but they are going to kick out the communities and let in the corporations to take over the land. This is what our alliance is about, and this is what we are opposed to.”

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Filed under Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, REDD

by | 2011-12-06 · 04:34

Indigenous Peoples and Allies Call for a Moratorium on REDD+

Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD and for Life Forms in Durban, to build grassroots opposition to REDD

Photo: Jeff Conant/GJEP

December 6, 2011 — Indigenous Peoples participating in the UNFCCC negotiations have called for a moratorium on REDD+ today. In a statement released to the press, the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD and for Life declares: “REDD+ threatens the survival of Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities and could result in the biggest land grab of all time. Based on in-depth investigations, a growing number of recent reports provide evidence that Indigenous Peoples are being subjected to violations of their rights as a result of the implementation of REDD+-type programs and policies.”

Berenice Sanchez, MesoAmerican Indigenous Womens BioDiversity Network, Mexico, said, “The supposed safeguards are voluntary, weak and hidden in the Annex. REDD+-type projects are already violating Indigenous Peoples’ rights throughout the world. We are here to demand an immediate moratorium to stop REDD+-related landgrabs and abuses because of REDD+.”

The President of the Ogiek Council of Elders of the Mau Forest of Kenya, Joseph K. Towett, said “We support the moratorium because anything that hurts our cousins, hurts us all.”

Marlon Santi, former President of the National Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, said, “We are here to express our concern about the false solutions that have made a business out of climate change. For indigenous Peoples, the way of life we maintain in our territories is sacred. Therefore, we see carbon markets as a hypocrisy that will not detain global warming. With this moratorium, we alert our peoples about the risks that come with REDD+: threats against our rights and those of our Mother Earth, with the attempts to turn our lands and our forests into a waste-basket for carbon, while those responsible for the crisis continue reaping the benefits.”

“REDD+, in its readiness phase, has proved that it is not an effective tool for providing binding safeguards. We have seen the problems it causes and we take them extremely seriously,” said Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Basing their alert on the Precautionary Principle[1] and on serious concerns regarding human rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and an increasing spate of reports citing the failure of REDD to protect forests or to mitigate the climate crisis, the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD and for Life calls for an immediate moratorium.

In addition, in the document released to the press today, they call for the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Office of the High  Commissioner on Human Rights, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and other human rights organizations, to investigate and document violations from REDD+-type policies and projects, as well as to prepare reports, to issue recommendations and to establish precautionary measures and reparations to guarantee the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and other instruments and norms.

The call for moratorium was announced at a press conference at UNCOP17 this morning. See the entire press conference on video, here.

The call for a moratorium follows, below:

Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD and for Life

Calls for a Moratorium on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+)

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 17th Conference of the Parties
Durban, South Africa, December 5, 2011

The Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD and for Life calls for a moratorium on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) at the 17th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), until the following concerns are fully addressed and resolved. However, we reserve the right to expand these demands.

Our call for a moratorium is based upon the precautionary principle which says that, “when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not established scientifically.” The moratorium that we are demanding is the precaution that must be taken to ensure our rights and our environment because the majority of the forests of the world are found in the land and territories of indigenous peoples.

REDD+ threatens the survival of Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities and could result in the biggest land grab of all time. Based on in depth investigations, a growing number of recent reports provides evidence that Indigenous Peoples are being subjected to violations of their rights as a result of the implementation of REDD+-type policies and programs, including: the right to life of objectors to REDD+,  forced displacements and involuntary resettlement, the loss of lands, territories and resources, means of subsistence, food sovereignty and security, and the imposition of so-called “alternative livelihoods” that lead to separation of our people from their communities, cultures y traditional knowledge. Similarly, our rights to free, prior and informed consent, self-determination and autonomy consecrated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIPs) are also violated. It is worth noting that the United Nations itself recognizes that REDD+ could result in the “lock-up of forests”. Furthermore, REDD+ is portrayed as a vehicle for strengthening land tenure rights, but, in fact, is used to weaken them.

We denounce that the safeguards contained in the Cancun Accords do not provide a framework that prevents or halts the violation of our individual and collective rights established by UNDRIPs; given that they do not establish legally binding obligations or mechanisms to guarantee our rights, present complaints, or demand reparations. The efforts we have made to strengthen human rights safeguards at COP 17 have been rebuffed by relevant Contact Groups of SBSTA and LCA within the UNFCCC process.

REDD+ and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) promote the privatization and commodification of forests, trees and air through carbon markets and offsets from forests, soils, agriculture and could even include the oceans. This could commodify almost the entire surface of Mother Earth, hurts our relationship with the sacred and violates the rights of Mother Earth. We denounce that carbon markets are a hypocrisy that will not stop global warming.

We also share our profound concern that the sources of financing for REDD+ carbon offsets come from the private sector and carbon markets, which extractive industries are involved in. Carbon markets and REDD+ convert our territories and forests into carbon dumps, while those most responsible for the climate crisis do not commit to legally binding reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and continue to make profits. The World Bank itself has reported that the “financial flows required for climate stabilization and adaptation, will in the long run be mainly private in composition.”

REDD+ not only harms Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but also damages the environment. REDD+ promotes industrial plantations and could include planting genetically modified trees. Perverse incentives are already increasing deforestation and the substitution of native forests with monocultures.

REDD+ jeopardize the human future and the balance of Mother Earth because it entrenches fossil fuel use, which is the major cause of the climate crisis. According to the Director of NASA, James Hansen, the world’s most distinguished climatologist, “industrialized countries could offset 24-69% of their emissions via the CDM and REDD… thus avoiding the necessary domestic cuts that are required to peak emissions around 2015.”

REDD+-type projects lead to conflicts within and between indigenous communities and other vulnerable populations. The loss of traditional use of forest, financial incentives, converting forests into commodities, financial speculation and land grabs undermine our traditional systems of governance, generate conflicts.

Furthermore, every time that a community signs a REDD+ contract in a developing country, which provides pollution credits for the fossil fuel industry and other entities responsible for climate change, it allows environmental destruction and hurts vulnerable communities elsewhere, including in the North. By favoring continued exploitation and burning of fossil fuels, REDD+ allows for the continuation of pollution in industrialized countries, further threatening communities in the North that are already overburdened by these impacts. It is not possible to reform or regulate REDD+ to prevent this situation.

Due to the problems of calculating baselines, leakage, permanence, monitoring, reporting and verification that policy makers and methodology designers are not willing and cannot solve, REDD+ is undermining the climate regime and violating the principle of common but differentiated responsibility established under the UNFCCC. Pollution credits generated by REDD+ obstruct the only workable solution to climate change: keeping oil, coal and gas in the ground. Like the carbon credits produced under the Kyoto Protocol’s CDM, REDD+ is not intended to achieve real emissions reductions, but merely to “compensate” for excessive fossil fuel use elsewhere.

Furthermore, biotic carbon – the carbon stored in forests – can never be the climatic equivalent to fossilized carbon kept underground. Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels adds to the overall burden of carbon perpetually circulating between the atmosphere, vegetation, soils and oceans. This inequivalence, among many other complexities, makes REDD carbon accounting impossible, allowing carbon traders to inflate the value of REDD carbon credits with impunity.

Based on the above, we urgently call for the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Office of the High  Commissioner on Human Rights, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and human rights organizations to investigate and document the violations from REDD+-type policies and projects, as well as

to prepare reports, issue recommendations and establish precautionary measures and reparations to guarantee the implementation of UNDRIPs and other instruments and norms.

In summary, REDD+-type policies and projects are moving too quickly, allowing crucial human rights and environmental concerns to be sidelined or dismissed. We reaffirm the need for the moratorium on REDD+. In conclusion, we emphasize that forests are most successfully conserved and managed with indigenous governance of the collective lands and territories of Indigenous Peoples.

 

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