Category Archives: UN

by | 2012-06-15 · 07:59

Rio+20 Alternative Peoples’ Summit opens today: People of the world vs. the “green economy” and global economic foreclosure

By Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

Today is the opening day of the Cupola dos Povos–the alternative Peoples’ Summit for Environmental and Social Justice in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

It was pulled together by Brazilian groups and is being attended by social movements, Indigenous Peoples, activists and organizations from all over the world who are coming together to identify real solutions to the multiple and rising crises we face as humans on planet Earth.  The summit was organized in direct opposition to the official UN circus known as the Rio+20 Conference for Sustainable Development.  More aptly it would be called the Rio+20 Conference for the greenwashing of Business as Usual.

As I flew to Rio on 12 June, I read an article in the Financial Times titled “Showdown Looms at OPEC After Saudi Arabia Urges Higher Output.”  The article explained how Saudi Arabia is urging OPEC to increase their output of oil in order to ensure that the global price of oil does not exceed US$100/barrel in order to “mitigate the risks that high oil prices pose to the global economy.”

The insane logic of expanding oil production in the face of mounting climate chaos in order to help rescue the global economy accurately reflects the mindset behind the negotiations around the UN’s Rio+20 Earth Summit, set to start next week here in Rio.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Posts from Anne Petermann, REDD, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Rio+20, World Bank

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by | · 06:41

Peasants of the world mobilize against green capitalism in Rio

News, pctures and videos on www.viacampesina.org

(Rio de Janeiro, 14 June, 2012) About 3000 people from around the world will mobilize to say NO to the commodification of life and nature at the Peoples Summit for Social and Environmental Justice and in Defense of the Commons.

The peoples Summit is a space for discussion, debate and construction of alternative proposals by the global civil society, social movements and peoples collective organizations. La Via Campesina has been actively participating in the construction of this activity in order to denounce the false solutions of the same failed economic model that is now being dressed in green under the name “green economy”. La Via Campesina is instead promoting peasants sustainable agriculture as a true solution to the global climatic and environmental crises.

The delegation of La Via Campesina will participate in various plenaries as well as the global mobilization that will take place on the 20th of June concentrating at the junction of the roads Av. Rio Branco and Av Presidente Vargas in Rio de Janeiro. La Via Campesina has been actively participating in the planning of the Peoples Summit that will take place as a parellel activity to the UN conference on Sustainable Development or Rio + 20. This meeting marks the twentieth aniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio 92 or Eco 92).

The most important political space in the Peoples Summit will be the Peoples Permanant Assembly that will organize around three main themes: The denouncement of the structural causes of global poverty and environmental crisis as well as the new forms of the reproduction of capital; Peoples real solutions and new paradigms; and the agendas, campaigns and mobilizations of anticapitalist struggles after Rio +20.

La Via Campesina is an international movement that brings together about 200 million peasants, small and medium-sized producers, landless, rural workers and indigenous people from around the world. LVC advocates sustainable small scale peasant’s agriculture as a means of promoting social justice and dignity. The organization brings together more than 150 organizations in about 70 countries of Africa, Asia, Europe and America.

Link to document – La Via Campesina’s position on Rio+20

To facilitate interviews with peasants from different continents we have available a list of spokespersons of La Via Campesina as well as the overall agenda of the Summit.

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Filed under Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Rio+20

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by | 2012-06-14 · 13:51

KPFK Audio: GJEP’s Anne Petermann reports from Rio on the Rio+20 Earth Summit and Alternative Peoples’ Summit

Today as the official negotiations continue in preparation for the upcoming Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development–also known as the Rio+20 Earth Summit–KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show interviewed Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP) Executive Director Anne Petermann, who is on the ground in Rio about the Rio+20 summit, which starts on 20 June, as well as the alternative Peoples’ Summit, which starts on 15 June.

To listen to the 15 minute interview, click here: Rio+20 interview with GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann on KPFK

Global Justice Ecology Project will be in Rio to report on and campaign around both the official UN meetings and the alternative Peoples’ Summmit, from 15 June to 23 June. Stay tuned to this blog for daily news and reports.  Beginning Tuesday, 19 June GJEP will be partnering with the Sojourner Truth show to provide daily interviews on the events in Rio.

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, Earth Radio, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Posts from Anne Petermann, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Rio+20

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by | 2012-06-13 · 16:00

IBON International: “Put rights and Rio principles at the heart of Rio+20”

IBON International and Rights for Sustainability Delegation at Rio+20 Summit

Rio de Janeiro, Wednesday, June 13, 2012 — IBON International’s 34-strong “Rights for Sustainability” delegation of civil society representatives from Asia, Africa and Latin America arrived in Rio today with the message, “Put Rights and the Rio Principles at the Heart of Rio+20.”

The Rights for Sustainability (R4S) delegation is an advocacy platform coordinated by Philippines-based civil society organisation IBON International to push for a rights-based approach to sustainable development. It will be involved in a series of side events at Rio+20 as well as monitoring continuing negotiations on the summit outcome document in the Preparatory Committee (Prep Com) meetings at Rio Centro, and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development itself. IBON International coordinates the NGO Rights and Equity Cluster for Rio+20.
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Filed under Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Rio+20

by | · 10:00

Rio + 20: IITC joins Indigenous Peoples from around the world to call for a new model of development

“Indigenous Peoples continue to challenge the development model based on resource extraction and market-based models, which fails to recognize that we human beings are an integral part of the natural world, and also fails to respect human rights, including the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

—“Indigenous Peoples in Route to the Rio +20 Conference,” Global Preparatory Meeting of Indigenous Peoples, August 22 – 24, 2011, Manaus, Brazil

The International Indian Treaty Council is pleased to be a part of two great events during the upcoming Rio +20 Conference in Brazil. Please click title for more information.

“Indigenous Peoples, Food Sovereignty and Sustainable Development”, June 14, 5:30 – 7 PM, Room T-4, Rio Centro, Avenida Salvador Allende, 6555 – Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND SELF-DETERMINATION, “Standing Together for our Food Sovereignty, Traditional Cultures and Ways of Life” JUNE 17TH – 19TH, 2012, Museu da República, Rua do Catete 153, Catete, cep 22220 000


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

by | 2012-06-12 · 15:00

Climate Connections exclusive: World Agricultural Report, ignored by states, promotes agroecology

By Laetitia Mailhes

Producing food is undoubtedly the most vital of all human activities. Yet, in conversations about climate change, agriculture has been astoundingly overlooked. General approaches to climate have typically focused on energy, or, at best, on the vague marker of ‘sustainability’.

Yet, agriculture is the elephant in the room. Think about it: agriculture is about environmental conservation (lest we waste away the natural resources we depend on, such as soil, clean water, biodiversity, fisheries, forests), energy use (dependency on fossil fuels makes our food system extremely vulnerable to oil price volatility and availability), public health, social justice, local communities, land rights, economic security. You name it: food and farming are at the heart of every issue on the table.
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Filed under Climate Change, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Rio+20

by | · 10:10

Civil society groups denounce Sustainable Energy for All initiative promoted at Rio+20 Earth Summit

As the final negotiations for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 conference get underway in Rio de Janeiro, almost 50 civil society groups have published an open letter denouncing the UN Secretary General’s new “Sustainable Energy For All Initiative” (SEFA). The letter states: “The SEFA process and Action Agenda are deeply flawed and threaten to further entrench destructive, polluting and unjust energy policies for corporate profit under the guise of alleviating energy poverty, while undermining community rights to energy sovereignty and self determination.”

The “Sustainable Energy for All” initiative was announced in September 2011, and a “high level panel” was established by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon. The panel includes major investors in the fossil fuel economy including, Statoil, Eskom, Siemens and Riverstone Holdings. The initiative’s stated goals are to 1) double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency, 2) double the share of renewables in the global energy mix by 2030, and 3) provide access to modern energy services for all of humanity. An action agenda is being put forward for endorsement at Rio+20, along with commitments for action from countries and groups.

Groups denouncing the initiative view it as an attempt to use claims of poverty alleviation to further expand corporate control over energy policies with the aim of gaining access to new markets and investment opportunities. The letter points out that the initiative’s goals are inadequate,that it promotes dangerous and unsustainable forms of energy and that there is a deplorable lack of transparency and democratic participation in the process thus far.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Africa, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Industrial agriculture, Land Grabs, Rio+20

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by | 2012-06-08 · 16:00

Rights of nature at the 2012 Earth Summit (Rio+20)

NOTE: GJEP will be traveling to the Rio+20 Earth Summit and the People’s Summit in Rio de Janerio Brazil next week, where we will be participating in actions to advocate for environmental human rights, as well as covering the events for Climate Connections, KPFK Radio, Alternet, Yes! Magazine, and Earth Island Journal. One of the issues dear to our movement is the Rights of Mother Earth, which we will be promoting along with our friends at the Indigenous Environmental Network and other allies. Global Exchange will be launching a report on the Rights of Mother Earth and the ‘green economy,’ described below in an advance note by Shannon Biggs. Anne Petermann and Jeff Conant of GJEP co-authored an essay that will be published in this collection. — GJEP

 By Shannon Biggs, cross-posted from Global Exchange

 “There is no word for NATURE in my language. ‘Nature’ in English, seems to refer to that which is separate from human beings. It is a distinction we don’t recognize.”  

–Audrey Shenandoah, Clan Mother of the Onondaga Nation

The UN Earth Summit, known as Rio+20, will be held June 20th-22nd, 2012 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

If you’re old enough to recall, think back to 1992: the year of the original Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Way back then—in the days before space-age smart-phones, when newspapers were delivered daily by a kid on a bike, and college tuition was within reach for the working class—the human race was concerned about what we were doing to the planet. The attention of a hopeful world was focused on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for a historic gathering of nations, tasked with developing solutions for the emerging crisis of climate change, environmental degradation and increasing poverty.
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