Category Archives: UN

by | 2012-03-26 · 11:03

Human Rights at Risk at the UN–on the Road to the Rio+20 Summit

Note: Unfortunately, those of us at GJEP who have been working with UN bodies including the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Climate Convention and the UN Forum on Forests, are not at all surprised by the attempt by the UN to eliminate human rights to food and water from the draft text for the upcoming UN Rio+20 summit in June.  After all, the UN is run by corporations and their greedy henchmen, just as much as governments are.  Since 2004 we have watched the steady decline of civil society’s ability to participate in these UN fora, while at the same time seeing doors open wide to the profit-makers.  This is yet one more example of why we need a peoples’ process–a truly democratic forum that enables communities to come up with real solutions to the crises we face–and kick these corporate SOBs out of the process and right onto their A##.

–Anne Petermann, for the GJEP Team

We – civil society organizations and social movements attending the call of the UN General Assembly to participate in the Rio+20 process – feel that is our duty to call the attention of relevant authorities and citizens of the World to a situation that severely threatens the rights of people and undermines the relevance of the United Nations.

Remarkably, we are witnessing an attempt by a few countries to weaken, or “bracket” or outright eliminate nearly all references to human rights obligations and equity principles in the text, “The Future We Want”, for the outcome of Rio+20.

This includes references to the Right to Food and proper nutrition, the Right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, the Right to Development and others.  The Rights to a clean and healthy environment, which is essential to the realization of fundamental human rights, remains weak in the text.  Even principles already agreed upon in Rio in 1992 are being bracketed – the Polluter Pays Principle, Precautionary Principle, Common But Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR).

Many member states are opposing prescriptive language that commits governments to actually do what they claim to support in principle. On the other hand, there is a strong push for private sector investments and initiatives to fill in the gap left by the public sector.

Although economic tools are essential to implement and mainstream the decisions aiming for sustainability, social justice and peace, a private economy rationale should not prevail over the fulfillment of human needs and the respect of planetary boundaries. Therefore a strong institutional framework and regulation is needed. Weakly regulated markets already proved to be a threat not only to people and nature, but to economy itself, and to nation states.. The economy must work for people, not people work for markets.

From the ashes of World War II humanity gathered to build institutions aiming to build peace and prosperity for all, avoiding further suffering and destruction. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights spells out this collective will, and the United Nations organization was created to make it a reality. Outrageously, this very institution is now being used to attack the very rights it should safeguard, leaving people at the mercy of ?? and putting the very relevance of UN at stake.

We urge member states to bring back the Rio+20 negotiations on track to deliver the people’s legitimate agenda, the realization of rights, democracy and sustainability.

We call on the UN Secretary General to stand up for the legacy of the United Nations by ensuring that Rio+20 builds on the multi-generational effort for rights as the foundation of peace and prosperity.

We urge our fellow citizens of the world to stand up for the future we want, and let their voices be heard.  For that the Rio+20 process should be improved following the proposals we submit below.

On Greater participation for Major Groups

We are concerned by the continuing exclusion of Major Groups from the formal negotiating process of the Rio+20 zero draft.  Unlike in the Preparatory Committee Meetings and the Intersessional Meetings, Major Groups and other Stakeholders have not been allowed to present revisions or make statements on the floor of the meeting.  Nor, we suspect will we be allowed to make submissions or participate fully in the working negotiation group meetings that are likely to follow.  Despite the UN NGLS having compiled a text that shows all the revisions suggested by Major Groups, these revisions to the zero draft have so far not been included in the official negotiating text.

We request that the Major Groups be given the opportunity to submit suggestions and wording which would then be added to the official text for consideration, indication of support or deletion, and potential inclusion by governments.

We appeal to the UNCSD Secretary General to urgently reverse this state of affairs and to ensure that Major Groups have a seat at the table and a voice in the room where the negotiations are taking place.  Please ensure that at the very least, Major Groups are allowed a formal statement at the commencement of the next negotiating session and at every session where a new draft text is introduced.”

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Corporate Globalization, Food Sovereignty, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Posts from Anne Petermann, Rio+20, Water

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by | 2012-02-17 · 14:16

Video: Fake Forest Day in Durban, South Africa during Conference of Polluters

Fake Forest Day was held on Sunday, December 4th in the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa during the UN Conference of Polluters (COP-17).  Below is a short video summarizing the presentations of this day-long event, organized by Global Forest Coalition and Timberwatch Coalition.

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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, REDD, UNFCCC

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by | 2012-02-16 · 13:10

Reclaiming our future: Rio +20 and Beyond: La Vía Campesina Call to action

(Español debajo)

On 20-22 June 2012, governments from around the world will gather in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to commemorate 20 years of the “Earth Summit”, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) that first established a global agenda for “sustainable development”. During the 1992 summit, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Convention to Combat Desertification, were all adopted. The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was also established to ensure effective follow-up of the UNCED “Earth Summit.”

Twenty years later, governments should have reconvened to review their commitments and progress, but in reality the issue to debate will be the “green economy” led development, propagating the same capitalist model that caused climate chaos and other deep social and environmental crises.

La Vía Campesina will mobilize for this historical moment, representing the voice of the millions of peasants and indigenous globally who are defending the well-being of all by implementing food sovereignty and the protection of natural resources.

20 Years later: a planet in crisis

20 years after the Earth Summit, life has become more difficult for the majority of the planet’s inhabitants. The number of hungry people has increased to almost one billion, which means that one out of six human beings is going hungry, women and small farmers being the most affected. Meanwhile, the environment is depleting fast, biodiversity is being destroyed, water resources are getting scarce and contaminated and the climate is in crisis. This is jeopardizing our very future on Earth while poverty and inequalities are increasing.

The idea of “Sustainable Development” put forward in 1992, which merged “development” and “environment” concerns, did not solve the problem because it did not stop the capitalist system in its race towards profit at the expense of all human and natural resources:

– The food system is increasingly in the grips of large corporations seeking profit, not aimed at feeding the people.

– The Convention on Biodiversiy has created benefit sharing mechanisms but at the end of the day, they legitimize the capitalization of genetic resources by the private sector.

– The UN Convention on Climate Change, instead of forcing countries and corporations to reduce pollution, invented a new profitable and speculative commodity with the carbon trading mechanisms, allowing the polluter to continue polluting and profit from it.

The framework of “sustainable development” continues to see peasant agriculture as backwards and responsible for the deterioration of natural resources and the environment. The same paradigm of development is perpetuated, which is nothing less than the development of capitalism by means of a “green industrialization.”

The “Green Economy” – Final Enclosure?

Today the “greening of the economy” pushed forward in the run-up to Rio+20 is based on the same logic and mechanisms that are destroying the planet and keeping people hungry. For instance, it seeks to incorporate aspects of the failed “green revolution” in a broader manner in order to ensure the needs of the industrial sectors of production, such as promoting the uniformity of seeds, patented seeds by corporation, genetically modified seeds, etc.

The capitalist economy, based on the over-exploitation of natural resources and human beings, will never become “green.” It is based on limitless growth in a planet that has reached its limits and on the commoditization of the remaining natural resources that have until now remained un-priced or in control of the public sector.

In this period of financial crisis, global capitalism seeks new forms of accumulation. It is during these periods of crisis in which capitalism can most accumulate. Today, it is the territories and the commons which are the main target of capital. As such, the green economy is nothing more than a green mask for capitalism. It is also a new mechanism to appropriate our forests, rivers, land… of our territories!

Since last year’s preparatory meetings towards Rio+20, agriculture has been cited as one of the causes of climate change. Yet no distinction is made in the official negotiations between industrial and peasant agriculture, and no explicit difference between their effects on poverty, climate and other social issues we face.

The “green economy” is marketed as a way to implement sustainable development for those countries which continue to experience high and disproportionate levels of poverty, hunger and misery. In reality, what is proposed is another phase of what we identify as “green structural adjustment programs” which seek to align and re-order the national markets and regulations to submit to the fast incoming “green capitalism”.

Investment capital now seeks new markets through the “green economy”; securing the natural resources of the world as primary inputs and commodities for industrial production, as carbon sinks or even for speculation. This is being demonstrated by increasing land grabs globally, for crop production for both export and agrofuels. New proposals such as “climate smart” agriculture, which calls for the “sustainable intensification” of agriculture, also embody the goal of corporations and agri-business to over exploit the earth while labeling it “green”, and making peasants dependent on high-cost seeds and inputs. New generations of polluting permits are issued for the industrial sector, especially those found in developed countries, such as what is expected from programs such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD++) and other environmental services schemes.

The green economy seeks to ensure that the ecological and biological systems of our planet remain at the service of capitalism, by the intense use of various forms of biotechnologies, synthetic technologies and geo-engineering. GMO’s and biotechnology are key parts of the industrial agriculture promoted within the framework of “green economy”.

The promotion of the green economy includes calls for the full implementation of the WTO Doha Round, the elimination of all trade barriers to incoming “green solutions,” the financing and support of financial institutions such as the World Bank and projects such as US-AID programs, and the continued legitimization of the international institutions that serve to perpetuate and promote global capitalism.

Why peasant farmers mobilize

Small-scale farmers, family farmers, landless people, indigenous people, migrants – women and men – are now determined to mobilize to oppose any commodification of life and to propose another way to organize our relationship with nature on earth based on agrarian reform, food sovereignty and peasant based agroecology.

We reject the “Green Economy” as it is pushed now in the Rio+20 process. It is a new mask to hide an ever-present, growing greed of corporations and food imperialism in the world.

  • We oppose carbon trading and all market solutions to the environmental crisis including the proposed liberalization of environmental services under the WTO.
  • We reject REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) which allows rich countries to avoid cutting their carbon emissions by financing often damaging projects in developing countries.
  • We expose and reject the corporate capture of the rio+20 process and all multilateral processes within the United Nations.
  • We oppose land grabs, water grabs, seeds grabs, forest grabs – all resources’ grabs!
  • We defend the natural resources in our countries as a matter of national and popular sovereignty, to face the offensive and private appropriation of capital;
  • We demand public policies from governments for the protection of the interests of the majority of the population, especially the poorest, and landless workers;
  • We demand a complete ban on geoengineering projects and experiments; under the guise of ‘green’ or ‘clean’ technology to the benefit of agribusiness. This includes new technologies being proposed for adaptation and mitigation to climate change under the banners of “geo-engineering” and “climate smart agriculture”, including false solutions like transgenic plants supposed to adapt to climate change, and “biochar” purported to replenish the soil with carbon.
  • We resolve to protect our native seeds and our right to exchange seeds.
  • We demand genuine agrarian reform that distributes and redistributes the land – the main factor in production – especially taking into account women and youth. Land must be a means of production to secure the livelihood of the people and must not be a commodity subject to speculation on international markets. We reject “market assisted land reform”, which is another word for land privatization.
  • We struggle for small scale sustainable food production for community and local consumption as opposed to agribusiness, monoculture plantations for export.
  • We continue to organize and practice agroecology based production, ensuring food sovereignty for all and implementing collective management of our resources

Call to action

We call for a major world mobilization to be held between 18-26 June in Rio de Janeiro, with a permanent camp, for the Peoples Summit, to counter the summit of governments and capital.

We will be in Rio at the People’s Summit where anti-capitalist struggles of the world will meet and together we will propose real solutions. The People’s Permanent Assembly, between the 18 and 22, will present the daily struggles against the promoters of capitalism y the attacks against our lands. Today, Rio de Janeiro is one of the cities which receive the most contributions from global capital and will host the Soccer World Cup and Olympics. We will unite our symbolic struggles from the urban to the landless movements and fishers.

We also declare the week of June 5th, as a major world week in defense of the environment and against transnational corporations and invite everyone across the world to mobilize:

  • Defend sustainable peasant agriculture
  • Occupy land for the production of agroecological and non-market dominated food
  • Reclaim and exchange native seeds
  • Protest against Exchange and Marketing Board offices and call for an end to speculative markets on commodities and land
  • Hold local assemblies of People Affected by Capitalism
  • Dream of a different world and create it!!

The future that we want is based on Agrarian Reform, Peasant’s based sustainable agriculture and Food Sovereignty!

GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE!!

GLOBALIZE HOPE!!!

—

La Via Campesina
Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers. We are an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic, or other type of affiliation. Born in 1993, La Via Campesina now gathers about 150 organisations in 70 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

International Operational Secretariat:
Jln. Mampang Prapatan XIV no 5 Jakarta Selatan 12790, Indonesia
Tel/fax: +62-21-7991890/+62-21-7993426
Email: viacampesina@viacampesina.org

__________________________________

Llamado a la acción de La Vía Campesina

Recuperando nuestro futuro: Río +20 y más allá

Entre los días 20 y 22 de junio de 2012, los gobiernos de todo el mundo se reunirán en Río de Janeiro, Brasil, para conmemorar los 20 años de la “Cumbre de la Tierra”, la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Medio Ambiente y el Desarrollo (CNUMAD), que estableció por primera vez una agenda global para el “desarrollo sostenible”. Durante la cumbre de 1992 se adoptaron la Convención sobre la Diversidad Biológica (CDB), la Convención de Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (CMNUCC) y la Convención de Lucha contra la Desertificación. También se estableció La Comisión sobre el Desarrollo Sostenible (CDS) para garantizar el seguimiento efectivo de la “Cumbre de la Tierra”.

Veinte años después, los gobiernos hubieran tenido que volver a reunirse para reseñar sus compromisos y sus avances, pero en realidad el tema a debate será el desarrollo basado en la “economía verde”, propagando el mismo modelo capitalista que causó el caos climático y otras profundas crisis económicas, sociales y ambientales.

La Vía Campesina se movilizará para este acontecimiento histórico, representando la voz de las campesinas, campesinos y pueblos indígenas que defienden el bienestar de todos y todas a través de la implementación de la soberanía alimentaria y la protección de los recursos naturales.

20 años después: un planeta en crisis

20 años después de la Cumbre de la Tierra, la vida se ha vuelto más difícil para la mayoría de la humanidad. El número de personas sufriendo de hambre ha aumentado a casi mil millones, lo que significa que uno de cada seis seres humanos está pasando hambre, siendo las mujeres y las campesinas y campesinos los más afectados. Mientras tanto, el medio ambiente se degrada rápidamente, la biodiversidad está siendo destruida, los recursos hídricos empiezan a escasear y se contaminan, sin hablar de los daños de la crisis climática. Esto pone en peligro nuestro futuro en la Tierra mientras que se incrementa la pobreza y la desigualdad.

La idea del “desarrollo sostenible” presentada en 1992, cual fusionó las preocupaciones del “desarrollo” y del “medio ambiente”, no pudo resolver estos problemas porque no freno al sistema capitalista en su galopada por las ganancias a costa de los recursos humanos y naturales:

– El sistema alimentario está cada vez más controlado por las grandes empresas que buscan su propio beneficio, y no alimentar a los pueblos.

– La Convención sobre la Biodiversidad ha creado mecanismos de repartición de beneficios, que a fin de cuentas legitiman la capitalización de los recursos genéticos por el sector privado.

– La Convención de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático inventó un nuevo producto muy rentable y especulativo con los mecanismos de comercio de carbono, permitiendo a quienes contaminan continuar haciéndolo obteniendo además un beneficio de ello, en lugar de forzar a los países y a las empresas a reducir la contaminación.

El marco del “desarrollo sustentable” sigue tratando a la agricultura campesina como atrasada y responsable del deterioro de los recursos naturales y el medioambiente. Se perpetua el mismo paradigma de crecimiento, cual es nada menos que el desarrollo capitalista bajo la “industrialización verde.”

La “Economía Verde”, ¿el Cercamiento final?

Hoy en día, la “ecologización de la economía” impulsada en el período previo a Río +20 se basa en la misma lógica y mecanismos que están destruyendo el planeta y manteniendo a la gente en hambre. Por ejemplo, busca incorporar los aspectos de la fracasada “revolución verde” de una manera más amplia para garantizar las necesidades de los sectores industriales de producción, tales como la promoción de la uniformidad de las semillas, las semillas patentadas por empresas, las semillas genéticamente modificadas, etc.

La economía capitalista nunca será verde porque está requiere en la sobre explotación de los recursos naturales y del ser humano. Se basa en el crecimiento ilimitado en un planeta que ha llegado a sus límites y en la mercantilización de los bienes naturales que quedan y los recursos que han permanecido hasta ahora sin precio o bajo control del sector público.

En esta época de crisis financiera, el capitalismo mundial busca nuevas formas de acumulación. Y es en estas crisis que el capitalismo más acumula. AhoraHoy, son los territorios y los bienes comunes que son el blanco principal del capital. Así, la economía verde no es solamente una mascara verde del capitalismo. Es también una nueva ingeniería para apropiarse de nuestros bosques, ríos, suelos… de nuestros territorios!

Desde las reuniones preparatorias del año pasado hacia Río +20, la agricultura ha sido citada como una de las causas del cambio climático. Sin embargo, en las negociaciones oficiales no se ha hecho la distinción entre la agricultura industrial y la agricultura campesina. Tampoco se han explicitado las diferencias entre sus efectos sobre la pobreza, el clima y otros problemas sociales a los que nos enfrentamos.

La “economía verde” se está vendiendo como una forma de implementar el desarrollo sostenible en aquellos países que continúan experimentando altos y desproporcionados niveles de pobreza, hambre y miseria. En realidad, lo que se propone es una nueva fase de lo que identificamos como “programas verdes de ajuste estructural”, que buscan alinear y ordenar los mercados y las regulaciones nacionales para someterlos a la rápida llegada del “capitalismo verde”.

En la lógica de la “economía verde”, los recursos naturales del planeta son considerados como materias primas para la producción industrial, como sumideros de carbono o para la especulación. Esto queda demostrado por el aumento de los acaparamientos de tierras a nivel mundial para la producción de cultivos para la exportación y los agrocombustibles. Nuevas propuestas como la agricultura “climática inteligente”, que promueve la “intensificación sostenible” de la agricultura, encarnan también el objetivo de las corporaciones y los agronegocios de sobre explotar el planeta usando la etiqueta “verde”, y haciendo que las campesinas y campesinos dependan cada vez más de insumos y semillas de elevados costes. Se está emitiendo una nueva generación de permisos de contaminación para el sector industrial, especialmente en los países desarrollados, a través de los mecanismos de Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación Forestal (REDD++) y otros programas de servicios ambientales.

El uso intensivo de varias formas de biotecnología, de las tecnologías de síntesis y de la geoingeniería son partes fundamentales de la agricultura industrial promovidos en el marco de la “economía verde.” Con esto, la economía verde busca asegurar que los sistemas ecológicos y biológicos del planeta se mantengan a la disposición del capital.

La promoción de la “economía verde” incluye llamadas a la plena aplicación de la Ronda de Doha de la OMC, la eliminación de todas las barreras comerciales a la entrada de “soluciones verdes”, la financiación y el apoyo de las instituciones financieras como el Banco Mundial y de proyectos, como los programas de la USAID, y la legitimación continua de las instituciones internacionales que sirven para perpetuar y promover el capitalismo global.

¿Por qué nos movilizamos las campesinas y campesinos?

Nosotras y nosotros, campesinas y campesinos, los agricultores familiares, los sin tierra, los pueblos indígenas, los emigrantes —hombres y mujeres— estamos decididos a movilizarnos para oponernos a cualquier mercantilización de la vida y para proponer otra manera de organizar nuestra relación con la naturaleza en la Tierra. Esta se basa en la reforma agraria, la agroecología y la soberanía alimentaria.

Rechazamos la “Economía Verde” como se defiende ahora en el proceso de Río +20. Es una nueva máscara para ocultar la creciente codicia de las empresas y del imperialismo alimentario en el mundo.

  • Exponemos y rechazamos la captura del Proceso de Río +20 y de todos los procesos multilaterales de las Naciones Unidas por parte de las corporaciones;
  • Nos oponemos al comercio de carbono y a todas las soluciones de mercado a la crisis medioambiental, incluyendo la liberalización propuesta de servicios ambientales bajo la OMC.
  • Rechazamos el REDD (Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación Forestal), que permite que los países ricos eviten recortar sus emisiones de carbono mediante la financiación de proyectos, a menudo perjudiciales, en los países en desarrollo;
  • Nos oponemos al acaparamiento de tierras, del agua, de las semillas, de los bosques… ¡Al acaparamiento de todos los recursos!
  • Rechazamos las formas de apropriación de nuestros territorios, que sea con los créditos de carbono o con los pagos de servicios ambientales hechos por gran corporaciones;
  • Exigimos la prohibición total de los proyectos y experimentos de geoingeniería, con la apariencia de tecnología “verde” o “limpia” en beneficio de los agronegocios. Esto incluye nuevas tecnologías que se están proponiendo para la adaptación y la mitigación del cambio climático bajo el lema de “geoingeniería” y “agricultura inteligente climática”, incluyendo soluciones falsas como plantas transgénicas que supuestamente se adaptan al cambio climático y el “biocarbón”, que se supone devuelve al suelo el carbono;
  • Exigimos una reforma agraria auténtica que distribuya y redistribuya la tierra —el principal factor de producción— teniendo en cuenta a las mujeres y jóvenes. La tierra debe ser un medio de producción para garantizar la subsistencia de los pueblos y no debe ser una mercancía sometida a la especulación en los mercados internacionales. Rechazamos la “reforma agraria asistida por el mercado”, que es solo una forma distinta de hablar de la privatización de la tierra
  • Luchamos por la producción sostenible de alimentos a pequeña escala para el consumo comunitario y local, en oposición a la agroindustria y a los monocultivos para la exportación;
  • Continuamos organizando y practicando una producción basada en la agroecología, garantizando la soberanía alimentaria para todos y seguimos poniendo en marcha una gestión colectiva de los recursos.

Llamado a la acción

Hacemos un llamado a una gran movilización mundial entre el 18 y el 26 de junio en Río de Janeiro, con un campamento permanente y a una Cumbre de los Pueblos en la que nos opondremos a la cumbre de los gobiernos y el capital.

Estaremos en Rio en el la Cumbre de los Ppueblos, donde se juntaran las luchas anti-capitalistas del mundo y donde propondremos verdaderas soluciones. La Asamblea Permanente de los Pueblos, entre los días 18 y 22 presentaran la lucha diaria contra los promotores del capitalismo y de los ataques a nuestros territorios. Rio de Janeiro es hoy una de las ciudades que más recibe aportes del capital mundial, y que recebara la copa del mundo y las olimpiadas. Es decir que juntaremos muchas luchas simbólicas, desde los movimientos urbanos hasta los sin tierra y los pescadores.

Declaramos la semana del 5 de junio como la mayor semana en defensa del medio ambiente y contra las empresas transnacionales donde invitamos a todas y todos en el mundo a movilizarse:

  • Defiende la agricultura campesina.
  • Ocupa tierras para la producción de alimentos agroecológicos y no dominados por el mercado.
  • Reclama e intercambia semillas campesinas.
  • Protesta ante las oficinas de intercambio y comercio y pide que se ponga fin a los mercados que especulan con las materias primas y la tierra.
  • Organiza asambleas locales de personas afectadas por el capitalismo.
  • ¡Sueña con un mundo diferente y créalo!

¡El futuro que queremos se construye gracias a la reforma agraria, la agricultura campesina y la soberanía alimentaria!

¡¡GLOBALICEMOS LA LUCHA!!

¡¡GLOBALICEMOS LA ESPERANZA!!

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Green Economy, Rio+20

by | 2012-02-15 · 18:14

2012: The Year of the Luddites?

— Jeff Conant, for GJEP

This year, 2012, marks the bicentennial anniversary of the British Luddite movement, which rose up in 1812 in an organized rebellion of http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/luddite.jpg‘machine-breaking’ against industrial textile frames and other equipment found to be odious to workers’ dignity. The two-hundredth anniversary will be marked by widespread celebrations of the Luddites’ historic achievement, in the form of galas to be held at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., Windsor Castle, Rockefeller Center, and Wall Street…wait, no, pardon: my fact-checking department tells me that’s not right. They’ll be held in impromptu squats and occupied factories in devastated rust belt cities like Flint, Michigan and empty granaries amidst the industrial soy plantations of Brazil’s Cerrado and the African Sahel. No, well, not that either…

Indeed, the poor old Luddites, great humanitarians that they were, and harbingers of the two-hundred year industrial blight-to-come, have lived on largely as a negative: anyone who questions the nature of technological progress is deemed a Luddite and summarily dismissed.

Historically, the Luddites, armed with hammers, pistols and a desperation to protect their livelihoods, seized the imagination of the British public in the early-nineteenth century. And they have held on to it. Two centuries later, the word ‘Luddite’ is still familiar all round the English-speaking world, even if vastly misunderstood.

Were the Luddites simply a band of destructive ne’er-do-wells who seriously thought that by smashing the new machines in the factories of the early 1800s they could ‘uninvent’ the technology that threatened to take away their jobs and their social status as elite craftsmen? That is how they are often seen today, and the word ‘Luddite’ is used for anybody who is reluctant to use a computer or a mobile phone. But there was more to the original Luddites.

A number of organizations, especially in the UK, are rising (up) to the occasion and bringing the Luddites back into our awareness. And the timing couldn’t be better: with the effects of industrial capitalism devastating the planetary ecosystem, and now devouring itself in a fit of austerity measures, rebellions, and economic collapse, perhaps it’s time to sit down for a chat with the mysterious Ned Ludd and his cross-dressing band of clandestine saboteurs.

A great resource to start with is Luddite Link; also worth visiting is the British People’s History Museum in Manchester, England, where, thanks to the direct action of a group called Luddites200, the Luddites will be put back in their rightful place in history after a long and silent banishment in obscurity.

Another great resource, for those interested in current issues around technology, is Friends of the Earth Australia’s recent issue of their magazine Chain Reaction. It includes an article by Luddites200 member Dave King and an excellent spread of articles from GM food to geoengineering to Fukushima to synthetic biology. http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/findings/mar07/endy_files/images/image15.png

With the Rio+20 Environment Summit coming up this June, it is a fine moment to assess where twenty years of ‘sustainable development’ have gotten us, on top of two-hundred years of industrial resource extraction and exploitation. While policy-makers and big green NGOs lick their chops over emerging technologies like synthetic biology and geoengineering, technological ruses like ‘climate-smart agriculture’, biochar, and REDD; and while market-minded technocrats lay plans for the ‘green economy’ to promote these technologies and to facilitate trading in ecosystem commodities and services, perhaps we should pause for a long moment and consider the Luddite value of, well, pausing for a long moment.

The Andean Indigenous Peoples’ movements posit an alternative to industrial-progress-at-all-costs; they call it Buen Vivir – living well. The original Luddites, who might rather’ve spent their time lifting a pint after work rather than smashing machines and dodging the authorities, probably would’ve called it the same thing.

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by | 2012-02-14 · 14:56

Rio+20 and the Peoples´ Summit

In the bit of analysis below, sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos contrasts the recent World Economic Forum with the Thematic Social Forum of Porto Alegre, whose goal was to prepare popular responses to the upcoming Rio+20 Summit. The author argues that ” the proposals advanced [by the UN and its member bodies toward Rio+20] – summed up in the concept of green economy – are shockingly inefficient and even counterproductive: the aim is to persuade the always free, ever unrestrained markets that there are opportunities for profit in investing in the environment, accounting for environmental costs (externalities) and ascribing market value to nature.”

In contrast, the social movements stand for rights, resiliency, reparations, and, as always, resistance.  — the GJEP team

Rio+20 and the Peoples´ Summit

by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Cross-posted from Other News.

The treatment given by the major media to two events occurring during the last few weeks – the World Economic Social Forum of Davos and the Thematic Social Forum of Porto Alegre – speaks loudly of the interests presiding over world public opinion in our time.

The former attracted a lot of attention, although its discussions did not contribute anything new: the same old analyses of the European crisis and the same insistent ruminations on the symptoms of the crisis while concealing its true causes. The latter was totally ignored, even though it engaged in productive discussion of the issues that most decisively condition our future: climate change, water availability, quality and quantity of food resources in view of the threat of hunger and malnutrition, environmental justice, the common goods of humankind, and the worth of grassroots, non-Eurocentric knowledges in the pursuit of environmental justice. This kind of media selectivity clearly exposes the risks we run when public opinion is reduced to publicized opinion.

The objective of the Porto Alegre Forum was to debate Rio+20, that is to say, the UN Conference on sustainable development to take place next June in Rio de Janeiro, 20 years after the first UN Conference on the same topic, which took place in Rio as well. It was a path-breaking conference in that it called attention to the environmental problems we face and the new dimensions of social injustice they bring along. The debates focused on two major issues. On the one hand, the critical analysis of the past twenty years and how it is reflected on the documents preparatory of the Conference; on the other, the discussion of the proposals to be presented at the Peoples Summit, the conference of the civil society organizations taking place alongside the UN intergovernamental conference. Let us ponder each one of them in turn.

Rio+20: The critique

20 years ago, the UN played an important role in calling attention to the dangers that human and nonhuman life runs if the myth of endless economic growth goes on dominating economic policies and if irresponsible consumerism is not curbed: the planet is finite, the vital cycles for replenishment of natural resources are being destroyed, and nature will inevitably “take revenge” in climate changes soon to become irreversible and affect, in special ways, the poorest populations, thus adding more social injustice to the one already existing. The States seemed to heed the warnings and many promises were made in conventions and protocols.

The multinationals, those major agents of environmental deterioration, seemed to be on guard. Unfortunately, this moment of reflection and hope soon disappeared. The USA, then the main polluter and today the main per capita polluter, refused to assume any binding commitment toward reducing the emissions that cause global warming. Instead of decreasing, the emissions increased even more. The less developed countries claimed their right to pollute until the more developed ones agreed to assume their ecological debt for having polluted so much for so long. The multinationals successfully invested in the formulation of laws and international treaties allowing them to pursue their polluting activities with a minimum of restrictions. The result is glaringly to be seen in the documents prepared by the UN for the Rio+20 Conference. There is some relevant information about innovations regarding environmental care but the proposals advanced – summed up in the concept of green economy – are shockingly inefficient and even counterproductive: the aim is to persuade the always free, ever unrestrained markets that there are opportunities for profit in investing in the environment, accounting for environmental costs (externalities) and ascribing market value to nature. In the fantasy world in which these documents exist, the “market failures” are due exclusively to lack of information; as soon as these are overcome, there will be plenty of green investment and innovation. In other words, there is no other way for relationships among humans and with nature but the market and strife for individual profit. In sum, a neoliberal orgy in the North that seems now to be spreading to the emergent countries.

To read the rest, go to Other News.

*Sociologist, PhD, professor at the School of Economics of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin Madison Law School.

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

by | 2012-02-08 · 12:30

Pablo Solon on the International Campaign Against the Commodification of Nature

A bottom-up international campaign against the commodification and financialization of Nature

By Pablo Solon

Cross-Posted from No Green Economy

The draft zero for Rio + 20 Conference of the United Nations -entitled The Future We Want– was published in January 2012. Its main purpose is to promote a “Green Economy”. In draft zero, this concept of the Green Economy is left deliberately vague: there is no clear definition provided and no clarity on the usage of this term. In reality, however, it aims to promote the further commodification and financialization of nature by introducing new market mechanisms such as carbon markets that were first introduced a decade ago through the Kyoto Protocol and REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) programs which put a monetary price on carbon storage in forests.

The concept of “Green Economy” is developed in the Green Economy Report published by the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program). The report concludes that the energy crisis and the climate crisis amount to “the failed allocation of capital” and the solution to these crises is to give a monetary value, a price, to the elements and processes of nature. Indeed, this “Green Economy” agenda attempts to solve the current multiple crises by ushering in a new, more aggressive, stage of capitalism  to recover lost growth and profits!

If we act quickly, there is still time to block this takeover of Rio+20 by their Green Economy. We can succeed if we join the concrete actions of the movements against extractionism, genetically modified organisms, tar sands, forest destruction, climate change, privatization of water and many others. The key to stopping this new attack on our “Mother Earth” is to build a campaign with the social movements, indigenous peoples, women, youth, peasants, the Occupy Movement, the “Indignados” and more.

We also need to ensure that those countries that do not want to put a price on nature, or are against the development of markets of ecosystem services, maintain their position against the “Green Economy”. In many ways, we now face a challenge similar to that of the MAI (Multilateral International Agreement) which was stopped in 1998 by the first global Internet campaign or the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) which was defeated by the mobilization of the movements of the Americas.

The No to the “Green Economy” campaign will target the process of negotiation of the “zero draft” and the Rio + 20 Conference (20 – 22 June 2012). Instead of trying to impose the rules of the market on nature we must respect nature’s vital cycles through the recognition of the rights of nature. Our common future depends on it!

Nature is not for sale.

The commons must not be privatized.

Life does not have a price.

Porto Alegre, Brazil January 28th, 2012

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by | 2012-02-06 · 11:13

Another witness of UN security violence to photographer during Durban Climate Convention

Note:  This official statement below, from Kevin Buckland, was sent to the UN today regarding Orin Langelle’s Formal Complaint Against UN Security and the response Langelle received from the UN’s John Hay, UN Media Relations Officer.  [See the response from the UN that Climate Connections posted last Friday: UN denies security used undue force when smashing camera into photographer’s face]  Langelle was on assignment for Z Magazine and he is also the board chair for Global Justice Ecology Project. We will continue to keep you posted as things develop.-The GJEP Team

To Whom it May Concern,

I am writing to submit an official statement regarding an act of violence that occurred inside the ICC on December 8th, 2011 in Durban, South Africa by a member of the UNFCCC  Security. As mentioned in the official complaint filed by Orin Langelle, I was being escorted by security after giving an interview wearing a traditional clown costume (at this moment, I will not raise question as to the legitimacy of this expulsion). Upon descending a staircase, a reporter, Orin Langelle, began to loudly question the security officer asking (I do not recall the exact wording): “Is this man being expelled from the conference? What rules have been broken? Are you arresting him?” At which point the security officer very quickly approached Mr. Langelle and grabbed the front of the lens of his camera covering it so he could not photograph. The officer did not attempt to remove the camera from Mr. Langelle, but instead decided to very aggressively physically pushed the camera into his face. Mr. Langelle was notably distraught after such an unwarranted act of violence. In the next 30 meters, from the bottom of the stairs to the security office, the same officer aggressively but nonviolently confiscated two more cameras of two other conference attendants who began to photograph the incident. The officer did give a warning to one of the photographers who was photographing immediately before taking his camera, but no warning was given to Mr. Langelle or the other photographer. The officer arrived to the security office with no less than 3 cameras he had confiscated (these were shortly returned).

As I was being informed of my expulsion from the conference. I commented to UNFCCC official Warren Waetford on the surprisingly aggressive attitude of the officer – considering there was absolutely no aggression besides his own. (I had been walking calmly behind him as I am sure he will acknowledge.) I recommended to Mr. Waetford that this unprovoked act of aggression be addressed, and would like to reiterate that recommendation now to the UNFCCC secretariat, and formally.

I also asked why any security officer had the right to confiscate cameras at will, and was informed that UNFCCC Security Officers have the right not to be photographed, but are required to ask photographers to stop photographing, and only if the photographer refused could the officer confiscate their cameras. In the case of Mr. Langelle and another unnamed photographer, no warning was given.

Finally, I would like to comment on the official response issued by the UN regarding this incident. It stated: “Our investigations indicate that it was necessary to clear a passage within the conference center that was being obstructed, in the interest of the safety of all participants and in the interest of the smooth operation of the conference.  At no time was undue force applied in the exercise.” I would like to attest, as a witness to the incident, that this official statement is not true. If this statement derives from testaments by the arresting officer, then he has then both committed an act of violence and lied. No passage was blocked. It was the Security Guard who first approached Mr. Langelle because of his loud questioning, straying from the most direct path to the security office, and without any verbal warnings violently and aggressively took his camera. Undue force was very clearly applied.

I believe this incident should call into question the UNFCCC’s prohibition on documentation of its own security forces. As this case demonstrates – a clear violation both of the policy of giving warnings before confiscation of cameras, as well as an unwarranted act of violence, occurred. If we are denied even the freedom of press to protect ourselves against violence by armed officials inside a space under the jurisdiction of the United Nations, then the UN itself is complicit in the tyranny it was founded to confront.

Sincerely,

Kevin Buckland

Barcelona, Spain

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by | 2012-02-03 · 11:01

UN denies security used undue force when smashing camera into photographer’s face

Admit clown involved in incident

Official UN response below

Note:  The controversy regarding the incident of an unidentified UN security officer assaulting accredited photographer Orin Langelle with his own camera continues.  As you will see in the official response from UN Media Relations Officer John Hay below, the UN is engaging in the same sort of coverup we have seen from the city of Oakland and elsewhere, where security forces have reacted violently to nonviolent protesters or journalists.

It reflects what we at GJEP have asserted in the past and continue to.  The UN is controlled by the corporate elite–the 1%–and do not want unruly protesters or independent journalists interfering in their attempt to snow the global public into thinking they are addressing the climate crisis.  They are not.  The are laying the groundwork for enhanced corporate profit at the expense of the rest of the planet.

This particular battle with the UN is not over.  We refuse to allow the UN’s repression of journalists to go unchallenged–especially when the UN insists that they “are keen to facilitate media reporting …[and]… to treat all participants with respect.”

Walking up to a photographer, grabbing his camera and shoving it into his face is an odd way to demonstrate “respect.”

-Anne Petermann for the GJEP Team

For a description of the incident and the UN’s “facilitation of media reporting,” go to: Addendum: Formal Complaint Filed Against UN Security Actions in Durban

Official Response from the UN Climate Change Secretariat

Date: 2 February, 2012

Dear Mr. Langelle,

Apologies for the late reply.  We take any allegations of undue use of force on the part of UN security staff seriously.  After undertaking a thorough investigation, we are unable to confirm that there was at any time undue use of force by UN security personnel directed against members of the media in Durban.

We have been made aware of an incident involving a participant dressed up as a clown; an incident which you have also mentioned.  Our investigations indicate that it was necessary to clear a passage within the conference center that was being obstructed, in the interest of the safety of all participants and in the interest of the smooth operation of the conference.  At no time was undue force applied in the exercise.

It is not the policy of the UN Climate Change Secretariat to obstruct the reporting of journalists in any way.  On the contrary, the secretariat is keen to facilitate media reporting in the designated public spaces, as long as safety concerns are respected.  And it is the policy UN security to treat all participants with respect and not to apply undue force in the dischare of their functions.

We continue to take any such allegations seriously, and thank you for your letter.

Yours sincerely,

John Hay

Media Relations Officer

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