Note: Just in from the streets of Durban. Thousands protest Conference of Polluters. These photos are just a sample. Feature photo essay will be posted soon. Stay tuned. Below photos: Langelle/GJEP.
-The GJEP Team
Category Archives: UNFCCC
Preview: Photo Essay Feature–Global Day of Action in Durban
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Photo Essays by Orin Langelle, UNFCCC
Today: ACTION IN FRONT OF THE U.S. CONSULATE: “THE U.S. MUST STOP OBSTRUCTING CLIMATE JUSTICE FOR THE 99%”
A festive and peaceful action in front of the U.S. Consulate in Durban, as part of the 1000 Durbans Global Day of Action for Climate Justice. The action will feature speakers who will testify to the impacts of U.S. government and corporate pollution on their communities and land. Speakers will also share recommendations to the U.S. government and speak out against the positions that Jonathan Pershing and the State Department have taken thus far. The action will also feature powerful visuals for photographers and the broadcast media.
People from impacted communities within the U.S. and the Global South. Organized by the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) www.ggjalliance.org, a multi-sector alliance of U.S.-based community organizing groups building an international movement for peace, democracy and a sustainable world. Speakers Include:
Ahmina Maxey, Zero Waste and the East Michigan Environmental Action Coalition (Detroit) Francisca Porchas, Labor Community Strategy Center and the Bus Riders Union (Los Angeles) Chavanne Jean-Baptiste, Peasant Movement of Papaye and La Via Campesina (Haiti) Francois Paulette, Smith’s Landing Treaty 8 Dene First Nation, Indigenous Environmental Network (Alberta, Canada)
“We won’t let the U.S. off the hook,” says Ahmina Maxey of the East Michigan Environmental Action Coalition, a lead organization of GGJ. “As members of communities disproportionately affected by U.S. pollution and land grabs, we will be holding dirty U.S. corporations and the State Department accountable for the global mess they have made,”
“The U.S. government and associated corporations are the 1% responsible for the majority of pollution affecting the 99% of the world, including the 99% in Los Angeles,” says Francisca Porchas of the LA-based Labor Community Strategy Center, another lead organization of GGJ. “We will be taking action to demand that the U.S. immediately reduce carbon emissions to 50% of current levels by 2017, and to stop obstructing progress towards paying climate debt and forging an internationally binding deal.”
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Pollution, UNFCCC
Stay Tuned for Updates: Thousands to Protest at COP 17 in Durban: Demanding Action to Save the Planet
CLIMATE CHANGE
Thousands to Protest at COP 17 in Durban Demanding Action to Save the Planet
DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA, 3 December 2011 – The people demand that governments have to radically change their behavior at the UNFCCC negotiations, if the world is to have a chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.
C17 Global Day of Action committee convenor Desmond D’sa: “World leaders are discussing the fate of our planet but they are far from reaching a solution to climate change. If they fail to make progress we will see drought and hunger blight our country and continent even further.”
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The first period of emission cuts agreed under the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012. A new round of emission cuts must be agreed in Durban to avoid gaps between the first and second periods.
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But developed nations are trying to shift their responsibilities for drastic emissions cuts onto developing countries that have done the least to cause the problem, while developing countries, joined by the European Union, try to kill the Kyoto Protocol, and call for a “new mandate” for the UN climate negotiation, trying to escape their responsibilities for climate action.
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It would be disastrous if the internationally binding emission reduction commitments would lapse or end altogether in Durban.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Pollution, UNFCCC
Durban UN climate “news”–Expo brews up plenty of interest
Note: If there is any hope of preventing climate catastrophe, it surely isn’t at this dog and pony show. As the Conference of Polluters nears the end of the first week, we thought we’d share a little bit of the absurdity coming from the exposition center located in the UN controlled compound.
-The GJEP Team
Cross-posted from Times Live Sapa | 02 December, 2011
At the Climate Change Response Expo in Durban you can drink a Whistling Weasel or watch a man whip up a tornado at the flick of a switch.
You can also talk to scientists about Gizmo, the new South-African-developed pencil buoy used to study water quality, while clutching a replica of the collar bone of an ancient Australopithecine.
The expo, next to the Durban Convention Centre (the COP17 climate change summit’s venue) was bustling yesterday morning, despite oppressively hot weather.
“This is like February,” said Karen Owen, who managed a stall serving beer and wine in the expo’s food court.
The beer – brewed up-province at Nottingham Road – is good, but the names on the bottles are better. You can order a Whistling Weasel pale ale, a Tiddly Toad light lager, a Pye-Eyed Possum Pilsener or a Pickled Pig porter.
Nearby, Alex Kofer spoke to whoever would listen about his “Wizzard” worms. He had 20000 of them, in a snooker table-sized tray.
Despite their numbers, the worms were difficult to see. They were hidden under a mound of soggy newspaper, cardboard and lettuce leaves, which Kofer fed them to encourage them to produce more compost.
“They can eat their own body weight in a day,” he said, hauling out a wriggler for inspection.
Kofer said the worms ate kitchen waste and wet cardboard, and took about four months to produce a tray of compost.
Elsewhere at the expo, SA Weather Service meteorologist Hugh van Niekerk demonstrated how to make a tornado in a glass chamber the size of a fridge.
By creating water vapour and blowing in air to simulate wind while switching on an extractor fan in the chamber ceiling, he created a mini tornado.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s stand boasted a glass case containing a section from the trunk of a 1200-year-old baobab . It was found in the Pafuri area near in the Kruger National Park.
According to an attached notice, isotopes in its growth rings have been analysed and the data used by scientists to gain an insight into the climate change that happened during the tree’s growth span.
A woman at the international conservation organisation WWF’s stall handed out pencils made from newspaper, each bearing the iconic panda logo.
“Have one – they show there is a future for the newspaper industry,” the former journalist said.
The expo will run until next Friday.
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Filed under Climate Change, UNFCCC
Land conflicts, carbon piracy and violations of indigenous peoples’ rights: New report by Amazonian indigenous peoples exposes the reality of REDD+ in Peru and proposes solutions
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Filed under Carbon Trading, Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, REDD, UNFCCC
KPFK Earth Segment Interview with Nnimmo Bassey: Nigerian activist and winner of 2010 Right Livelihood Award
Note: Today’s Earth Segment on the Sojourner Truth show will not be aired due to a severe wind storm that knocked out KPFK’s transmission. Climate Chaos strikes again!
–The GJEP Team
Global Justice Ecology Project partners with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Los Angeles for a weekly Earth Minute and weekly interviews with activists on key environmental and ecological justice issues. In addition, during major events such as the UN Climate Conference we are attending right now in Durban, South Africa, we organize daily interviews Tuesday through Thursday.
The interview we organized for Wednesday, 30 November featured Nigerian activist and Right Livelihood Award winner (the alternative Nobel prize), Nnimmo Bassey. To listen to the interview, click the link below and scroll to minute 34:30.
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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Pollution, UNFCCC, Water
Indigenous and Community-led Forest Initiatives Offer Solutions to Today’s Problems–Local Communities Need Rights and Respect, Not REDD
Studies show that the best guardians of forest lands are the people who live there. Indigenous Peoples and other forest-dependent peoples agree. Yet, all over the world, they are increasingly beset by policies and incentive schemes imposed by governments and outside agencies that degrade their forests, their cultures, their livelihoods, and their life ways.
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“REDD+ and other projects that convince communities to sign misleading Payment for Enviromental Services agreements create conflicts and undermine livelihoods,” the participants agreed, in a collective statement. “Top-down programs undermine rights, spiritual value systems, and governance, ignore women’s rights and needs, impose economically unviable or otherwise senseless alternative livelihoods on Indigenous Peoples and local communities; and trigger land privatization and the commodification of nature.”
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Simone Lovera, director of the Global Forest Coalition, cited studies from research institutions like the Centre for International Forestry Research, showing that forests are better protected in Indigenous and community conserved territories than in official protected areas.[1]
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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, REDD, UNFCCC
Got News….!
One of the tasks GJEP undertakes at the COPs is to wrangle media to capture grassroots events and perspectives. When we get the major media, we’re pleased. When our allies at Indigenous Environmental Network joined local groups to protest at a local Shell Oil refinery yesterday, we wrangled AP, Al Jazeera, and Reuters to come along. Reuters produced this short video.
We haven’t been able to track down the others’ coverage yet (too busy here at the COP!) — so if you see coverage of the events on AP, Al Jazeera or other major outlets, send us a shout! — the GJEP team
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Media, UNFCCC