Note: GJEP will be blogging daily from Durban 28 Nov – 10 Dec. Please stay tuned to Climate Connections. The following video is in English and Spanish with French subtitles. -The GJEP Team
Category Archives: UNFCCC
Video: After Cancun–the Climate Justice Movement
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On the Ground Coverage of the UN Climate Conference in Durban Starts Next Week
Note: Global Justice Ecology Project’s Climate Connections blog carries hard-to-find news from around the world on the impacts of, and peoples’ resistance to social and ecological injustice.
We will be blogging daily from the UN Climate Conference and alternative movement activities in Durban, South Africa from 28 November through 10 December 2011. For the latest from the inside negotiations and the outside 99% opposition to the commodification of life, please stay tuned to climate-connections.org.
Additionally for the third year, we are partnering with Margaret Prescod’s “The Sojourner Truth” show on KPFK’s Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, CA with a fifteen minute update (approximate) with people in Durban, Monday through Friday (28 Nov – 10 December). Live at 7 am Pacific (-8 GMT) or listen to the archives. From the halls of injustice to dissent in the streets.
-The GJEP Team
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biodiversity, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Independent Media, Political Repression, UNFCCC
Time to “Occupy Durban”?
Note: Climate Connections will be blogging daily from the UN Climate Conference and alternative movement activities in Durban, South Africa from 28 November through 10 December 2011. For the latest from the inside negotiations and the outside resistance to the commodification of life, please stay tuned to climate-connections.org. The great graphic at the end of Patrick’s article is not from The Mercury or Daily Kos.-The GJEP Team
By Patrick Bond
The Mercury Eye on Society column, 22 November 2011
Cross-posted from Daily Kos
There they fell during 2011, one after the other in past-their-prime domino descent: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from Tunis, Hosni Mubarak from Cairo, Dominique Strauss-Kahn from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Muammar Gaddafi from Tripoli, Georgios Papandreou from Athens, Silvio Berlusconi from Rome, US football guru and sex-crime cover-upper Joe Paterno from Penn State University – with media baron Rupert Murdoch, soccer supremo Sepp Blatter, Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad and Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh looking decidedly shaky, too.
However, let’s be frank: in many cases the courageous push by the 99% against these 1% personalities only dislodged the venal creatures, not the system, so replacements crawled right back in.
Egyptian generals are just as vicious, as illustrated at Tahrir Square last week, and many Libyan ‘rebels’ are racist thugs worthy of CIA support. The new IMF managing director, French conservative Christine Lagarde, is being investigated by the Court of Justice of the Republic for abuse of authority as finance minister when she gave a $580 million payout to an Adidas shoes tycoon close to the ruling party. Greek’s new ruler, Loukas Papademos, was formerly vice-president of the European Central Bank, the institution that joins the IMF as tormentors of poor and working-class Europeans. In Italy the same job was given to Mario Monti, a former EU Commissioner with a brutal banker mentality.
On the other hand, Arab Spring political democrats and Occupy economic democrats won’t let up the pressure. I visited Occupy Dublin’s Dame Street next to the Irish central bank late last month; and Occupy Washington two weeks ago; and the next day, Occupy Wall Street at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan’s financial district, just prior to the New York police force’s illegal eviction of non-violent tent-residents.
In each case, the spirit reminded me of anti-apartheid movement determination, heart-felt principles and strategic clarity: no half-baked reforms like tricameral parliaments to polish apartheid’s chains will satisfy the Occupiers, who are demanding fundamental system change, and who enjoy huge popular support.
Surprisingly perhaps, the argument to extend Occupy to Durban is advanced by a former manager of the Davos World Economic Forum and president of Costa Rica, José María Figueres, who is the brother of Christiana, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. He was asked by OneWorld tv last week at the Climate Vulnerable Forum in Bangladesh, “You’ve expressed your sympathies with the Occupy Wall Street Movement and called for an Occupy Durban. What would that look like and what could it achieve?”
Figueres replied, “The riots of London, and the indignados of Madrid and the now growing global Occupy Wall Street movement is a sign of the frustration felt by many given that we are not addressing their economic needs. So with respect to climate maybe we need an Occupy Durban.”
Figueres wants to see “A sit in, by the delegations of those countries that are most affected by climate change, that are going from one COP to the next COP to the next COP without getting positive and concrete responses on the issues that they want dealt with.”
And outside Durban’s International Convention Centre, in the broader society, is there a potential for a Climate Spring like the Arab Spring? “The history of humanity shows us that it has always been a big crisis that has made us move,” he responded.
That crisis is surely upon us, with more than 300,000 people dying annually because of climate change, according to demographers. Might the UNFCCC live up to global-governance potential – last realised in the 1987 Montreal Protocol that banned CFCs to save the ozone hole – or instead will Durban be known as the Conference of Polluters, the place the Kyoto Protocol’s mechanism for binding emissions-cut commitments died, while carbon trading remained the vehicle the 1% chooses for its climate gambling?
Even though Zurich’s UBS bank last week predicted a total collapse of the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme in coming months, it looks like we will suffer the latter when COP17 closes on December 9.
So in order to save the planet and people, the 99% should challenge the UNFCCC’s for-profit mentality. An interesting email hit my inbox on November 10: “The Occupy movement that is sweeping the globe shines a light on the unjust systems which benefit a small group of elite individuals and corporations, consolidating wealth and power for the few to the extreme detriment to the majority of the world’s inhabitants and the planet as a whole.”
The COP17 will, according to the email, “do nothing to address this imbalance of power and resources and instead would give those same people and institutions who have caused economic ruin control of our land, water and atmosphere to trade as nothing more than money-making commodities.”
One response, wrote the anonymous emailer, is to “Occupy COP17”, and a website (www.occupycop17.com), Facebook page (www.facebook.com/occupyCOP17) and Twitter feed (www.twitter.com/OccupyCOP17 and #occupycop17) are already operational. The Occupy movement considers the UNFCCC to be “United Nations Fools, Clowns and Carbon Criminals” and it’s hard to argue against that based on 16 past performances.
There are many South Africans with genuine grievances who will be part of the anti-COP17 protest scene, in part because of Eskom’s mismanagement of energy (more coal-fired power plants as Greenpeace dramatised by blocking Eskom construction at Kusile last week) and electricity (high-priced for the masses, low-priced for Anglo American and BHP Billiton).
Others will show up just to make a fuss: Business Day last week headlined on the front page, “Malema supporters to ‘disrupt climate conference’” in the wake of the thrashing the African National Congress disciplinary committee gave the Youth League leadership.
For those serous about climate justice, some of the most interesting reflections of 99% thinking and practical alternatives will be at the People’s Space, which was recently moved to the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Howard College campus, starting with the Conference of the Youth (no relation to Juju) on 25-27 November, and then open to the public from 28 November until 9 December. A nightly teach-in from 7:30pm at our Centre for Civil Society adds academic rigour to activist passions. Delegates include hundreds from the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance and the Rural Women’s Assembly, and a myriad of events can be perused at http://www.c17.org.za
All it takes to join People’s Space, Occupy Durban and the Global Day of Action march on December 3 is a healthy degree of skepticism for what the 1% are cooking up inside the UNFCCC’s smoke-filled ICC rooms, and a genuine respect for the People’s Power that again and again rises in the least expected places.
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OCCUPY COP 17! [in Durban, South Africa]
Note: COP-17 refers to the 17th Conference of the Parties of the UN Climate Convention, which this year will be held from November 28 through December 9, 2011. Global Justice Ecology Project will be in Durban and blogging daily from both the official UN events on the inside of the conference and from the alternative activities–such as Occupy COP 17–on the outside.
–The GJEP Team
Cross-Posted from Watts Up With That on November 1, 2011
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Anyone concerned about the huge influence of Wall Street on our lives should definitely be protesting the influence of Wall Street on the upcoming climate conference in Durban, South Africa. Durban is the latest incarnation of the occasional IPCC celebration. I’m not sure what it celebrates, perhaps they are celebrating being given prepaid tickets and receiving a salary plus a per diem to fly halfway round the world to a lovely remote spot to listen to people talk about wasting fossil fuel.
I know I’d celebrate if some one paid me to do that. In any case, the last party was in Cancun, and the party before that in Copenhagen. The hard life of the climate bureaucrat. The web site for the party is here, so you can see what your taxes are paying for.
This image illustrates the change in climate that the participants in the Durban COP 17–CMP 7 will be forced to endure. The “17″ means that this is the seventeenth time they’ve had this party, or as they call it, this “Conference of Parties”. Seventeen. Parties. The majority of the participants will be moving from late fall/early winter to late spring/early summer in Durban. I doubt that there will be many complaints about the warming involved in that change of seasons, despite the fact that it will be more than the dreaded 2°C tipping point of warming..
So what is Wall Street’s take on the Durban CO2 conference? What do the bankers say about the proposed extension of Kyoto? Here’s one man’s take, from Reuters :
“Parties must take the opportunity in Durban to send strong signals to the carbon market regarding their commitment to its continuation and future development,” said Jose Tumkaya, chief operating officer at UKemissions-reduction project developer Ecosecurities, a JP Morgan-owned firm. SOURCE
So we have a carbon offset project developer. Said carbon reduction person makes money from reducing carbon. Banks like money. They bought up the carbon offset project development firm. It is now owned by JP Morgan.
And now, being owned by JP Morgan, and thus being Very Important People (ex officio), they get interviewed by the media to give us their impartial view of the situation:
“Negotiators should be concerned about the historic low carbon prices as they do reflect, to some degree, a lack of confidence in the long-term commitment to existing emission reduction targets, as well as continued uncertainty with regards to a future international agreement,” he said.
Be concerned, be very, very concerned …
Ah, well. The bankers are pleading for the negotiators to come up with something, anything, to keep their Rumplestiltskin machine spinning carbon into money.
So we’ve got the banks against us … gonna be a long fight. This is Wall Street at its worst, looking to keep the carbon hype afloat and pushing to keep those sweet carbon bucks rolling in.
Where are the OCCUPY! folks when we need them? I say bring on the tents and the undercooked bulgur wheat, let’s OCCUPY COP 17–CMP 7!
w.
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GJEP on KPFK Pacifica Los Angeles This Week: Climate Change, Forests, and the Keystone Pipeline
Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.
This week’s Earth Minute discusses the impacts of climate change on bark beetles, which are wiping out vast expanses of conifer forests in North America. On this week’s Earth Segment, Kari Fulton, of Environmental Justice Climate Change discusses the recent announcement that the decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be “postponed.”
Text from this week’s Earth Minute:
At the upcoming UN climate conference in Durban South Africa later this month, protecting forests will once again being looked to as the solution to climate change. Meanwhile a tiny beetle, assisted by warming temperatures, is devouring coniferous forests across North America.
Since the 1990s, bark beetles have killed 30 billion trees in North America. Climate change is expanding the range of the beetles and increasing their numbers, while human activities–such as wildfire prevention and logging the best and strongest trees–has further assisted the beetle epidemic.
But instead of stepping back to evaluate what’s causing this forest crisis, the timber industry is moving ahead with plans to turn these trees into wood chips to be shipped around the globe for so-called “renewable” electricity production. While this will supposedly help replace fossil fuels and mitigate climate change, it will also result in bark beetles spreading into and destroying new conifer forests–which will, in turn, worsen climate change.
For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.
To listen to the Earth Minute, Click here: earth-minute-11_15_11
To Listen to the Earth Segment with Kari Fulton of Environmental Justice Climate Change being interviewed about the recent Keystone XL Pipeline decision, click here and scroll to minute 48:45.
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Filed under Climate Change, Earth Minute, Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Natural Disasters, Posts from Anne Petermann, Tar Sands, UNFCCC
Video: Patrick Bond, Raises Concerns About Upcoming COP 17 Conference in Durban, South Africa
Note: Global Justice Ecology Project will be blogging daily from the UN Climate Conference (COP-17) in Durban, South Africa from November 28th through December 10th.
Patrick Bond, co-author of Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society, has already expressed skepticism about COP 17, a climate change “cop out”, pretending to be a climate “change” conference when in fact its main use is to serve and protect the interests of carbon traders and those who profit from exploiting the environment. The conference is set to take place in Durban between November 28th & December 9th.
In the following video, Bond argues that these conferences are really just a way for big business to negotiate on the price it will cost for them to pollute the environment. The interest in the conference has more to do with commodifying nature, and less to do with protecting its resources.
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Environmental Groups Denounce Diversion of Forest Funding to REDD Plantations
For Immediate Release
September 21, 2011 (Español debajo)
September 21st, 2011 – On the World Day against Monoculture Tree Plantations [1], a coalition of environmental groups and Indigenous peoples organizations [2] has launched a call to the international donor community to halt the diversion of forest conservation funding to dubious schemes to “Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and enhance forest carbon stocks” (REDD+), which are being promoted within the framework of the United Nations Climate Convention.
The groups charge that climate policy makers are working with a flawed definition of “forests” that includes monocultures, genetically engineered trees and agrofuel plantations.
“This erroneous definition allows REDD+ funding to finance the expansion of monoculture tree plantations, which are implicated in serious environmental and social impacts and human rights violations all over the world,” said Winnie Overbeek, coordinator of the World Rainforest Movement.
More than five hundred scientists have called on the UN Food and Agricultural Organization to review the definition of forest [3], so that a clear distinction can be made between biologically diverse forest ecosystems, which provide a broad range of values and products for humanity, and monoculture tree plantations.
Also on the World Day against Monoculture Tree Plantations, the World Future Council will hold a ceremony in New York to hand an award to the most inspiring, innovative, and influential forest policy [4]. Simone Lovera, Executive Director of Global Forest Coalition, and one of the jury members of this year’s award, points out: “It is important to note that the six countries nominated, The Gambia, Rwanda, United States, Bhutan, Nepal, and Switzerland, have developed their successful forest policies without any REDD+ support” [5].
“Most of these successes are based on a combination of political will and the recognition of the rights of local communities and their valuable role in conserving and restoring forests,” Lovera said. “Forest donors should support initiatives and policies that ensure rights-based, socially just forest conservation rather than diverting their funding to risky REDD+ experiments that promote tree monocultures and human rights violations.”
Tom Goldtooth, director of Indigenous Environmental Network adds: “All over the world, monoculture tree plantations and other REDD+ projects are triggering conflicts with Indigenous Peoples and local communities and environmental devastation. Meanwhile, support is lacking for socially just and successful policies that support real community forest conservation.”
Many REDD+ donors speculate that their projects will soon be financed through mandatory carbon offset markets, which they expect will bring significant additional investment. However, carbon offset markets are collapsing due to fears that countries will fail to reach an agreement on legally binding emission cuts beyond 2012.
“Without global caps, there will be no global trade,” says Tamra Gilbertson of Carbontradewatch. “The European Emissions Trading Scheme – the world’s primary carbon exchange – excludes REDD+ due to well-founded concerns that forest carbon offsets undermine real efforts to reduce emissions. REDD+ funding has proven to be highly volatile, inequitable and uncertain. In order to both combat climate change and to value forests in their own right, forest conservation policies need reliable, stable and equitable support – not disingenuous and patently false solutions like REDD+.”
For further information, contact:
Winnie Overbeek, Coordinator, World Rainforest Movement, +598 2 413 2989
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director, Indigenous Environmental Network, + 1 218 760 0442
Simone Lovera, Executive Director, Global Forest Coalition, + 595 21 663654
Tamra Gilbertson, Coordinator, Carbontrade Watch, + 34 625 498083
Jeff Conant, Communications Director, Global Justice Ecology Project, +1 510 698 3802
Notes:
[1] See http://www.wrm.org.uy
[2] The No REDD Platform is a loose network of researchers, activists, organizations and movements that work together by sharing information, organizing collective strategies and supporting each other. By connecting with global justice movements committed to climate, environmental and social justice the No REDD Platform aims to expose the injustices inherent in REDD+ projects globally. See http://noredd.makenoise.org
[3] http://www.wrm.org.uy/forests/letter_to_the_FAO.html
[4] See http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/4398.html
[5] Please note that of these countries, Nepal is the only country that currently receives significant amounts of REDD+ support, but its successful policy on supporting community-based forest management was developed long before the first REDD+ support started to arrive.
Para Publicación Inmediata
Septiembre 21, 2011
Grupos Ambientalistas Denuncian la Desviación de Fondos Destinados a los Bosques hacia Plantaciones REDD
21 Septiembre, 2011 – En el Día Mundial de Lucha Contra los Monocultivos de Arboles [1], una coalición de grupos ambientalistas y organizaciones de Pueblos Indígenas [2] ha lanzado un comunicado a la comunidad donante internacional para detener la desviación de fondos para la conservación de los bosques hacia esquemas dudosos para “Reducir Emisiones de Deforestación y Degradación de Bosques y fortalecer las reservas de carbono” (REDD+) las cuales se están promoviendo dentro de la Convención Marco de la ONU sobre el Cambio Climático.
Los grupos claman que los responsables de las políticas de cambio climático están trabajando en base a una definición de “bosques” defectuosa que incluye a los monocultivos, los árboles Genéticamente Modificados, y las plantaciones de agrocombustibles.
“Esta definición errónea permite que los fondos REDD+ financien la expansión de monocultivos de árboles los cuales están involucrados con serios impactos ambientales y sociales y violaciones a los derechos humanos alrededor del mundo”, según Winnie Overbeek del Movimiento Mundial por los Bosques tropicales.
Más de quinientos científicos han hecho un llamado a la Organización de la ONU para la Agricultura y la Alimentación para revisar la definición de bosques [3], y así se pueda hacer una clara distinción entre ecosistemas de bosque biológicamente diversos que proporcionan un amplio rango de valores y productos para la humanidad, y los monocultivos y/o plantaciones de árboles.
También durante el Día Mundial de Lucha Contra los Monocultivos de Arboles, el Consejo del Futuro Mundial realizará una ceremonia en Nueva York para entregar un premio a la política forestal más inspiradora, innovadora, e influyente [4]. Simone Lovera, Directora Ejecutiva de la Coalición Mundial por los Bosques, y una de los miembros del jurado de este año señala que: “Es importante notar que los seis países nominados, Gambia, Ruanda, Estados Unidos, Bután, Nepal y Suiza, han desarrollado sus exitosas políticas forestales sin ningún apoyo de REDD+” [5].
“La mayoría de estos éxitos se basan en una combinación de voluntad política y el reconocimiento de los derechos de las comunidades locales y su valioso rol en la conservación y restauración de bosques,” dijo Lovera. “Los donantes de bosques deberían premiar los esfuerzos de estos países en vez de desviar sus fondos hacia experimentos riesgosos de REDD+ que promueven los monocultivos de árboles y las violaciones a los derechos humanos”.
Tom Goldtooth, Director de la Red Indígena Ambiental añade: “Alrededor del mundo, los monocultivos de árboles y otros proyectos REDD+ están disparando los conflictos con Pueblos Indígenas y comunidades locales, y la devastación ambiental. Entre tanto, el apoyo para políticas exitosas y socialmente justas que apoyen la verdadera conservación forestal comunitaria disminuye”.
Muchos donantes de REDD+ especulan que sus proyectos pronto se financiarán por medio de mercados obligatorios de compensación de carbono, de donde ellos esperan recibir importantes inversiones adicionales. Sin embargo, los mercados de compensación de carbono están colapsando debido a los temores que se tienen de que los países no lograrán llegar a un acuerdo respecto a la reducción de emisiones legalmente vinculantes más allá del 2012.
“Sin límites globales, no habrá comercio global”, dice Tamra Gilbertson de Carbontradewatch. “El Régimen Europeo de Comercio de Emisiones – el principal en intercambio de créditos carbono mundialmente – excluye REDD+ debido a preocupaciones bien fundamentadas en que las compensaciones de carbono forestal socavan los esfuerzos reales para reducir las emisiones. Los fondos de REDD+ han demostrado ser altamente volátiles, desequilibrados e inciertos. Para poder tanto combatir el cambio climático como valorar a los bosques en su derecho propio, las políticas de conservación de bosques necesitan un apoyo confiable, estable y equitativo – no deshonesto con soluciones claramente falsas como REDD+.”
Para mayor información contactar con:
Winnie Overbeek, Coordinadora, World Rainforest Movement, +598 2 413 2989
Tom Goldtooth, Director Ejecutivo, Indigenous Environmental Network, + 1 218 760 0442
Simone Lovera, Directora Ejecutiva, Global Forest Coalition, + 595 21 663654
Tamra Gilbertson, Coordinadora, Carbontrade Watch, + 34 625 498083
Jeff Conant, Director de Comunicaciones, Global Justice Ecology Project, +1 510 698 3802
Notas:
[1] Ver http://www.wrm.org.uy
[2] La Plataforma No-REDD es una red de investigadores, activistas, organizaciones y movimientos que trabajan conjuntamente compartiendo información, organizando estrategias colectivas y apoyándose mutuamente. Al conectarse con movimientos de justicia social comprometidos con el cambio climático, la justicia social y ambiental, la Plataforma NO REDD busca exponer las injusticias inherentes de los proyectos REDD+ a nivel global. Ver http://noredd.makenoise.org
[3] http://www.wrm.org.uy/forests/letter_to_the_FAO.html
[4] Ver http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/4398.html
[5] Por favor note que de estos países, Nepal es el único que aún recibe cantidades importantes de apoyo para REDD+, pero su política exitosa que apoya el manejo comunitario de bosques fue desarrollada mucho antes de que el primer apoyo a REDD+ empezara a llegar.
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Indigenous Peoples Arrested In Front Of White House To Protest Keystone XL Pipeline (short video)
Washington DC- American Indian and Canadian Native leaders were arrested September 2, 2011, in front of the White House as they refused to move under orders from the police. Representatives of Native governments and Native organizations from the United States and Canada traveled long distances to join thousands of people that have come to Washington DC during the past two weeks to tell US President Barack Obama not to issue a permit for the construction of a controversial 1,900 mile oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
The Indigenous Call: Take Back Our Future
More on yesterday: First Nations and American Indian Leaders Arrested In Front Of White House To Protest Keystone XL Pipeline
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