by | 2012-06-16 · 10:30

From the Global Allliance for Incinerator Alternatives: Zero waste for a sustainable future

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 15 – Zero Waste is an achievable goal whose day has come, as communities around the world take action to end waste disposal in incinerators, dumps and landfills. But Rio+20 will show that Zero Waste is also a revolution in the relationship between waste and people.

Before and during the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development an international delegation will call for shifts in production, consumption and disposal to address one of the planet’s most serious environmental challenges – the take-make-waste system that is harming the planet, communities and public health.

“Burning and burying our garbage is a primitive technology that has no place in the sustainable economy of the future,” said Mariel Vilella, GAIA’s campaigner.

“Incinerators and dumps emit greenhouse gas emissions, waste valuable resources, endanger our health and threaten communities’ way of life,” she said. “Reusing, repairing, recycling and composting our waste saves money, creates jobs and protects people and the environment from the buildup of hazardous chemicals,” said Silvio Ruiz, from the Global Alliance of Wastepickers.

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Filed under Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Rio+20, Waste

by | · 10:00

Confronting the Rio+20 “greed economy:” Calls for rights for Mother Earth

“Green economy is about cheating nature while making profit out of it.” – Pablo Solón, Former Bolivian Ambassador to UN, Director Focus on the Global South

With over 50,000 accredited participants registered, Rio+20 is expected to be the largest gathering in the history of the UN.  The Green Economy put forward by the United Nations Environment Program (nicknamed the “Greed Economy” by many) is about promoting the idea that we can only “save” nature by putting a price tag on what nature “does” for us. Proponents call it “ecosystem services” and from forests generating the air we breathe to the decomposition process resulting in the ground we walk upon, everything has its price, and corporate executives are wringing their hands with anticipation of what the Greed Economy could do for profit margins.

The Peoples Summit – hosted by Civil Society Organizations challenging the direction of the UN and its members – will run in parallel in Flamengo Park with the aim of not simply protesting the so-called Green Economy, but presenting viable alternative, sustainable solutions, including recognizing legal rights for nature.  “In 2008, Ecuador led the world by becoming the first country to recognize legal Rights of Nature in its constitution – the right to exist, maintain and restore its vital cycles, and regenerate integrally.  Recognizing Rights of Nature allows us to truly protect ecosystems and sets the stage for a sustainable future.  Rights of Nature gives social movements the opportunity to reunite on what brings us together – Mother Earth.” says Natalia Greene, President CEDENMA, Ecuador.
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by | 2012-06-15 · 19:21

Video: Stop the takeover of nature by financial markets

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by | · 15:05

Rio+20: indigenous peoples denounce green economy and REDD+ as privatization of nature

RIO DE JANEIRO – Indigenous Peoples of the world participating in Rio+20 denounce that the Green Economy and REDD+ privatize nature, sell the air we breathe and destroy the future.

Tom Goldtooth of Indigenous Environmental Network speaks about the negative impacts of REDD. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Indigenous Peoples´ powerful message to the United Nations summit is eloquently conveyed in the No REDD+! in Rio+20 Declaration launched this morning by of the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD and for Life.  The Alliance warns that REDD+ constitutes a worldwide land grab  and gigantesque carbon offset scam.

REDD+ is an UN-promoted false solution to climate change and the pillar of the Green Economy. Officially, REDD+ stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. However, Tom Goldtooth (Dakota/Dine´), Director of Indigenous Environmental Network, insists that “REDD+ really means Reaping profits from Evictions, land grabs, Deforestation and Destruction of biodiversity.”
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by | · 11:35

Grassroots voices Available for Interview at Rio +20 and Peoples Summit

For Immediate Release    15 June, 2012

Climate Justice Groups to Amplify Front-line Struggles for Resilience

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil–As the Peoples Summit for Social and Environmental Justice and Against the Commodification of Life (Cupula dos Povos), kicks off today in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, thousands of international climate justice advocates will be present to draw attention to the struggles faced by grassroots communities, and the solutions these communities offer to the multiple crises facing the world today.

While the triple crises of energy, economy and ecology ultimately affect everyone, low-income communities, land-based cultures, Indigenous Peoples, women, and youth are impacted first and worst. At both the Peoples’ Summit and the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit, Global Justice Ecology Project and the Climate Justice Alignment will be providing media outlets with a comprehensive list of grassroots climate-impacted people for interviews, as well as posting short videos, podcasts, articles and news pieces daily on Climate-Connections.org.

Speakers available for interview have a wide range of expertise, including environmental justice, forests and land tenure; tree plantations and genetically engineered (GMO) trees; REDD, carbon trading and Payment for Environmental Services; Indigenous Peoples’ Rights; land grabbing; bioenergy, and the bioeconomy; women’s, gender and youth issues; recycling, waste-picking and waste-to-energy; just transition strategies; and grassroots perspectives.

Global Justice Ecology Project will release media alerts throughout the events, between June 15 and 23. The speakers list available at climate-connections.org/ will be updated daily. For information regarding the speakers list, to receive media alerts, or to follow the action from the grassroots, subscribe to Climate Connections, or contact GJEP or Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, below.

Contact:

Jeff Conant, Communications Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

Email: jc@globaljusticeecology.org

Phone in Brazil:  +55 (0) (21) 8079-0790 (to be activated late in the day on the 15th)

Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

Email: anne@globaljusticeecology.org

Phone: +1 (802) 578 0477

Shaun Grogan-Brown, Communications Coordinator, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

Email:  sha@ggjalliance.org

Phone in Brazil:  +55 (0) (21) 8079-0796

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Filed under Climate Change, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Rio+20

by | · 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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