by | 2011-12-05 · 09:11

Durban COP 17: Waste Pickers Tout Only Truly Green Solution to Municipal Waste, Decry Dirty Energy (news and photos)

Note:  This morning the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers held a “permitted” protest inside the UN compound here in Durban.  After the first photo is a media release from GAIA (Global Alliance of  Incinerator Alternatives)  explaining the position of Waste pickers internationally.  The protest was almost stopped by UN security, telling organizers that they needed their signs and banners approved by the UN before they could be displayed.  The protest went on anyway. The waste pickers went to their approved area and then emptied trash on the ground, chanted, showed their signs and then cleaned up the area.  I have a photograph of an UN security person believed to be Flemming Rosendkrans.  He wore no identification badge and refused to tell me his name.  He dictated the orders to organizers along with a mysterious woman who also said she was with the UN and also refused to disclose her identity after I identified myself showed her and the badgeless officer my UN accredited press credentials.  That photo and and additional photos follow GAIA’s copy below.  All photos by  Orin Langelle/GJEP on assignment for Z Magazine.

Waste Pickers Tout Only Truly Green Solution to Municipal Waste, Decry Dirty Energy

Durban, December 5, 2011 – Waste pickers attending COP17 today called for a Green Climate Fund with direct community access and an end to CDM “waste-to-energy” projects. Representatives from three continents highlighted the fact that waste pickers are the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the waste sector.

Millions of people worldwide make a living from waste picking. They collect, sort and process recyclables, reducing the amount of waste that is sent to landfills and saving valuable natural resources. Today, an increasing number of waste pickers are processing organic waste, diverting it from landfills and therefore reducing methane gas pollution. Waste pickers could further reduce GHG emissions given proper support.

To secure this support, a waste picker delegation has come to COP17 to raise their concerns surrounding current climate financing mechanisms and to advocate for more just alternatives that are directly accessible by waste pickers. Waste pickers from three different continents spoke against disposal technologies that undermine their livelihoods, such as incinerators and waste-to-energy projects.

Harouna Niass, a waste picker from Dakar, Senegal, spoke about the formation of Book Diomm Waste Pickers Association with 800 members, and the threat they face from CDM-backed landfill gas companies competing to extract methane and force the waste pickers off the landfill.

“Waste pickers should be included and given more respect because we take care of our environment,” Niass said.

 Simon Mbata, with the South African Waste Pickers’ Association, discussed the importance of supporting waste pickers.

“We demand a Green Climate Fund that is directly accessible to waste pickers and an end of support for CDM projects which compete directly with us,” Mbata said.

Neil Tangri, with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, provided background on CDM-backed projects and the Green Climate Fund. Suman More, a waste picker with SWaCH cooperative in Pune, India, discussed incinerator alternatives.

About the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers:

The Global Alliance of Waste Pickers brings together waste pickers organizations from Africa, Asia and Latin America. To learn more about waste pickers’ experiences and to support fair and just solutions to climate change, visit our blog www.globalrec.org

Read GAIA’s case studies on CDM projects on Municipal Waste Management:

The CDM incinerator in Chengdu Luo Dai, China: http://www.no-burn.org/downloads/luodai.pdf

The Bisasar landfill in Durban, South Africa: http://www.no-burn.org/downloads/bisasar.pdf

The Usina Incinerator in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil: http://www.no-burn.org/downloads/Rio-de-janeiro.pdf

Mysterious UN woman on left refused to disclose her name. The man in the center who wore no identification badge and refused to identify himself is believed to be Flemming Rosendkrans.

Waste pickers dumped waste collected from the UN and then picked it up in their protest

Waste picker makes sure all the trash is picked up at the end of the protest

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by | 2011-12-04 · 08:30

Riot Police Block Most Affected by Climate Change from Entering Climate Conference

Cross Posted from Common Dreams Published on Friday, December 2, 2011 by Agence France Presse
by Alexander Joe and Marlowe Hood

DURBAN, South Africa ­ Bearing the message that their livelihoods were in peril, hundreds of women farmers tried Friday to gatecrash UN climate talks in Durban, where they were peacefully held back by police.

The women, from 10 countries across southern Africa, converged on the conference to testify how storms and heatwaves, intensified by climate change, were wreaking havoc on an already meagre sustenance.

Many wore green-on-black T-shirts reading “Rural Women Assembly” and carried hand-scrawled banners, including one that said: “Women Are the Guardians of Seed, Life and Earth.”

About 50 police in full riot gear prevented the women and other protesters from entering the venue.

There were no arrests or injuries, and the atmosphere was more festive than feisty. But the women — from Angola to Zimbabwe — had a serious appeal to make.

“We are getting a lot of difficulty and suffering with water,” said 75-year-old Betty Nagodi, from an arid region of northern South Africa.

“Now we don’t know when it will rain. And then when it does, the hail knocks down all the tomatoes, butternut and other things,” she said, fanning herself under the shade of a towering acacia.

Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns could adversely affect water flows on the Limpopo river system, leading to production shortfalls and conflict over water use, according to a report earlier this month by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

“We have seen how climate change has disrupted the seasons, completely changing agricultural production cycles. It affects our lives very directly,” said Fatima Shabodien, an activist from Cape Town, South Africa, also taking part in the rally.

“We are here to call attention to the impact of climate change on the livelihoods of rural women.”

For Lilian Kujekeko of Zimbabwe, the diplomats and politicians negotiating behind closed doors — “most of them men” — needed to know that global warming was not an abstraction, and that in Africa it was women who were bearing the brunt.

“We are the ones who suffer most of the consequences of climate change. We look after families. So why are we not there in the conference?” she asked emphatically.

Weather in her home region has become increasingly erratic in recent decades, she said, with one recent heatwave peak topping 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

The region’s staple crop, maize (corn), is “very sensitive” to fluctuations in rainfall, she noted.

A report on climate change and extreme weather earlier this month by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts more droughts for large swathes of Africa, raising the spectre of famine in regions where daily life is already a hand-to-mouth experience for millions.

Factor in the biggest population boom of any continent over the next half-century and the danger of food “insecurity” in Africa becomes even greater, it cautions.

Some 15,000 diplomats, experts and campaigners at the talks under the 194-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are trying to breathe life into international negotiations tasked with fighting the threat of climate change.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and local grassroots groups have announced a protest march under the banner of “climate justice” for Saturday, and said they expect a turnout of up to 20,000.

The 12-day talks enter a high-level phase next week with the arrival of ministers, ending on December 9.
© 2011 AFP

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by | · 04:26

Negotiators are “Committing Ecocide” – says Pablo Solon in Durban Climate March

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Filed under Carbon Trading, Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD, UNFCCC

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by | 2011-12-03 · 10:56

Photo Essay: Global Day of Action Against UN Conference of Polluters (COP) in Durban

3 December 2011–Thousands of people from around the world hit the streets of Durban, South Africa to protest the UN Climate Conference of Polluters.

Photo Essay by Orin Langelle/Global Justice Ecology Project and Anne Petermann/Global Justice Ecology Project-Global Forest Coalition.

Overview of the March. Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

La Via Campesina Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Radical clowns. Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

Nnimmo Bassey speaks to the crowd. Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

Christina Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, speaks. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

South African activist Virginia Setshedi. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Interview. Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP

South African Waste Pickers. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Nudes Against Nukes. Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Never trust a COPoration. Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC

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by | · 08:37

Preview: Photo Essay Feature–Global Day of Action in Durban

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

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by | · 03:40

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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by | · 03:35

Stay Tuned for Updates: Thousands to Protest at COP 17 in Durban: Demanding Action to Save the Planet

ECOTERRA International • Society for Threatened Peoples International • EARTHPEOPLES

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.

Today is the GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION.  Thousands of ordinary people from across Africa and the World are coming together to make sure their voices are heard. Some of those most affected by the impacts of changing climate will be taking part in the march including indigenous peoples,  peasant farmers from across the continent and hundreds of women from South African rural communities.
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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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The US is leading the rich countries demand for a replacement of the Kyoto Protocol with a totally inadequate voluntary pledge where countries would decide their own emissions cuts on a national basis.
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It seems that only the Africa Group of countries are united in their demand to hold industrialised countries accountable to their previous commitments, while rich industrialized countries are busy trying to carve out new business opportunities for multinational corporations and their financial elites.

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by | 2011-12-02 · 12:46

GJEP interviews from Durban to KPFK Los Angeles cut off by windstorm

Pacifica Radio’s KPFK is experiencing a transmitter outage due to high winds and is currently off the air

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 on The Sojourner Truth Show with Margaret Prescod.  Stay tuned – next week we hope the transmitter is functioning.

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