tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22256932598560856002024-02-08T05:26:25.800-08:00World People's Conference on Climate ChangeReports, commentary and independent grassroots voices on the WPCCCUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-29483469748803606332010-08-16T11:49:00.001-07:002010-08-16T11:49:18.539-07:00The proposals of “Peoples Agreement” in the texts for United Nations negotiation on Climate Change<div class='posterous_autopost'><p><div align="justify"> <span style="">After a week of negotiations, the main conclusions of the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Right of Mother Earth (Cochabamba, April 2010) have been incorporated in the document of United Nations on Climate Change, that now have been recognized as a negotiation text for the 192 countries which has been congregated in Bonn, Germany, during the first week august of 2010.</span></div><p><div align="justify">The most important points that have been incorporated for its consideration in the next round of negotiation before Cancun, that will take place in China, are:</div><p><div align="justify">• 50 % reduction of greenhouse gasses emission by developed countries for second period of commitments from the Kyoto Protocol years 2013 to 2017.</div><p><div align="justify">• Stabilize the rise of temperature to 1 C and 300 parts for million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.</div><p><div align="justify">• To guarantee an equitable distribution of atmospheric space, taking into account the climate debt of emissions by developed countries for developing countries.</div><p><div align="justify">• Full respect for the Human Rights and the inherent rights of indigenous peoples, women, children and migrants.</div><p><div align="justify">• Full recognition to the United Nations Declaration on of Indigenous Peoples Rights. </div><p><div align="justify">• Recognition and defense of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony with nature.</div><p><div align="justify">• Guarantee the fulfillment of the commitments from the developed countries though the building of an International Court of Climate Justice. </div><p><div align="justify">• Rejection to the new mechanisms of carbon markets that transfer the responsibility of the reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases from developed countries to developing countries.</div><p><div align="justify">• Promotion of measures that change the consumption patterns of the developed countries.</div><p><div align="justify">• Adoption of necessary measures in all relevant forums to be excluded from the protection of the intellectual property rights to technologies and ecologically sustainable useful to mitigate climate change.</div><p><div align="justify">• Developed countries will allocate 6% of their national gross product to actions relatives to Climate Change. </div><p><div align="justify">• Integrated management of forest, to mitigation and adaptation, without market mechanics and ensuring the full participation of indigenous peoples and local communities. </div><p><div align="justify">• Prohibition the conversion of natural forest for plantations, since the monoculture plantations are not forest, instead should encourage the protection and conservation of natural forests. </div><p><p /></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/the-proposals-of-peoples-agreement-in-the-tex">Dispatches on Climate Justice </a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-89821435586258962652010-08-04T04:00:00.001-07:002010-08-04T04:00:08.948-07:00System Change not Climate Change! Taking direct action for climate justice<div class='posterous_autopost'><div style=""><p>In 2009, indigenous peoples throughout the world called for a global mobilisation ‘in defence of mother earth’ on October 12, reclaiming the day that used to be imposed as ‘Columbus Day’. Responding to this call, and the demand for a day of action for ‘system change, not climate change’ issued by the global movements gathered in Copenhagen last year, <strong>Climate Justice Action is proposing a day of direct action for climate justice on October 12, 2010</strong>.</p><p><em><strong>Today, we know…</strong></em></p><p>For years, many had hoped that governments, international summits, even the very industries and corporations that caused the problem in the first place, would do something, anything to stop climate change. In December 2009, at the 15th global climate summit in Copenhagen (COP15), that hope was revealed as an illusion: a comfortable way to delude ourselves into believing that ‘someone else’ could solve the problem for us. That ‘someone’ would make the crisis go away. That there was someone ‘in charge’.</p><p>Today, after the disaster of COP15, we are wiser. Today we know:</p><p>- That we cannot expect UN-negotiations to solve the climate crisis for us. Governments and corporations are unable (even if they were willing) to deliver equitable and effective action on the root causes of climate change.</p><p>- That the climate crisis isn’t a natural process, nor is it accidental. Rather, it’s the inevitable outcome of an economic system that is bound to pursue infinite economic growth at all costs.</p><p>- That only powerful climate justice movements can achieve the structural changes that are necessary, whether it is through ending our addiction to fossil fuels, replacing industrial agriculture with local systems of food sovereignty, halting systems based on endless growth and consumption, or addressing the historical responsibility of the global elites’ massive ecological debt to the global exploited.</p><p>Today we know that is up to all of us to collectively reclaim power over our daily lives. It is we who must start shutting down and moving beyond the engines of capitalism, the burning of fossil fuels, the conversion of all life into commodities, and the toxic imaginaries of consumerism. It is we who must create different ways of living, other ways of organising our societies.</p><p>Today we know that climate justice means taking action ourselves.</p><p><em><strong>The 12th of October: then, and now</strong></em></p><p>As the COP15 came crashing down, so did any remaining belief in the capacity of UN-negotiations to implement equitable or effective solutions. As they plan to stage their 16th summit in Cancun, Mexico, it is becoming clear already that the movements will need to put up a strong fight to stop any attempt to use the UN to profit from the crisis through privatising our forests and carving up our atmosphere. But real and just solutions to the climate crisis will come from elsewhere – we must create other strategies, find other ways out of the crisis.</p><p>In the ashes of the COP15, a meeting of global movements proposed organising a global day of action under the banner ‘System Change not Climate Change’. Climate Justice Action, the network responsible for organising some of the disobedient actions in Copenhagen, took up this suggestion by calling for a ‘global day of direct action for climate justice’. Rather than once again following the global summit circus around the world, being forced into nothing but a reaction to their failures, we decided to set our own rhythm and our own schedule for change.</p><p>On the 12th of October, 1492, Christopher Columbus first set foot on the landmass that we know today as the Americas, marking the beginning of centuries of colonialism. Thus began the globalisation of a system of domination of the Earth and its people in the eternal pursuit for growth, the subordination of life to the endless thirst for profit. Latin America’s liberation at the beginning of the 19th century put an end to direct rule by foreign crowns, but failed to put an end to the exploitation of the many for the benefit of a few. Instead, this system has become ever more pervasive, reaching to the bottom of the ocean, to the clouds above us, and to the farthest depths of our dreams. This is the system that is causing the climate crisis, and it has a name: capitalism.</p><p>This day has recently been reclaimed by movements of indigenous peoples – those who first felt the wrath, the violence, the destructive force of this project – as a day ‘in Defense of Mother Earth’. On May 31, 2009, the IV Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala (the Americas) called for a Global Mobilization <em>“In defence of Mother Earth and Her People and against the commercialization of life, pollution and the criminalization of indigenous and social movements”</em>.</p><p>Today it is all of us, and the entire planet, who increasingly suffer the fate that some five centuries ago befell the indigenous of the Americas and their native lands. Then, it was the colonisers’ mad search for the profit obtained from precious metals that drove them to wipe out entire cultures; today, it is capital’s search for fossil fuels to drive its mad, never-ending expansion, that still wipes out entire cultures, and causes the climate crisis. Then, they were enslaved and often killed to provide labour to the infernal machines of Europe; now, we are all enslaved and exploited to provide labour to the infernal machines of capital. Then, it was a continent and its people that was driven to destruction; today, it is a world and its people that is being driven to destruction. Today, we are all the global exploited.</p><p>Of course, not all life submitted to the rule of capital in a single day. Capitalism is a complex web of social relations that took centuries to emerge and dominate almost the entire planet. Nor will we bring down the entire system, or build a new world, in a single day. This day is a symbol, and symbols matter. This day is the unveiling of the root causes of the climate crisis – capitalism. It is an affirmation that – wherever you live and whatever your struggle – we struggle against capital and for other worlds, together.</p><p><em><strong>There’s only one crisis</strong></em></p><p>But why focus on the fight for climate justice at a time when, all around the world, people are losing their jobs, governments are imposing austerity measures, all while the banks are once again posting their exorbitant profits? Doesn’t the ‘economic crisis’ trump the ‘climate crisis’? This perspective, however, looks at the world from above and outside of it. Seen from above, there is a ‘climate crisis’, caused by too much CO2 in the atmosphere, which is a threat to future stability and future profit margins; seen from above, there is an economic crisis, which is a threat to current stability and current profit margins; seen from above, there is an energy crisis, a food crisis, a water crisis… But from where we stand, there are no separate crises. There are only threats to our livelihoods, our reproduction – in short, our survival: it doesn’t matter whether it is a physical tsunami that destroys our houses, or a tsunami of destruction wrought by recession. Either way, we end up homeless.</p><p>The reason we can’t treat the apparently separate crises as separate? They are all symptoms of the same sickness. They are, all of them, the result of capital’s need for eternal growth, a cancerous growth that is fuelled by the ever-expanding exploitation of social and natural ‘resources’ – including fossil fuels. Crisis is, in fact, the standard mode of operation for this global system.</p><p>To struggle for climate justice, then, is to recognise that all these crises are linked; that the climate crisis is as much as social and economic crisis as it is an environmental disaster. To struggle for climate justice is at the same time struggling against the madness of capitalism, against austerity enforced from above, against their insistence on the need for continued ‘growth’ (green or otherwise). Climate justice isn’t about saving trees or polar bears – though we probably should do both. It is about empowering communities to take back power over their own lives. It is about leaving fossil fuels in the ground and creating socialised renewable energy systems; it is about food sovereignty against the domination of, and destruction caused, by industrial agribusiness; it is about massively reducing working hours, and starting to live different lives; it is about reducing overproduction for overconsumption by elites in the North and the South. Climate justice, in short, is the struggle for a good life for us all.</p><p><em><strong>Global movements for climate justice</strong></em></p><p>In April this year more than 30,000 people came together in Cochabamba, Bolivia, for the Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (<span class="caps">CMPCC</span></p></div>). Together we produced a ‘Peoples’ Agreement’ which offered a different way forward, a counterbalance to the failure of the neoliberal market driven ‘solutions’ peddled in the COPs. Despite its submission to the UN, it was completely ignored at the intersessional meeting of the <span class="caps">UNFCCC</span> in Bonn, Germany. <br />The failure of the <span class="caps">UNFCCC</span> to respond to the Peoples Conference is of no surprise to us, and as was perhaps the intention of its submission, it has only further delegitimised the <span class="caps">COP</span> process. Perhaps most importantly, it has once again shown that it is only ‘the movement’ that can bring about real changes for climate justice. But what is this movement, and where are its edges? Movement is precisely that – movement. The movement is all those moments when we consciously push a different way of living into existence; when we operate according to our many other values rather than the single Value of capital. And now we are trying to make these moments resonate.<p>We invite all those who fight for social and ecological justice to organise direct actions targeting climate criminals and false solutions, or creating real alternatives. This means taking <em>direct responsibility</em> for making change happen, not lobbying others to act on your behalf, but through actively closing things down and opening things up. This is an open callout, we are not picking targets. But it is not a day for marches or petitions: it is time for us to reclaim our power, and take control of our lives and futures.</p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/system-change-not-climate-change-taking-direc">Dispatches on Climate Justice </a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-79665547146466138502010-07-05T09:11:00.001-07:002010-07-05T09:11:51.932-07:00CJA newsletter June 2010<div class='posterous_autopost'><div><br />Begin forwarded message:<p /></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><b>From:</b> <a href="mailto:climateaction@klimax2009.org"></a><a href="mailto:climateaction@klimax2009.org">climateaction@klimax2009.org</a><br /><b>Date:</b> 5 July 2010 16:55:55 GMT+01:00<br /><b>To:</b> <<a href="mailto:copenhagen2009info@lists.riseup.net">copenhagen2009info@lists.riseup.net</a>><br /><b>Subject:</b> <b>[copenhagen2009info] Fwd: CJA newsletter June 2010/ BOLETÍN CJA JUNIO 2010</b><p /></div></blockquote><p /><blockquote type="cite"><div><b><br /> ----- Original Message -----<br /> From: Climate Justice Action <a href="mailto:info@climate-justice-action.org"></a><a href="mailto:info@climate-justice-action.org">info@climate-justice-action.org</a><br /> </b>Please forward to the announcement list. Thanks !<p /> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> (Podréis encontrar <b>el boletín en español </b>después de la versión en inglés)<br /> <div class="gmail_quote">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> <h1></h1>Hello all ! This is the <br /> <h1>JUNE 2010 CJA NEWSLETTER </h1> <p>We had a very pleasant and productive CJA meeting at the lovely Klimacamp in Bonn on May 29th-30th-31st. Discussions were good and decisions were made, (including some organisational changes which allow you to read this very newsletter on this list!).</p> <p>This newsletter will cover :</p> <p><b>Key decisions from last meeting :</b></p> <p>-12th October – Global day of action <br /> -COP 16 : Support of La Via Campesina’s call for « A thousand Cancuns »<br /> -CJA working structure<br /> -Building strategy on climate justice in Europe</p> <p><b>Next CJA meeting<br /> Climate events and actions scheduled in the coming months</b></p> <p><b><br /> </b></p> <h1><a name="129834a425ca9426_1296b56fa2d7f686_1296b4e35712e8b6_key-decisions-from-cja-bonn-meeting-29-31-may"></a>KEY DECISIONS FROM CJA BONN MEETING, 29-31 MAY</h1> <p>(For the full minutes of the meeting, please go to <a href="http://www.climate-justice-action.org/resources/documents/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.climate-justice-action.org/resources/documents/">http://www.climate-justice-action.org/resources/documents/</a><a href="http://www.climate-justice-action.org" target="_blank"></a>)<b><br /> </b></p> <p><b>On the global day of direct action for ‘system change not climate change’ – October 12</b></p> <p><b>October 12</b>: At the Amsterdam gathering CJA decided to call for a day of direct action for ‘system change not climate change’. The date of 12 October was chosen by CJA in response to an existing call for action from the Latin-American network Minga Global, which they have reclaimed as a ‘Day in Defence of Mother Earth’. That day used to be Columbus day. It has been reclaimed as a day of action on the theme of colonialism. We, as CJA, would like to connect to the symbol of this day by linking this colonial history to the multiple crises happening now and to the rise of the climate justice movement that seeks to address them.</p> <p>Several groups, in Europe and worldwide, are already responding to the call and are planning actions on that day.</p> <p><b>Week of action :</b> There was a discussion on how to work on a common frame for the week. The issue here being that we have political divergence with some of the groups that are organizing actions during this week too. For example, the network <a href="http://350.org/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://350.org">350.org</a> is planning a joint day of action with the group 10:10 (on the 10/10…), which has companies like E-ON or EDF on board.</p> <p>DECISION: We will start to discuss a common framework with our obvious allies, like La Via Campesina or Jubilee South, and to defer decisions on the week of action to our next meeting.</p> <p>Two groups started working on that day:<br /> - The Story-telling/media group will create a four page document to tell the story of what this day of action aims to be and to link struggles around the world. <br /> - The Mobilisation/Materials/Networking group is planning on getting a poster done for next meeting. There will be resources on the web to connect the various actions and help making the day of action global.</p> <p><b>Mobilization for the COP 16 – Nov 29 – Dec 10 2010 : Support of La Via Campesina’s call for « a thousand Cancuns "</b></p> <p>A KlimaForum is planned at COP16, on a similar idea to that of Copenhagen. Some networks have expressed the concern that it doesn’t take into consideration local realities and regional processes.<br /> In response, La Via Campesina sent out a call for a decentralized strategy of protest during the COP 16 summit, in order to create “A thousand Cancuns”.</p> <p>DECISION: We will write an open letter supporting La Via Campesina’s call for « a 1000 Cancuns », and supporting regional processes. We will not commit CJA to specific actions.</p> <p>This last part of the decision was made after discussions about the capacity to mobilise during this time, but there was agreement that our allies need support quickly and there is the possibility to commit to actions in a separate call out at a later date.</p> <p><b>CJA’s working structure</b></p> <p>Communication between meetings:</p> <p>DECISION: To abandon Climate09 mailing list and create a new list for CJA network. This will be complimented by a new crabgrass network where most work will be organised.</p> <p>Finance:</p> <p>DECISION: Person previously handling finance has now taken over a transparency role along with a second person. Finance role has been handed over.</p> <p>Decision making between meetings:</p> <p>DECISION: We should avoid making decisions on anything that can wait until next meeting. Working groups should be encouraged to make decisions within their remit. When decisions do need to be made a form will be completed explaining relevant information, sent out to the list, then the decision making process will happen on crabgrass. As much time as possible will be given for people to respond.</p> <p>Process group tasks and planning the next meeting:</p> <p>DECISION: a process group is needed for the email account, circulation of minutes, checking working groups are doing their tasks and producing the news letter. The task of planning the next meeting will be delegated to a separate group.</p> <p><b>Building strategy on climate justice in Europe</b></p> <p>This strategic discussion is crucial for developing the CJA network, and there is a need for a network like CJA to take on these questions. We investigated the possibility of something like a strategies for a Europe wide ‘strategies for climate justice’ gathering to occur in Spring 2011.</p> <p>DECISION: create thematic groups to look at developing what climate justice means in Europe. Groups will be created on crabgrass for discussion and we will look to our allies for help where we do not have theoretical capacity.</p> <p>We outlined a series of thematic threads emerging within this:</p> <p>o Climate debt<br /> o Food and agriculture <br /> o Energy systems<br /> o Borders and military<br /> o Transport<br /> o Possibility of housing<br /> o Green/climate Jobs</p> <p>A person or small group has taken on each of these thematic threads. These threads should aid to produce a strategy document for the basis of the strategy meeting.</p> <p><br /> </p> <h1><a name="129834a425ca9426_1296b56fa2d7f686_1296b4e35712e8b6_next-cja-meeting"></a>NEXT CJA MEETING</h1> <p>The next CJA meeting is planned on August 28-29. It will be located at this summer’s Earthfirst Netherlands Gathering.<br /> Further information on the exact location will be sent out in the next newsletter.</p> <p>During this meeting, we already planned to discuss many exciting issues such as:</p> <ul> <li>Assessing capacity from groups to respond to ‘1000 Cancun’ call out; </li><li>Further discussion and planning around the 12th October; </li><li>What do we do after Cancun? Developing our future strategies; </li><li>Evaluating the new process and working tools </li><li>Party!</li></ul><br /> <h1><a name="129834a425ca9426_1296b56fa2d7f686_1296b4e35712e8b6_climate-events-and-actions-in-europe-in-the-coming"></a>Climate events and actions in Europe in the coming months</h1> <p>These are some relevant events happening in Europe over the summer. If you know of events happening in other parts of the world to include in the next newsletter, please email <a href="mailto:info@climate-justice-action.org.uk"></a><a href="mailto:info@climate-justice-action.org.uk">info@climate-justice-action.org.uk</a></p> <p>- Nordic climate camp 14-20 July<br /> - France: Climate camp 22 July – 1 August in Normandy, focusing on Total.<br /> - Belgium : climate camp from 29 July – 4 August in Liège.<br /> - Ireland: Climate camp from 12-16 august in co. Tyrone to support the local community campaign that is in opposition to the building of a new A5 road.<br /> - Wales : Action focused camp in the south welsh coalfields, 13-17 August<br /> - United Kingdom, Edinburgh 19 – 15 August, targeting RBS<br /> - No borders camp, Brussels, 27 Sep – 3 Oct</p> <p>- Germany: Two camps near open mines.<br /> - The Netherlands: groups are targeting coal power stations.</p> <p><br /> </p> <p>That's it for now, see you at one of these events! </p> <p><br /> </p></div>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<p /> <br /> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 24pt;"><b>BOLETÍN CJA JUNIO 2010</b></span><p /> Hola a tod@s! <p /> Del 29 al 30-31 de mayo tuvimos un encuentro de CJA muy agradable y productivo en en el hermoso Campamento Climático de Bonn. Las discusiones fueron interesantes y se tomaron decisiones, (incluyendo algunos cambios de organización que te permiten leer este boletín en esta lista!). <p /> Este boletín incluye: <br /> Decisiones claves de la última reunión: <br /> -12 de octubre: Día de Acción Global <br /> -COP16: Apoyo de la convocatoria de La Vía Campesina para «Millares de Cancunes» <br /> -Estructura de trabajo de CJA <br /> -Construcción de la estrategia sobre la Justicia Climática en Europa <br /> Siguiente reunión CJA <br /> Eventos climáticos y acciones programadas en los próximos meses <p /> <br /> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt;"><b>DECISIONES CLAVE DE LA REUNIÓN DE CJA EN BONN, 29-31 DE MAYO</b></span> <p /> (Podéis encontrar los comentarios del encuentro adjuntados en Español)<p /> <b>Sobre el Día Global de Acción Directa para un “Cambio de sistema, no de clima”: 12 de octubre.</b><p /> 12 de octubre: En la reunión de Amsterdam, CJA decidió convocar una jornada de acción directa para un “Cambio de sistema, no de clima”. La fecha del 12 de octubre fue elegido por CJA en respuesta a una llamada a la acción desde la Red Latinoamericana Minga Global, quienes han reclamado que sea un "Día en Defensa de la Madre Tierra". Ese día solía ser día el de Colón (o Día de la Hispanidad). Se ha recuperado como un día de acción que incida en la cuestión del colonialismo. Nosotros, como CJA, queremos conectar con el simbolismo de este día enlazando esta historia colonial con las múltiples crisis que ocurren ahora, y con el surgimiento del movimiento que busca la Justicia Climática para hacerles frente. <p /> Varios grupos, en Europa y en todo el mundo, ya están respondiendo a la llamada y están planeando acciones en ese día. <p /> Semana de Acción: Hubo un debate sobre cómo trabajar en un marco común para la semana. La cuestión aquí es que tenemos divergencias políticas con algunos de los grupos que están organizando acciones durante esta semana también. Por ejemplo, la red de <a href="http://350.org" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://350.org">350.org</a> está planeando un día de acción conjunto con el grupo de 10:10 (en la 10/10 ...), que cuenta con empresas como E-ON o EDF a bordo. <p /> DECISIÓN: Vamos a comenzar a discutir un marco común con nuestros aliados obvios, como la Vía Campesina o Jubileo Sur, y aplazar las decisiones sobre la Semana de Acción para nuestra próxima reunión. <p /> Dos grupos comenzaron a trabajar en ese día: <br /> - El grupo Narrativas/Medios creará un documento de cuatro páginas para contar la historia de lo que este día de acción pretende ser y que enlace las luchas de todo el mundo. <br /> - El grupo Movilización / Materiales / Redes está planificando cómo disponer de un cartel para la próxima reunión. Habrá recursos en la red para conectar las distintas acciones y ayudar a llevar a cabo el Día de Acción Global. <p /> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt;"><b>Movilización para el COP 16 (29 de noviembre-10 de diciembre de 2010): Apoyo de la convocatoria de La Vía Campesina, para «Millares de Cancunes" </b></span><p /> Está previsto para el COP16 un Klimaforum con una idea similar a la de Copenhague. Algunas redes han expresado la preocupación de que no tiene en cuenta las realidades locales y los procesos regionales. <br /> En respuesta, La Vía Campesina ha hecho un llamamiento para una estrategia descentralizada de protesta durante la Cumbre del COP 16, con el fin de crear "Millares de Cancunes". <p /> DECISIÓN: Vamos a escribir una carta abierta de apoyo a la convocatoria de La Vía Campesina, para “Millares de Cancunes” y para apoyar los procesos regionales. No vamos a comprometernos como CJA a acciones concretas. <p /> Esta última parte de la decisión fue tomada después de las discusiones sobre la capacidad de movilización que hemos tenido durante este tiempo, pero hubo acuerdo en que nuestros aliados necesitan apoyo de forma rápida y existe la posibilidad de comprometernos a acciones en una llamada por separado y en una fecha posterior. <br /> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt;"><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt;"><br /> Estructura de trabajo de CJA</span> </b></span><p /> Comunicación entre reuniones: <p /> DECISIÓN: Abandonar la lista de correo Climate09 y crear una nueva lista para la red CJA. Esto será complementado por una red crabgrass nueva donde se organice la mayoría del trabajo. <p /> Finanzas: <p /> DECISIÓN: La persona que manejaba anteriormente las finanzas se ha hecho cargo de la función de garantizar transparencia, junto con una segunda persona. La función de encargarse de las Finanzas ha sido traspasada. <p /> Toma de decisiones entre las reuniones: <p /> DECISIÓN: Se debe evitar la toma de decisiones en todo lo que pueda esperar hasta la próxima reunión. Los grupos de trabajo deberían ser animados a tomar decisiones de su competencia. Cuando sea necesario tomar decisiones, habrá un formulario con la información más relevante, se enviará a la lista, y luego el proceso de toma de decisiones será en crabgrass. Se dará tanto tiempo como sea posible para que la gente responda. <p /> Tareas del grupo dinamizador y planificación de la próxima reunión: <p /> DECISIÓN: un grupo de construcción del proceso o dinamizador es necesario para la cuenta de correo electrónico, la circulación de actas, comprobar que los grupos de trabajo están haciendo sus tareas y para producir boletines de noticias. La tarea de la planificación de la próxima reunión será delegada a un grupo separado. <br /> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt;"><b><br /> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt;">Construcción de una estrategia sobre Justicia Climática en Europa </span><br /> </b></span><br /> Esta discusión estratégica es crucial para el desarrollo de la red CJA, y es necesario para una red como CJA asumir estas preguntas. Se investigó la posibilidad de algo así como una variedad de estrategias para Europa, "Estrategias para la justicia climática”, asamblea que se producirá en la primavera de 2011. <p /> DECISIÓN: crear grupos temáticos para tratar de desarrollar lo que significa la justicia climática en Europa. Los grupos de debate serán creados en el crabgrass y pediremos ayuda a nuestros aliados cuando no tengamos capacidad teórica. <p /> Hemos esbozado una serie de discusiones temáticas emergentes: <br /> ● Deuda climática <br /> ● Alimentación y agricultura <br /> ● Sistemas energéticos <br /> ● Fronteras y militarismo <br /> ● Transporte <br /> ● Posibilidad de vivienda <br /> ● Trabajos ‘verdes’ o climáticos<p /> Una persona o un pequeño grupo se ha hecho cargo de cada uno de estos hilos temáticos. Estas discusiones deben ayudar a producir un documento estratégico que sirva como base para la reunión o encuentro sobre estrategia. <br /> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt;"><b><br /> SIGUIENTE REUNIÓN DE CJA </b></span><p /> La próxima reunión de CJA está prevista para el 28-29 de agosto. Será en el Encuentro de verano La Tierra Primero de Holanda (Earthfirst Netherlands Gathering)<br /> Será enviada en el próximo boletín más información sobre la ubicación exacta.<p /> Durante esta reunión, ya hemos planeado para discutir muchos temas interesantes como: <p /> ● Evaluar la capacidad de los grupos para responder a la convocatoria “Un millar de cancunes”. <br /> ● Más discusión y planificación sobre el 12 de octubre; <br /> ● ¿Qué hacemos después de Cancún? El desarrollo de nuestras estrategias de futuro; <br /> ● Evaluar el nuevo proceso y herramientas de trabajo <br /> ● Fiesta!!!! <p /> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt;"><b><br /> Eventos climáticos y acciones en Europa en los próximos meses</b></span><p /> Estos son algunos hechos relevantes que ocurrirán en Europa durante el verano. Si conoces acontecimientos que vayan a suceder en otras partes del mundo, avísanos para incluirlo en el siguiente boletín al correo electrónico <a href="mailto:info@climate-justice-action.org.uk"></a><a href="mailto:info@climate-justice-action.org.uk">info@climate-justice-action.org.uk</a> <br /> - Campamento climático nórdico: 14 al 20 julio <br /> - Francia: campamento climático, del 22 de julio al 1 de agosto 1, en Normandía, centrado en Total (la empresa petroquímica y energética). <br /> - Bélgica: campamento por el clima del 29 de julio 29 al 4 de agosto, en Lieja. <br /> - Irlanda: Tendrán un campamento del 12 al 16 de augosto en el co. Tyrone <br /> - País de Gales: Las actividades se centraron en el campo de minas de carbón galés sur, 13 a 17 agosto <br /> - Reino Unido, Edimburgo 19-15 agosto, apuntando a RBS <br /> - Campamento No Borders, Bruselas, 27 septiembre-3 octubre <br /> - Alemania: Dos campamentos cerca de minas a cielo abierto. <br /> - Países Bajos: los grupos se dirigen a las estaciones eléctricas de carbón.<br /> </div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div><ENCUENTRO_CJA_EN_BONN spanish version.rtf></div></blockquote> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/cja-newsletter-june-2010">Dispatches on Climate Justice </a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-63299259223928554862010-06-11T04:59:00.001-07:002010-06-11T04:59:14.489-07:00Take the Cochabamba way<div class='posterous_autopost'><p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/uDIIlxvIqbyhakveGhkolIHvfyHbhyxeFJjhgjpvwpsfmCpmkttqaxlmroqq/IMG_0173.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/uDIIlxvIqbyhakveGhkolIHvfyHbhyxeFJjhgjpvwpsfmCpmkttqaxlmroqq/IMG_0173.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="375"/></a> </p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/take-the-cochabamba-way">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-67073569139956304212010-06-05T13:27:00.001-07:002010-06-05T13:27:53.616-07:00Bonn Climate Justice<div class='posterous_autopost'><p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/uqxwdxABEbhmdDzFJtfsgnrEqDytgIErqyJbsEeDqoByiIGtFidCjsrrIfmj/IMG_0157.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/uqxwdxABEbhmdDzFJtfsgnrEqDytgIErqyJbsEeDqoByiIGtFidCjsrrIfmj/IMG_0157.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> <a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/EpswdxsssrJHpsCwpbzAyzeFgHGfpijdxwhpzCDzpEbFqkannCzrrrqJlhcg/IMG_0158.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/EpswdxsssrJHpsCwpbzAyzeFgHGfpijdxwhpzCDzpEbFqkannCzrrrqJlhcg/IMG_0158.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="375"/></a> <div><a href='http://climatejustice.posterous.com/bonn-climate-justice'>See and download the full gallery on posterous</a></div></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/bonn-climate-justice">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-49392783926214680262010-05-25T06:56:00.001-07:002010-05-25T06:56:57.387-07:00Climate Justice Action gathering, 29 - 31 May, Bonn, Germany<div class='posterous_autopost'><div><span style="">What’s on the agenda?</span><br /></div><div><div style=""><div>We will be discussing the day of direct action (on 12th Ocotober), and there will also be feedback and discussion on the People’s Summit in Cochabamba, updates about the mobilisation towards COP16 in Cancun, Mexico, and plenty of time for working groups. Given that the main purpose of this meeting is to organise the Day of Action, it would be great if groups could <i>come with concrete proposals for how to get involved in it.<br /></i><br /></div><b></b><div><b>Draft agenda</b> (suggestions are welcomed): <br /><b></b></div><p /><div><b>Friday</b><br />19.00 Agenda and Facilitation meeting<p /><b>Saturday</b><br />10.00 Introductions and brief update from individuals and groups present<br />10.45 feed back from Bolivia, brief disussion<br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;">11.45 break<br /></div><div>12.00 Update from Working- Groups (Finance, Process, CJ Paper, Others?)<br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;">13.00 Lunch<br /></div><div>14.00 Update on Cancun mobilisation and discussion on CJA invovlement <br />15.00 Proposal from communications working group <br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;">16.00 break<br /></div><div>16.30 Day of action discussion (how it fits with week of action, action proposals, how many, where, against what?) <br />17.30 form working groups for day of action<br />18.00 Working group time<p /><b>Sunday</b><br />10.00 common start, check up, what's to do<br />10.15 working group time<br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;">13.00 Lunch<br /></div><div>14.00 working group time<br />16.00 Report back from the WG- and decisions<br />18.00 evaluation, next meeting</div><p /><div>(please send any comments on the agenda to: <a href="mailto:info@climate-justice-action.org" target="_blank"></a><a href="mailto:info@climate-justice-action.org">info@climate-justice-action.org</a>)<p /><b>Monday</b> - <b>CJ in Europe discussion<br /></b>At the CJA meeting in Amsterdam in February a discussion paper was produced entitled 'What does Climate Justice mean in Europe?' (<a href="http://www.climate-justice-action.org/news/2010/03/28/what-does-climate-justice-mean-in-europe/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.climate-justice-action.org/news/2010/03/28/what-does-climate-justice-mean-in-europe/">http://www.climate-justice-action.org/news/2010/03/28/what-does-climate-justice-mean-in-europe/</a>). This day will be an opportunity to further develop the discussions raised in the paper, and to collectively explore the concept of Climate justice in Europe (for example, in areas such as international solidarity, food and agriculture, migration, militarism, energy, and production and consumtion) Written contributions in advance are welcomed.<p /><br />Invitation to meeting:<p /><b>Take direct action for climate justice!</b><p /><b /><div>Invitation</div> to the next Climate Justice Action gathering, 29-30.5. in Bonn, Germany<br />Where next for the climate justice movement after the failure of Copenhagen, the inspiration of Cochabamba? How can we move from demanding climate justice to actually fighting for climate justice? By taking direct action wherever we are to shut down major emitters, to fight false solutions, to reclaim our power over our own lives.<p />Two years ago, the Latin American network ‘Global Minga’ called for an annual day of action in defence of mother earth on October 12, reclaiming the day that used to be imposed as ‘Columbus Day’. Responding to this call, and the demand for a day of action for ‘system change, not climate change’ made in Copenhagen by the global movements, Climate Justice Action is proposing a day of direct action for climate justice on October 12, 2010<p />To discuss and plan this day of action, and other next steps for our movements, Climate Justice Action is organising a 2-day gathering that is open for everybody who is interested in the fight for climate justice. The meeting will be held at a climate camp in Bonn, Germany, from the 29th to the 30th of May.<p /><b>Practicalities</b><br />The meeting will be happening at the Bonn Climate Camp, in a meadow at an organic farm in Bonn-Messdorf (see<a href="http://www.gutostler.de/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.gutostler.de">www.gutostler.de</a>), 20 minutes by bus from Bonn train station.The meeting will take place from 10am to 6pm on both days, and you can arrive on the 28th. Food will be provided for a donation. Given that the meeting will be held in a climate camp, you should, if possible, bring a tent and sleeping bag. If that is not possible or desirable for you, please let us know in advance (mail to: CJABonn[at]<a href="http://gmail.com/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://gmail.com">gmail.com</a>). More details can be found here:</div><p /><div><a href="https://mensch.coop/index.php?p[0]=showSingle&p[1]=ID&p[2]=1376&p[3]=Blog::SubPages&p[]=showBoth&p[]=ID&p[]=1380&lang=deu" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://mensch.coop/index.php?p[0]=showSingle&p[1]=ID&p[2]=1376&p[3]=Blog::SubPages&p[]=showBoth&p[]=ID&p[]=1380&lang=deu">https://mensch.coop/index.php?p[0]=showSingle&p[1]=ID&p[2]=1376&p[3]=Blog::SubPages&p[]=showBoth&p[]=ID&p[]=1380&lang=deu</a><p />See you all in Bonn – and if not, see you on the streets on October 12th! <br /></div></div><p /><p /></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/climate-justice-action-gathering-29-31-may-bo">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-20998257741975032212010-05-21T04:42:00.001-07:002010-05-21T04:42:49.071-07:00CLIMATE PROTESTS IN BONN<div class='posterous_autopost'><div>From 31 May until 11 June 2010 the negotiations on the UN climate regime will resume in the Maritim Hotel in Bonn, Germany. The regional civil society alliance "Klimawelle -- Aktion für Klimaverantwortung und Klimagerechtigkeit" / "Climate Wave - Action for Climate Responsbility and Climate Justice" want to encourage people to join in then protests that are planned for the first week of June in the former capital of Germany.<p />For the climate movement this is a chance not only to make our voice heard but also to network, to further elaborate on the concept of climate justice, and to highlight the anticapitalist essence of this new movement.<p /><div><i>Information of the Klimawelle:<br /><span style="font-style: normal;">Website and ride-sharing opportunity: <a href="http://www.klimawelle.de/" target="_blank">www.klimawelle.de</a></span></i></div> E-Mail: <a href="mailto:info@klimawelle.de" target="_blank">info@klimawelle.de</a><br /> Newsletter: <a href="mailto:newsletter@klimawelle.de" target="_blank">newsletter@klimawelle.de</a><i><br /> </i><i><br /> Most important events:</i><p />- the networking meetings of Climate Justice Action and the Klima!Bewegungsnetzwerkes<br />- the discussions at the Klimaforum and at the camp</div><div>- some disobedient actions in the tradition of Copenhagen</div><div>- the "System Change Not Climate Change" block on the demonstration<p />29 May - 6 June<br /><b>Climate Camp (in Bonn Messdorf)</b><br />Movement-Building for climate justice<br /><a href="https://mensch.coop//klimacampbonn" target="_blank">https://mensch.coop//klimacampbonn</a><p />29 Mai<br /><b>Decentralized Action Day<br /></b>Street Theatre against Emissions Trade<br /><a href="http://www.klimawelle.de/" target="_blank">www.klimawelle.de</a><p />29/30 June<br /><b>Meeting of Climate Justice Action (at the Klimacamp)<br /></b><a href="http://www.climate-justice-action.org/" target="_blank">http://www.climate-justice-action.org/</a><p />3 June<br /><b>Critical Mass/Bike Demonstration (15:30, from Alter Zoll in Bonn)<br /></b>We don't hinder the traffic, we are the traffic!<br /><a href="http://www.klimawelle.de/" target="_blank">www.klimawelle.de</a><p />3 June<br /><b>Meeting of the Klima!Bewegungsnetzwerkes (at Klimacamp)<br /></b><a href="http://klima.blogsport.de/" target="_blank">http://klima.blogsport.de/</a><p />3/4 June<br /><b>Klimaforum (Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn)<br /></b>Climate protection quo vadis? Concrete Measures on Climate Justice!<br />(by Attac, BUND and Klimawelle)<br /><a href="http://www.attac.de/klimaforum" target="_blank">www.attac.de/klimaforum</a><p />5 June<br /><b>Demo (13 Uhr, from Kaiserplatz Bonn)<br /></b>Demonstration for climate responsibility and climate justice<br />with a "System Change Not Climate Change" block<br /><a href="http://www.klimawelle.de/" target="_blank">www.klimawelle.de</a><p /></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/climate-protests-in-bonn">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-32687594500947516812010-05-17T13:07:00.001-07:002010-05-17T13:07:52.705-07:00Tale of two cities<div class='posterous_autopost'><p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/sdmrtbcphkvFDyGAryvAaaqnabcethEfyGklsohcChfxhIoaCqwwncDichAD/IMG_0142.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/sdmrtbcphkvFDyGAryvAaaqnabcethEfyGklsohcChfxhIoaCqwwncDichAD/IMG_0142.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="667"/></a> </p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/tale-of-two-cities-19">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-76466278133780622010-05-17T11:03:00.001-07:002010-05-17T11:03:56.531-07:00REPORT BACK FROM THE PEOPLE’S CLIMATE CONFERENCE, COCHABAMBA, BOLIVIA,<div class='posterous_autopost'>Our trip to Bolivia started a couple of days before the World People's<br />Conference on Climate Change, when we attended the 3rd International Water<br />Conference, which was also commemorating the tenth anniversary of the<br /> Water War. The people of <span name="st" class="st">Cochabamba</span> were celebrating their victory against<br />Bechtel, the multinational company that in 2000 was pushing for water<br />privatization, and the people resisted through blockades and mass<br /> mobilisation.<p />Local and international organisations took this opportunity to come<br />together to share experiences and even start preparing a strategy to make<br />the right to water an important part of the upcoming conference. Tucked<br /> away in the corner of all this excitement, we found the carpa tematica<br />(themed tent) that would later be transformed to mesa 18 (the 18th working<br />group/table). It was here that discussions started to point out the<br /> contradictions between the external discourse on capitalism of the<br />conference and the ongoing domestic mega-projects and extractive<br />industries contributing to social injustice and climate change within<br />Bolivia and Latin America.<p /> MESA 18<br />Mesa 18 was organised by CONAMAQ (National Council of Ayllus and Markas of<br />Qullasuyu) and other social movements from across the continent joined it<br />along the way. They wanted it to be a part of the conference, which was<br /> why it was named the 18th working group, but it remained unofficial and<br />controversial. Rumours were that the government met with the organisers<br />earlier in the week to dissuade them from establishing this space, and<br /> opponents of the government latched onto this opportunity to try to<br />undermine Evo Morales. However, everyone we spoke to was clear that this<br />was to complement the conference by looking deeper into the local effects<br /> of global industrial capitalism - and not to oppose it.<br /><span></span><br />EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES<br />Around the same time 500km from <span name="st" class="st">Cochabamba</span> the San Cristobal community<br />took action against the Japanese owned mine company that is the world's<br /> third largest producer of silver and sixth largest of zinc. It is also<br />extracting natural resources and contaminating the community's water. They<br />blockaded the company and started overturning trains full of mineral ore -<br /> a real example of the struggle against extractive industries and one that<br />set the context for the conference during the following week.<p />If there were doubts at the beginning of the conference that this was a<br /> set up by the Bolivian government to get social movements to give their<br />blind support, then it subsided by the end. And there was doubt! When the<br />Forest Working Group went to meet for the first time they found a<br /> moderator who turned out to be a UN bureaucrat and that the draft<br />declaration included a description of the UN’s REDD (Reducing Emissions<br />from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) Programme as a solution to<br />deforestation.<p /> FALSE SOLUTIONS<br />REDD is a market solution which, through commodification of the forests,<br />allows the global north to offset their emissions instead of reducing<br />them, threatens communities and peoples who live in these areas, and<br /> replaces forests with monoculture plantations. The movements responded<br />quickly - they used the process, and their interjections, to overturn this<br />draft, and in the end REDD was outright rejected in the final declaration.<p /> The strength and dignity of the voices representing people from all over<br />the world made it clear that this process, if it was to be in our name,<br />would not advocate any false solutions. So, when the final declaration was<br /> read most people from various working groups were happy with the outcome.<br />Indeed, the declaration is inspiring – it spells out capitalism as the<br />root cause of climate change and outright denounces the carbon market. But<br /> <span></span>beyond its engagement with the UN process, it is missing a real plan on<br />how to move forward.<br />(<a href="http://pwccc.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/peoples-agreement/" target="_blank">http://pwccc.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/peoples-agreement/</a>)<p /> GLOBAL MOVEMENT-BUILDING<br />That's why the space that the conference provided for movements/peoples to<br />meet, share stories, strategies and continue the process of building a<br />linked up global movement to fight for climate justice was crucial.<p /> We met with Rising Tide from Mexico, Ecuador and Australia, each with many<br />inspiring stories and actions. It was interesting for example to find out<br />that climate camps are put on by Rising Tide along with other groups, but<br /> generally actions throughout the year are organised outside a 'camp'<br />identity.<p />We attended side events and listened to struggles against extraction,<br />displacement, and contamination. In these side events what stood out the<br /> most for us were the voices that questioned the credibility and legitimacy<br />of the UN process and that called for actions now.<p />We shared our stories as well - many people here don't hear a lot about<br />the resistance to capitalism and the direct action that happens against<br /> social injustice and climate change in Europe. The best reaction was when<br />we announced – in the middle of a heated drafting of the mesa 18<br />declaration - that in London there would be a solidarity stunt with the<br />San Cristobal community. Everyone in the room applauded and cheered – this<br /> is how we can work together in the fight for climate justice.<p />DECLARATIONS AND ACTIONS<br />The blockade in San Cristobal was instrumental in showing that words were<br />not enough and that action is needed. Mesa 18 may not have succeeded in<br /> throwing out a multinational out of Latin America that week, but they did<br />draw up their own declaration that outright denounced all megaprojects in<br /><span></span>Latin America and called for a new model for the management of natural<br /> resources with the direct control of the workers. As far as we know, the<br />plans continue.<p />(Read a rough translation of the declaration on our blog:<br /><a href="http://peoplesconference.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">http://peoplesconference.wordpress.com</a>).<p /> In this same spirit we participated with other climate activists from the<br />UK and Europe spreading the call out that Climate Justice Action took up<br />from call out by various social movements in Latin America, under the name<br /> Minga Global, for a day of direct action for climate justice on the 12th<br />of October - the day in defence of the mother earth.<br />(<a href="http://www.movimientos.org/defensmadretierra/show_text.php3?key=15835" target="_blank">http://www.movimientos.org/defensmadretierra/show_text.php3?key=15835</a>)<p /> BUILDING BRIDGES<br />On the last day of the conference we hosted a side event entitled<br />'Building Bridges Across Continents.' See it here: We used some of the<br />time to brainstorm who were our allies and what/who were our obstacles in<br /> building climate justice, and the rest of the time brainstormed on how we<br />can work together in building a global movement, using the 12th of October<br />as a specific example. We were all excited to share ideas and start<br /> planning some action!<p />La lucha sigue / The struggle continues !<p />Agi and Ben<br />International working group<p />* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *<p />WHAT’S NEXT?<p />READ MORE<br />Read more about the conference (including conclusions from all working<br /> groups): <a href="http://pwccc.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">http://pwccc.wordpress.com/</a><br />Read our blogs, see pics/videos from the conference:<br /><span></span><a href="http://peoplesconference.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">http://peoplesconference.wordpress.com</a><p /> HOST A REPORT BACK MEETING<br />Part of our remit is to feedback to local groups - let us know if you want<br />us to come and visit email <a href="mailto:international@climatecamp.org.uk">international@climatecamp.org.uk</a><p /> COME TO THE BONN MEETING<br />The next Climate Justice Action Europe gathering will be held in Bonn on<br />29-30 May. For more information check <a href="http://www.climate-justice-action.org/" target="_blank">www.climate-justice-action.org</a> soon.<p /> GET PLANNING FOR 12 OCTOBER<br />Join Minga Global and participate in a Day of Direct Action for Climate<br />Justice on Tuesday 12 October 2010 and start planning! <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/report-back-from-the-peoples-climate-conferen">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-52017032839481097682010-05-17T08:46:00.001-07:002010-05-17T08:46:56.169-07:00From Copenhagen to Cochabamba: Walking We Ask Questions, 2.0?<div class='posterous_autopost'> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">From Mueller, 5/2010</span></p> <div> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"></span></p> <p><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The Run-U</span></strong><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">p</span></strong></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Copenhagen, Denmark, December 2009. </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The climate summit’s</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> failure </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">manages to underwhelm even the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">already low expectations </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">of the emerging global climate justice movement</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">. Once it becomes </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">obvious </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">that none of the major emitters, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">neither </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">the US </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">n</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">or the EU, Japan or Australia, has committed to the necessary dramatic emissions reductions</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">,</span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">the so-called “Copenhagen Accord”</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> is being negotiated outside the official processes under the leadership of the United States. </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">(And </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">why should </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">the major emitters reduce their emissions</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">? In a </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">fossil-fuel based</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> capitalist economy, reducing emissions implies </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">a</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> politically unpalatable reduction of e</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">conomic growth.) </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Accord</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> claims </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">it</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> want</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">s</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> to limit global warming to 2° Celsius, but </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">in pursuit of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">this ambitious goal</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> it proposes only voluntary emissions reductions</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, without any mechanisms for enforcing these commitments, or </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">for penalising</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> those </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">countries that</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> fail to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">meet their commitments</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">.</span><a name="_ftnref2"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[2]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> It is the resistance of governments from Venezuela, Sudan and Bolivia that ultimately </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">stops</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">from officially adopting the A</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">cc</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ord. Instead, the text it is merely “taken note of”</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> – as is the quality of the catering at the summit. The w</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">orst-</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">case scenario feared by many in the movements and</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> in</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> critical NGOs, that a bad deal might be greenwashed, thus </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">does </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">not come to pass. Only the politically colour-blind could see the Accord as being g</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">enuinely green. The supposedly “</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">last,</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> best chance to save the planet”</span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">thus passes</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, after a two-week summit during which the prospect of the disappearance of entire </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">island states under water</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> and the evacuation of their populations had become</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> a new normality that people accepted without flinching</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Yet not only to those </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">who would prefer no climate </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">deal at all to even a weak one,</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the two-week summit is far from a complete disaster. Many in the emerging global climate justice</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> movement</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, especially those who from the beginning took the hope for a “fair, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ambitious</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> and </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">binding </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">deal”</span><a name="_ftnref3"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn3"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[3]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> as pie-in-the-sky, can point to successes of their own: the demonstration on Saturday 12.12. was probably the single largest explicit ‘climate change’ demonstration ever (</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">though its political intentions were fuzzy at best, ranging from the ‘do something about climate change, please’, to the traditionally anticapitalist ‘shut down capitalism, now!’</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">); over a two-week period</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, more than 50,000 people attended </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Klimaforum09</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">countersummit in Copenhagen, which produced a</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> widely disseminat</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ed final declaration that effectively brought together the various political positions in the movement; while </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">the last major action, </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Reclaim Power</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">expressed a new </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">relationship between movements on the streets, NGOs and governments</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">in a way that</span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">augured in</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> a new phase of global movement politics.</span><a name="_ftnref4"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn4"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[4]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> In that sense it mattered that Hugo Chavez, in his </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">address</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> to the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">UNFCCC</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, quoted the slogan that the movements had been articulating for weeks in their workshops and </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">chanting </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">in the streets: </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Change the system, not the climate!</span></em></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Given the</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> obvious failure of official climate change politics on the one hand, and the possible e</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">mergence of a new social force on the other, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Bolivia’s president Evo Morales lays an interesting wager. He calls for an alternative climate summit – more precisely: a “Global Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth”</span><a name="_ftnref5"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn5"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[5]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> – to gather all those progressive forces that want to develop an explicitly </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">anticapitalist</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> climate politics. The meeting is to take place in Cochabamba, a city made famous ten years ago in the global movements </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">by</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Guerra del</span></em><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> Agua</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, the ‘water war’</span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">that brought together rural irrigators and campesinos, urban factory workers, unemployed miners, and cocaleros (coca leaf growers), who successfully overturned the contract that had privatised </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">the municipal water system </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">and threw</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the US-</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">based </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">multinational Bechtel</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> out of Bolivia.</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> Much is at stake: so far, the left</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">’s</span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">response</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> to the failure of official climate change politics </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">consists of little more </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">than th</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">e usual moralising appeals and </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">demands, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">but </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">lacking sufficient social force to implement them. Put differently: </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">it may be technically correct to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">say that ‘capitalism’ is to blame for climate change, but </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">it </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">doesn’t help us much in light of the continued expansion of the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">fossil-fuel</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> system – </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">despite</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> attempts to institute a kind of ‘green capitalism’.</span><a name="_ftnref6"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn6"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[6]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> What </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">might</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> an </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">anticapitalist</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> climate politics look like? How can it be implemented? And maybe most importantly: by whom?</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"></span></p> <p><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The A</span></strong><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ctors</span></strong></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">In Cochabamba, these and other questions were to be discussed by an </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">almost </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">unprecedented constellation of actors: </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">not since the days of the 3</span><sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: xx-small;">rd</span></sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> International </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">had </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">progressive </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">governments and movements been brought together on such an equal footing</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, outside the often stifling UN-framework and in the context of such an explicitly anticapitalist discourse.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">On the one side, we </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">get</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the progressive Latin American governments, some of them organised in the ALBA-bloc (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America: Venezuela, Cuba,</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">). Of these, the Bolivian is</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> by</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> far the one closest to social movements,</span><a name="_ftnref7"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn7"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[7]</span></a> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">being </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">itself the result of an intense cycle of largely </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">indigenous</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> social struggles over the course of the l</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ast decade. The</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> relevance of this lies in the fact that the movements for climate justice, even more so than othe</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">r radical left movements, rely</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> strongly on the agenda-setting, the political leadership of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">often</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> indigenous ‘frontline communities’ (that is, of those groups who are most directly affected by climate change as well as by the so-called ‘false solutions’</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> like emissions trading or agrofuels).</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">But looking beyond discourse to the ‘material basis’ of the Bolivian economy, things suddenly look somewhat different. While there is much talk of </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Pachamama</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, of Mother Earth and its rights in the run-up to and during the summit, the left-wing Latin American project is in fact grounded in a political economy that the Uruguayan intellectual Eduardo Gudynas </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">has dubbed</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the “New Extractivism”.</span><a name="_ftnref8"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn8"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[8]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> To be sure, progressive governments have made significant progress in poverty reduction, and have accompanied (that is, have been produced by and have furthered) genuine transformation in social force relations. What is on display in Bolivia and elsewhere in the region is a sort of neo-Keynesian </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">desarrollismo</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> (developmentalism), with strongly redistributive policies. But these welcome policies are financed by the exploitation of the very </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Pachamama</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> whose rights are on the agenda in Cochabamba: </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">be it the exploitation of</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> mines (coal, lithium, copper), </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">the construction of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">dams, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">the pumping of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">oil, or </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">the expansion of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">hyperintensive soy-monocultures. Gudynas argues that “the progressive governments</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> [in Latin America]</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> reduce economic development to economic growth, which in turn can be achieved primarily by way of the expansion of exports and increasing investments. The new extractivism is one of the central means for reaching these goals.”</span><a name="_ftnref9"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn9"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[9]</span></a></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">There are thus two </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">tensions within the Bolivian as well as the broader </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Bolivarian project. First, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">a</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> contradi</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">c</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">tion </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">exists </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">between discourse and material basis (a seemingly old-fashioned, but in this case definitely appropriate distinction): flowery talk notwithstanding, the Bolivian government’s capacity to effectively raise living standards within the country largely depends on high prices for natural gas and other raw materials, that is, on a </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">fossil fuel-based</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, extractive economy. Thi</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">s hardly looks like one of the “real solutions”</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> so often invoked by the climate justice movement</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, that would quickly deliver significant emissions reductions while at the same time beginning to overturn the social relations that produce the crisis in the first place</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">. Second, social conflicts seem to arise almost necessarily around traditional resource extraction. Two </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">quick</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> examples: just days before the climate meeting in Cochabamba, the Bolivian town of San Cristobal saw the occupation of corporate offices and blockades of train lines during protests against a local silver mine.</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> The protesters’ demands? End</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> environm</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ental devastation, and supply</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the local communities with water and electricity.</span><a name="_ftnref10"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn10"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[10]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> In addition, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">intense protests are taking place in southwest Bolivia </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">against hydroelectric power plants that the Bolivian government </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">plans to build together </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">with Brazil.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">This neo-extractivist model of development, as well as the need for sometimes repressively controlling the conflicts that arise around it, clearly doesn’t sit very well with a conference about the rights of </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Pachamama</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, where the global movements are supposed to get together with progressive governments to discuss socially just solutions to the climate crisis. What to do? The Bolivian government simply decided to exclude not only these kinds of local and national questions from the conference</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">’s</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> agenda – with the ludicrous justification that local questions had no place in an international conference – but also, as a result, those groups and movements critical of the government and its development</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">al</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> model. Those for whom this move is eerily reminiscent of the cynical positions taken in Copenhagen by the likes of Angela Merkel, who likes to be feted internationally as the saviour of the climate, while continuing to build coal fired power plants at home at an alarming rate, may be forgiven. The exclusion of these questions </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">and voices </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">from the summit led groups cr</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">itical of Evo Morales and his Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">to create the alternative </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">mesa 18</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, the ‘18</span><sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: xx-small;">th</span></sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> working group’, where the Bolivian model as well as the new extra</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ctivism were openly criticised. </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">To</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> complicate things further</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, and to briefly jump ahead in the storytelling: the problem with criticising Evo and his MAS from the left is the political right, which has organised a strong separatist movement in the comparatively wealthy ‘</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">M</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">edia</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> L</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">una’ region in Bolivia’s lowlands, that constitutes a serious challenge to the stability of the country and the continua</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">tion of Morales’ government. Thu</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">s, when two right-wing members of parliament wanted to join the participants of the mesa 18, they were denounced as fascists, and expelled from the proceedings. Why? Because the anti-MAS left has at all cost</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">s</span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">to </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">avoid the impression of joining forces with the right against Evo.</span><a name="_ftnref11"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn11"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[11]</span></a></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">On one side, then, the Bolivian government with all its contradictions – which are in turn a reflexion of the complexity of the ‘new left’ in Latin America. And on the other side? There we encounter a process that, with a certain dose of Gramscian optimism,</span><a name="_ftnref12"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn12"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[12]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> can be referred to as the emerging global climate justice</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> movement</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">.</span><a name="_ftnref13"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn13"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[13]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> This movement is itself the result of a fusion between parts of the alterglobalist summit protest- and social forum-</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">milieus</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> with radical environmental groups and activists (or those radicalised by the failure of the UNFCCC), at a time when, on the one hand, neoliberalism was rapidly losing its ideological and integrative power, and on the other hand, climate change</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> had begu</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">n to force its way onto the political and economic agenda, both as a socio-environmental problem, and as a n</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ew opportunity for “green” </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">development and growth.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">W</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">hat appears as a new movement from </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">one vantage point</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">however, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">is at the same time simply the next </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">phase</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> of global social struggles in an age of what ten years ago was simply called ‘globalisation’. The first </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">phase </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">was characterised by the common rejection of neoliberalism (‘one no, many yeses’), the rejection of Thatcher’s </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">dogma</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> that there </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">is</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> no alternative (‘another world is possible’), </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">and</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the widespread refusal to work with institutional left-wing actors, not to mention governments. The World Social Forum’s Charter, for example, explicitly prohibits the participation of parties, and one of the most popular leftist theory books of the last ten years was John Holloway’s </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Change the World Without Taking Power</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">.</span><a name="_ftnref14"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn14"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[14]</span></a></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">In the second cycle, however, some things are shifting: </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">due to</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, on the one hand, neoliberalism’s waning strength in insti</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">tutions such as left-wing and</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> Social Democratic parties, trade unions and</span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">some governments; and, on the other, because this waning has highlighted the weakness of the </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">anti</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">-neoliberal movement, its inability to institutionalise, i.e. render permanent, its gains and victories, there has lately been a change in the way that the relationship to institutions is being thought in the global movements. Where a crass anti-institutionalism </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">used to reign </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">– which, to be </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">clear</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, was </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">entirely appropriate</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> to the situation – today we encounter openness, questions, and new connections.</span><a name="_ftnref15"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn15"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[15]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> One example of this</span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">is the </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Reclaim Power</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">-action mentioned above, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">during</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the preparation of which (post-)autonomous activists collaborated, or at least negotiated, with governments and a whole range of actors that ‘back in the days’ would have been </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">distrusted on account of their (ill-defined) status as</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> ‘NGOs’ – another example is the movement’s unclear relationship to the UNFCCC. A third, obviously, is the conference in Cochabamba</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> itself</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The second strategic difference we encounter in this second cycle refers to the ‘one no’ and the ‘many yeses’. After the end of neoliberalism’s hegemony</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">there is no longer a unifying ‘no’, while at the same time there is much more political space within which radical, even anticapitalist</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">,</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> positions can be articulated. All this, coupled with the growing urgency of the climate crisis, has produced a situation where there is greater pressure on the emerging climate justice movements to produce ‘positive’ proposals that can be implemented </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">at a global scale </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">than there was on t</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">he alterglobalisation movement.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">B</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">uilding on the work of the environmental justice m</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ovement, and networks like the “Durban Group for Climate Justice”</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">,</span><a name="_ftnref16"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn16"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[16]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the idea of ‘climate justice’ has </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">thus </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">quickly established itself as a</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">n important new discursive common ground</span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">for</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the movement, a discourse that in fact contains a number of “directions demands”:</span><a name="_ftnref17"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn17"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[17]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> that fossil fuels be left in the ground; </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">that </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">industrial agriculture be replaced with local systems of food sovereignty;</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> that </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">the ecological debt </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">owed by the global North to the South </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">be recognised, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">among</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> others.</span><a name="_ftnref18"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn18"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[18]</span></a> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Obviously,</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> these demands might sound different depending on where they are used, and they might be more appropriate for struggles in the South than in the urban regions of the North: does climate justice mean the same thing in Europe as it does in Latin America? The same thing in Bolivia as it does in Brazil? In this sense, even if there is today greater pressure, and space</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, for</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> positive proposals, one thing has not changed much from one </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">phase</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> to another: then, inspired by the poetry of the Zapatistas, the idea w</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">as to “walk while asking questions” (</span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">caminamos preguntando</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">)</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">. While the conference thus gave very few answers, it raised many questions, and gave space for problematics to emerge, without being solved – little else was, is, possible at this point. Problematics wouldn’t be problematic if they were amenable to easy solutions…</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"></span></p> <p><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The C</span></strong><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">onference</span></strong></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">More than 30,000 participants, almost 10,000 of them from abroad – mostly Latin American, a surprising number of North Americans. Europe and Asia are badly represented, thanks to the Icelandic volcano; representation from Africa is even worse, probably thanks to the absence of funds. Nonetheless: now we are in Cochabamba to talk about the structural changes that we know to be necessary. Government delegations from countries all over the world, summithopping autonomists, UN-bureaucrats, Andean coca farmers. In the run-up to the summit, 17 working groups had been created to deal with a multiplicity of topics, ranging from strategies for action to forests, from indigenous rights to migration, long discussions were conducted via email-lists. Imagine the difficulties of translation: not just linguistically, also culturally. How do autonomous movement activists and UN-bureaucrats talk to each other? In this regard it was especially the central working structures of the conference, the </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">mesas</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> (working groups) </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">that were interesting attempts to bring together the different languages, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">methods </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">and goals of the various actors. In this sense, the </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">mesas</span></em> <span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">were certainly problemat</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">ic:</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> not (necessarily) because they were badly organised, but rather, because they were an expression of </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">problematics</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, of open questions </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">marking </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">this new </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">phase </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">of struggles.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Many stories could now be told of</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> this conflictual cooperation. O</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">f the working group on forests, where the movements managed to defeat an attempt by the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Bolivian </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">government to get them to support the UN-programme REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), unpopular with many indigenous groups</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> for threatening to take control of their ancestral forests out of their hands. O</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">f </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Via Campesina</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">’s ultimately successful last-minute move to, together with some</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> international allies, prevent</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the conference from adopting a document that proposed the creation of a new ‘Global Alliance of Peoples and Movements’, a kind of new ‘International from Above’</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> that would tie up movements’ scarce resources while adding little to the already existing concert of international fora and networks. O</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">f the many working groups where these kinds of conflicts did not arise, where </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">either</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the government’s agenda (e.g. to push for an international referendum on climate change), or the movements’ agenda dominated (e.g. in the working group on climate financing). But these stories, interesting </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">as</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> they may be, might lead us a bit too far into the event</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">’s nitty-gritty details</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">. </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">For more of an </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">overview of the </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">conference’s </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">outcomes, it is probably most interesting to take a look at the final declaration. This long text definitely packs some political punch, and unites within itself a sometimes confusing multiplicity of demands, many of which come directly from the movements, others emerge straight from the Bolivian government’s strategic considerations (which, incidentally, raises the question of what happens to movements’ demands that are taken up by governments?).</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">“Cochabamba People’s Accord”</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> opens with some choice bits of </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">anticapitalist</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> and anti-growth rhetoric: “The capitalist system has imposed on us a logic of competition, progress and limitless growth… In order for there to be balance with nature, there must first be equity among human beings… The model we support is not a model of limitless and destructive development.”</span><a name="_ftnref19"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftn19"><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">[19]</span></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> This definitely sounds good, and is almost certainly useful in the debate about the possibility and desirability of ‘infinite growth on a finite planet’ that seems to be slowly taking off in parts of the global North. But what are the concrete strategic steps that are being proposed – and where do their problems lie?</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The two suggestions emanating from the conference that received the most coverage were the plans to hold a “global” referendum on climate change, and the idea of setting up an international environmental/climate crimes court. On the first proposal: over the course of rather controversial discussions it became clear that the referendum is a project that would make a lot of sense in a Latin American context: there is a long history here of using referenda and </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">consultas </span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">as tools of </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">conscientización</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">, of consciousness-raising, for example in the resistance to the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Many activists from the North and from Asia, however, viewed it more critically. How would Europeans respond to questions about climate change and the necessary changes to patterns of production and consumption that dealing with it would entail? How about North Americans? And finally: how do you hold a referendum in China?</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The international climate court is a similarly vexed project. On the one hand, the legal institutionalisation of social movements’ demands and successes is certainly an important part of ‘winning’. On the other hand, the creation of such an institution would demand an amazing amount of work from all parts of the climate justice movement – and do we really, after 15 years of pointlessly working away inside the UNFCCC, direct all our constituent power into this kind of international institutional process?</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">One central demand of the climate justice movement, which was taken up and further amplified in Cochabamba, has always been that the global North recognise and start making reparations for its ecological/climate debt to the global South. Now the conference has put a figure to this demand: Northern governments are to spend some 6% of their annual GDP on this debt. In principle, this call is a good thing, no doubt. In practice, the demand runs up against some problems – not insurmountable ones, but problems nonetheless. First, by way of which institutional mechanism are these funds going to flow? </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Not, we hope, through the World Bank, </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">an institution that has excelled at rebranding itself the new ‘Green Bank’ while at the same time continuing to pour significant funds into fossil-fuel projects. A</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">nd indeed, here the proposals of the financing working group are clear: “a new financial mechanism shall be established under the authority of the UNFCCC, replacing the Global Environment Facility and its intermediaries such as the World Bank and the Regional Development Banks.”</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> Second, to </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">whom</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> will these funds be paid? (Here, both the question and the answer need to be formulated carefully.) To Southern governments? Here, the term ‘global South’ might be covering up one too many conflicts between governments and sectors of society. Third, and from a European perspective most pressingly: given that the payment of climate debt could be framed as yet another reason for draconian austerity measures in Europe, and that people, as a discussion at UK-climate camp once pointed out, are unlikely to riot </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">for</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> austerity, how can we turn this into a demand that won’t leave us even more marginalised in the political battles raging on the continent right now? One way out of this would be for the movements to demand that payment of this ecological debt be tied to restrictions on where the money might come from. It would have to come from taxes on polluters that do not involve these costs being passed on to those who, say, need to consume energy to heat their homes. To be clear: this is not to reject the demand as such, it is merely to point out some of the practical challenges that the struggle for it faces, especially because this one has been so central in the movement.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">In general, the “global North”</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> comes in for much criticism in the conference’s final declaratio</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">n: it is being urged to take responsibility for the many so-called ‘climate refugees’ (use of this category, by the way, is also contested by those who argue that it illegitimately constructs and then privileges one ‘type’ of migrant – ecological – over others – ‘economic’), and to open its borders to them; and to reduce its emissions by 50% from 2013 to 2017, against a 1990 baseline. The text also repeatedly refers to “indigenous peoples”, their economies and their ways of life: on the one hand as a source of legitimacy and moral anchor, and on the other hand, as a rhetorical anti-growth device. We can only hope that these ways of life and economies not only continue to survive their confrontation with the global North but also with the new Extractivism of the Latin American New Left. In this regard it is interesting, although hardly surprising, to note that one central movement demand does not appear in the final document: to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Comrades Evo and Hugo would not have appreciated that one.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Concluding this review of the summit’s outcomes, there are the positive things that always happen beyond the ‘official’ statements when global and normally dispersed movements come together: the networking, the strategising, the planning – and the collective fun. For example: a call for action initially articulated in Latin America, for a “day of action in defence of mother earth” (on the 12</span><sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: xx-small;">th</span></sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> of October, on what used to be known as ‘Columbus Day’), was picked up in Europe by Climate Justice Action and turned into a call for “direct action for climate justice”. In Cochabamba, this day of action </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">may</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> have become a week of action where a variety of networks, ranging from the radical (Via Campesina: on the 16</span><sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: xx-small;">th</span></sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> of October, there will be a day of action against Monsanto) to the moderate (<a href="http://350.org">350.org</a> is organising a day of action, called ‘get to work’, on the 10</span><sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: xx-small;">th</span></sup><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> of October) are currently discussing the possibility of coordinating their days of action. While there are significant political differences between some of these networks, and the week of action remains thus far merely a possibility, the potential for the various parts of the movements to cooperate in taking some form of direct action definitely marks an exciting outcome of Cochabamba.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"></span></p> <p><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">The Crystal Ball: the Good, the Bad, and the U</span></strong><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">nclear</span></strong></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Events like the alternative climate summit in Bolivia always raise one question: what effects do they have? The impacts, let alone the ‘successes’ of social movements are notoriously hard to judge or measure, especially with the conference being such a recent event. Will the final declaration become the ‘new programme’ of the movements? Probably not, but some things are already becoming a bit clearer: first, only a few days after the conference, the Bolivian government submitted a document based on the results of the conference to the UNFCCC. In other words, the demands of the global climate justice movement are now official discussion materials within a UN-process, in a way that is probably quite unprecedented. Of course, it’s also possible that the UNFCCC as an institution has lost all political relevance, but that’s another matter. The document is also likely to have an internally unifying effect (with all the ambivalence that this term might carry): for example, the network Climate Justice Now! has announced that it will support the positions taken in the “Cochabamba Accord” both inside and outside the UN-process. But whether this means that positions that did not end up in the accord will be marginalised remains to be seen – the potential for this to happen definitely exists.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">Beyond the text it is likely that Cochabamba will contribute to a strengthening of anticapitalist and ‘movementist’ discourses within the climate debate: that a president would use his institutional position to explicitly link capitalism and its need for rapacious growth to the climate crisis is, in the current situation, certainly a very positive development; as is the highlighting of the role of movements in the struggle for climate justice. Discussions </span><em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">within</span></em><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"> the global movements will also be affected: the process, begun some years ago, whereby global struggles are increasingly (also) orienting themselves around the question of climate justice will have been sped up in Cochabamba.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">As time passes, more questions will undoubtedly continue to] arise as a result of the Bolivian summit. Should we focus on Cancún? And in the meantime? What of those who argue that a climate justice movement strategy needs to start looking beyond the UNFCCC? More questions. More walking.</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;">But hopefully, we’ll start to answer some of these questions soon … </span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"></span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: small;"></span></p></div> <hr /> <a name="_ftn1"></a><a href="https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgjtg95b_3cm3cgbhn&btr=EmailImport#_ftnref1">[1]</a><span style="FONT-SIZE: x-small;"> An earlier version of this </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: x-small;">text </span><span style="FONT-SIZE: x-small;">was previously published, in German, by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Thanks to Rosa for funding my trip to Bolivia, much appreciated.</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: x-small;"> Many thanks also to Corinna Genschel, Tina Gerhardt, Julian Mueller, Berti</span> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/from-copenhagen-to-cochabamba-walking-we-ask">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-31696520942775709482010-05-15T15:21:00.001-07:002010-05-15T15:21:52.194-07:00Invitation to the next Climate Justice Action gathering, 29-30.5. in Bonn, Germany<div class='posterous_autopost'><div style=""><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Take direct action for climate justice!</b><br /><p /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="">Where next for the climate justice movement after the failure of Copenhagen, the inspiration of Cochabamba? How can we move from demanding climate justice to actually fighting for climate justice? By taking direct action wherever we are to shut down major emitters, to fight false solutions, to reclaim our power over our own lives.</div><br /></div><br />Two years ago, the Latin American network ‘Global Minga’ called for an annual day of action in defence of mother earth on October 12, reclaiming the day that used to be imposed as ‘Columbus Day’. Responding to this call, and the demand for a day of action for ‘system change, not climate change’ made in Copenhagen by the global movements, Climate Justice Action is proposing a day of direct action for climate justice on October 12, 2010<p>To discuss and plan this day of action, and other next steps for our movements, Climate Justice Action is organising a 2-day gathering that is open for everybody who is interested in the fight for climate justice. The meeting will be held at a climate camp in Bonn, Germany, from the 29th to the 30th of May. <br /><b><br />What’s on the agenda?</b></p><p>We will be discussing not only the day of direct action, there will also be folks giving feedback from the People’s Summit in Cochabamba, updates about the mobilisation towards COP16 in Cancun, Mexico, and plenty of time for working groups. But given that the main purpose of this meeting is to organise the Day of Action, it would be great if groups could <i>come with concrete proposals for how to get involved in it.</i> </p><p><b>Practicalities</b></p><p>The meeting will be happening at the Bonn Climate Camp, in a meadow at an organic farm in Bonn-Messdorf (see<a href="http://www.gutostler.de/"></a><a href="http://www.gutostler.de">www.gutostler.de</a>), 20 minutes by bus from Bonn train station.The meeting will take place from 10am to 6pm on both days, and you can arrive on the 28th. Food will be provided for a donation. Given that the meeting will be held in a climate camp, you should, if possible, bring a tent and sleeping bag. If that is not possible or desirable for you, please let us know in advance (mail to: CJABonn[at]<a href="http://gmail.com/"></a><a href="http://gmail.com">gmail.com</a>).</p><p>See you all in Bonn – and if not, see you on the streets on October 12th!</p><p><br /><span></span><br /><span></span><br /><span></span><br /><span></span><br /></p></div><p /> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/invitation-to-the-next-climate-justice-action">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-59228894247520949292010-05-11T18:10:00.001-07:002010-05-11T18:10:12.399-07:00Tale of two cities<div class='posterous_autopost'><p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/vzmvaqEAybcjvqfDwkomdzDrbFtylywfInafaCIDuthIJjfrywCGybAepliI/IMG_0118.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/vzmvaqEAybcjvqfDwkomdzDrbFtylywfInafaCIDuthIJjfrywCGybAepliI/IMG_0118.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="375"/></a> </p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/tale-of-two-cities-17">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-36853749366843479012010-05-11T15:11:00.001-07:002010-05-11T15:11:53.960-07:00Mesa 18 declaration (English & Spanish)<div class='posterous_autopost'><div><div><div><div><div><div><p /><div><br />Sorry for the delay. Here is an unofficial translation of the Mesa 18 declaration, and the original below in Spanish. <div style=""><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Declaration of Table 18</b></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Collective rights and rights of the mother earth</b></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>National council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu</b></p><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">This working group established itself as a necessary space of reflection and criticism within the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of the Mother Earth. Its objective is to give a deeper examination into the local effects of global industrial capitalism. We take on the responsibility of questioning the so called popular Latin American governments and their destructive and consumerist logic, and the deadly logic of <span style="">neo extractive <span style="">development. </span></span></p></div><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The distinct interventions within this working group have contributed in setting out the contradictions within the process as well as bringing forward proposals in advancing the road to 'good living'.</p><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The People's World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of the Mother Earth is a demonstration of the magnetism that has woken up this process. In order to guarantee that this process deepens and extends as an example of hope to the whole continent and the peoples and communities of the world, its necessary to show the existing contradictions, reflected in social environmental conflicts.</p><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">These contradictions are the result of not applying the aforementioned principles. This working group proposes to contribute to active mechanisms of coordinated struggle, through the support of this process.</p><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The social and popular organisations and the original farming (<i>'campesinas') </i><span style="font-style: normal;">indigenous communities of Latin America and of the rest of the world met in Tiquipaya 20-21 April of 2010. The process of developing the 18</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;">th </span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;"> table brought proposals to define foundations for implementing a New Model of Managing Natural Resources to counter the capitalist production model still prevalent in Latin America. which is situated in industrial development and the consolidation of transnationals, funded in private property, individual gain and consumerism, aspects which have been put to judgement by the nations and the people of Latin America. The development plans of these governments, including the Bolivian government, only reproduce the development model of the past.</span></p><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">To challenge climate change humanity needs to remember its cultural collective communatarian roots – this means building a society based on collective property and in the communal and rational management of natural resources, where the peoples decide in a direct way the destiny of natural wealth in accordance with their organising structures, their self determination, their norms and procedures and their vision of how to manage their territories.</p><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">History teaches us that there is only one effective way to transform society and to construct a social alternative to capitalism, that is the permanent mobilisation and articulation of our struggles.</p><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">We resolve the following:</p><ol><li><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">We renounce imperialism, transnationals and the so called progressive Latin American governments that implement mega energy and infrastructure projects under the IIRSA in any of Latin American territories – particularly in indigenous territories and protected areas – which are designed by banks, business men and private builders with a neoliberal and exploitative vision.</p></li><li><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">We demand to change the pseudo development model which privileges the exportation of raw materials. We propose to take forward the construction of alternatives which are in the interest of the peoples, privileging equity, solidarity and complementary.</p></li><li><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">We ask to establish a rational management model of natural resources in accordance with the philosophy, culture, customs and uses of the people, and which bases itself on a social and communitarian model, respectful of the Rights of the Mother Earth.</p></li><li><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">Because of the lack of the will from governments of the world – <span style="">we demand the power, as <span style="">social organisations and farmers/peasants, to define a new management model and direct control of natural patrimony. With direct control by the workers from the farm and the city to establish policies of managing biodiversity in relation to necessity and not the dependence of our countries.</span></span></p></li><li><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">We ask the states to respect and realise inidigenous rights already accepted by the UN thanks to the fight of the first indigenous farmers/peasant organisations. We demand the derogation of the legal norms which criminalise our social struggles in defence of our communal territories and that sanction criminal governments.</p></li><li><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">Make public the necessity to eliminate large landowners, the pirating of biodiversity and agrobusiness, and to recuperate ancestral knowledge of the nations and first indigenous peasants/farmers peoples in the world, the promotion of ecological production, the reproduction of the communitarian model, the training in reproducing forests and biodiversity in an attempt to confront climate change.</p></li><li><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">We demand the retraction and expulsion of all transnationals, of those NGOs which support projects of the aforementioned corporations, and the media that propagandise and violate collective rights. We demand the recuperation of the natural goods that have been devastated and exhausted. We propose the suspension of all extractive activity, work or projects that are responsible and a cause of climate change, the displacement of peoples from their territories, and the environmental – social effects in territories of nations and peoples in the world.</p></li><li><p align="left" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">We demand the fulfillment of collective rights violated in social environmental conflicts in the following cases:</p>Corocoro – Jacha Suyu Pakajaqi, Lliquimuni - Indigenous people of Mosetén - San Cristobal – FRUTCAS Southeast of Potosí - Mutún – Chiquitanía Pantanal, TIPNIS – CONISUR, Cuenca Huanuni, Lago Poopo, Río Desaguadero, Cañadón Antequera, Consejo de Capitanes Guaranis Tarija, Charagua Norte – Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní de Charagua Norte - represa del Río Madera en Brasil y Bolivia – struggle for common property and land, MST Bolivia and farmer/peasant movement of Córdova, Argentina – Justice for the original indigenous farmer/peasant community massacred in Porvenir, Pando, the 11 de septiembre of 2008 – mining contamination in Potosí – deforestation and mining in Guarayos – mining in the North of Chichas – cases Andalgalá en Catamarca y San Juan in Argentina – conflicts over forests in Mapuche territories and other national and international cases (see annex - n/a at moment) with which we declare our solidarity in their struggles. <br /></li><li><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;">All these points make up the mandate of the peoples united at the 18th table - started by the Council of the Ayullus and Markas of Qullasuyu and other social organisations in the world - all of which should be fulfilled by all the states that benefit from the goods of the mother earth. <b></b><br /></p></li></ol><br />ESPANOL <br /><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>DECLARACIÓN MESA Nº18</b></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>DERECHOS COLECTIVOS Y DERECHOS DE LA MADRE TIERRA</b></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>CONSEJO NACIONAL DE AYLLUS Y MARKAS DEL QULLASUYU</b></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;">Esta mesa convocada por el CONAMAQ representa a los pueblos del mundo.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;">La Mesa Nº 18 se constituyó como un espacio necesario de reflexión y denuncia en el marco de la Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre el Cambio Climático y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra, a fin de profundizar la lectura sobre los efectos locales del capitalismo industrial global. Asumimos la responsabilidad de cuestionar a los regímenes latinoamericanos denominados populares y a la lógica depredadora y consumista, la lógica de la muerte del desarrollismo y del neo extractivismo.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;">Las distintas intervenciones contribuyeron a establecer las contradicciones del proceso y aportar juntos propuestas para fortalecer el camino hacia el buen vivir.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;">La Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre el Cambio Climático y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra es una demostración del magnetismo que ha despertado este proceso. Para garantizar que este proceso se profundice y se extienda como un ejemplo alentador a todo el continente y a los pueblos del mundo, es necesario visibilizar las contradicciones existentes, reflejadas en los conflictos socioambientales.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;">Estas contradicciones son el resultado de la no aplicación de los principios mencionados. Esta mesa se propone contribuir a activar mecanismos de lucha coordinada en apoyo a este proceso.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;">Las organizaciones sociales y populares y comunidades indígenas originarias campesinas de Latinoamérica y del resto del mundo, reunidas en Tiquipaya los días 20 y 21 de abril de 2010 en el marco del desarrollo de la Mesa Nº 18 con el propósito de definir las bases para la implementación del Nuevo Modelo de Gestión de los Recursos Naturales para revertir el Modelo de Producción Capitalista aún imperante en Latinoamérica, que radica en el desarrollo industrial y la consolidación de las transnacionales, fundado en la propiedad privada, el lucro individual y el consumismo, aspectos que han sido puestos en tela de juicio por las naciones y pueblos de América Latina. Los planes de desarrollo de estos gobiernos, entre ellos el boliviano, sólo reproducen el esquema desarrollista del pasado.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;">En este sentido, para enfrentar el cambio climático la humanidad debe encontrarse con sus raíces culturales colectivas comunitarias; eso significa construir una sociedad basada en la propiedad colectiva y en el manejo comunitario y racional de los recursos naturales, en la cual los pueblos decidan de manera directa el destino de la riqueza natural de acuerdo a sus estructuras organizativas, a su autodeterminación, sus normas y procedimientos propios y su visión de manejo integral de sus territorios.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;">La historia nos enseña que sólo hay un camino efectivo para transformar la sociedad y para construir una alternativa socialista al capitalismo: la movilización social permanente y la articulación de nuestras luchas.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><b>RESOLVEMOS:</b></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><b>PRIMERO.-</b> Repudiamos al imperialismo, a las transnacionales y a los gobiernos del denominado progresismo latinoamericano que impulsan proyectos de energía y mega infraestructura de la Iniciativa para la Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Suramericana (IIRSA) en todos los territorios latinoamericanos –especialmente territorios indígenas y áreas protegidas– diseñados por bancos, empresarios y constructores privados con una visión neoliberal y explotadora.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><b>SEGUNDO.-</b> Exigimos cambiar el modelo de pseudo desarrollo que privilegia las exportaciones de materias primas. Se plantea avanzar en la construcción de alternativas que estén en función de los intereses de los pueblos, privilegiando la equidad, la solidaridad y la complementariedad.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><b>TERCERO.- </b>Pedimos concertar y construir un modelo de gestión racional de los Recursos Naturales acorde a la filosofía, cultura y usos y costumbres de los pueblos, que se sustenta en un modelo social y comunitario respetuoso de los Derechos de la Madre Tierra, Pachamama, Gaia...</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><b>CUARTO.-</b> Ante la falta de voluntad política de los gobiernos del mundo, las organizaciones sociales y campesinas exigimos la facultad de definir un nuevo modelo de gestión y control directo del patrimonio natural. El control directo de los trabajadores del campo y de la ciudad impongan políticas de gestión de la biodiversidad en función de las necesidades de los y no de la dependencia de nuestros países.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><b>QUINTO.- </b>Pedimos a los Estados<i><b>respetar y hacer cumplir</b></i> los derechos indígenas aprobada por la ONU gracias a la lucha de las organizaciones indígenas originarias campesinas. Exigimos la derogación de las normas legales que criminalizan las luchas sociales en defensa de los territorios comunitarios, y que se sancione a los gobiernos criminales.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><b>SEXTO.-</b> Hacer pública la necesidad de eliminar el latifundio, la biopiratería y el agronegocio; y recuperar el conocimiento ancestral de las naciones y pueblos indígenas originarios campesinos del mundo; la promoción de la producción ecológica, y la reproducción del modelo comunitario, las capacidades de reproducción del bosque y la biodiversidad, para hacer frente al Cambio Climático.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><span><b>SEPTIMO</b></span><b>.-</b> Exigimos la reversión y la expulsión de las corporaciones transnacionales, de algunas ONGs que apoyan los proyectos de dichas corporaciones, y de medios de comunicación que propagandizan el saqueo y vulneran los derechos colectivos. Exigimos la reposición de los bienes naturales depredados y usurpados. Planteamos la suspensión de toda actividad, obra o proyecto extractivo responsable y causante del Cambio Climático, del desplazamiento de poblaciones de sus territorios, y de las afectaciones socioambientales en territorios de las naciones y pueblos indígenas originarios campesinos del mundo.</p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><b>OCTAVO.- </b>Exigimos el cumplimiento de los derechos colectivos vulnerados en los conflictos socioambientales en los siguientes casos: Corocoro – Jacha Suyu Pakajaqi, Lliquimuni - Pueblo Indígena Mosetén - San Cristobal – FRUTCAS Sudoeste de Potosí - Mutún – Chiquitanía Pantanal, TIPNIS – CONISUR, Cuenca Huanuni, Lago Poopo, Río Desaguadero, Cañadón Antequera, Consejo de Capitanes Guaranis Tarija, Charagua Norte – Asamblea del Pueblo Guaraní de Charagua Norte - represa del Río Madera en Brasil y Bolivia – lucha por la propiedad comunitaria de la tierra, MST Bolivia y movimiento campesino de Córdova, Argentina – Justicia para los pueblos campesinos indígena originarios masacrados en Porvenir, Pando, el 11 de septiembre de 2008 – contaminación minera en Potosí – deforestación y minería en Guarayos – minería en Nor Chichas – casos Andalgalá en Catamarca y San Juan en Argentina – conflictos forestales en el territorio Mapuche, y otros casos nacionales e internacionales <b>(ver anexo)</b>, a los cuales brindamos plena solidaridad en su lucha.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><b>NOVENO.- </b>Todos estos puntos se constituyen en el mandato de los pueblos reunidos en la Mesa 18 –promovido por el Consejo de Ayllus y Markas del Qollasuyu y otras organizaciones sociales del mundo– los cuales deben ser de cumplimiento vinculante por todos los Estados que aprovechan los bienes de la Madre Tierra.</p><p align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><i>ES DADO EN TIQUIPAYA A LOS 21 DÍAS DEL MES DE ABRIL DE 2010</i></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 15px;"><i>POR LA DEFENSA DE NUESTROS DERECHOS, NUESTROS TERRITORIOS Y LOS DERECHOS DE LA MADRE TIERRA</i></p><p /></div></div><p /></div><p /></div><p /></div><p /></div><p /></div><p /> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/mesa-18-declaration-english-and-spanish">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-31646873843322341292010-05-05T08:30:00.001-07:002010-05-05T08:30:43.516-07:00From Ben in Bolivia (part10) - A Tale Two Cities<div class='posterous_autopost'><div><span>It´s been a while since I last wrote and I don´t want to bore you with my dental difficulties but I am still here in Cochabamba. I had intended to leave last night, which despite a 24 hour national bus strike, looked like it would still be possible. However, while waiting for my last dental appointment I found myself experiencing the worse pain I´ve ever known (even my hair hurt) and ended up in hospital for yet more jabs in the arse. Apparently my bone is exposed as my gum has not yet healed so I am stuck here even longer and have another two days of no food to look forward to.</span></div> <span></span> <div><br /><span>Meanwhile, two of our new friends did finally managed to leave. They´ve been volunteering here with Somos Sur (<a href="http://www.somossur.net/" target="_blank">http://www.somossur.net/</a>) and have launched a new website featuring</span><span> hundreds of articles about climate conferences (<a href="http://www.cumbrescambioclimatico.org/" target="_blank">http://www.cumbrescambioclimatico.org/</a>). We visited their home for their going away party as they have to leave Bolivia as their visas are expiring. Previously that would have just meant leaving the country for a day and coming back in but sadly the rules have changed. They are now off to Ecuador to do more voluntary work. We've asked them to let us know about struggles they come across which involve UK based companies.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>In my last post I promised I'd write about the International trade fair. That post also spoke a lot about feminism but I don't want to give a false impression. This is a sexist city in a sexist country in a sexist continent on a sexist planet. </span><span>Cochabamba has high rates of domestic and sexual violence, I read 7 out of 10 women here experience such violence.</span><span>The adverts here feature the same sexist images as elsewhere in the world only even more offensive for being so unprepresentative of the people and culture they are trying to sell shit to. White brunette nuclear families at a dinner table smile as the coca-cola is served by mum, long legged bikini clad tanned models adorn ads selling 'American Chemical', saloon fresh European glamour girls sell cosmetics and US style teens promote mobile phones. I have not seen a single advert representing the culture or ethnic makeup of the majority of the people here and it is little wonder that just as people in the UK are often ashamed of their less than advert perfect bodies, people here are apparently frequently ashamed of their own ethnicity.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>It seems there is nothing that a tall skinny 'white' womens body can not be used to sell - which bring me too the trade fair.</span><span> We didn't plan to go, in fact we'd not even known it was on. However Alejandra and the band (warmi pachakuti) were playing and it was the last chance Agnes would have to say goodbye before heading to La Paz and then London.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>So, we found ourselves at the entrance to this place and instantly knew we didnt want to go in. We compromised, Chris waited outside and Agnes and I ventured in. Inside was Babylon, a temple to consumerism with vast exhibition stands for coca-cola, pepsi, telecoms companies, banks, vehicle manufactures, fashion outlets, processed food brands, airline companies and much more. We passed vast arrays of huge flat screen TVs, then giant American SUVs displayed climbing piles of rock (which is at least somewhat representative of some of Bolivias roads). Almost every stand had a minimum of two drop dead sexy tall skinny young women in shiny figure hugging dresses or hot pants. Entering one area I thought to be a car park, three of these goddesses came up to me and handed me a flyer for HGV trailers made by a company called 'Guerra' (which translates as war). I looked around and indeed this 'car park' was infact all trailers, flat beds and oil tankers from this company. The sales technique was persuasive and I was tempted to buy one but my baggage allowance wouldn't stretch to it.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>Perhaps the most incredible stand was for a company which made bricks, roof tiles and other architechual ceramics. Yes, even they had four glamour models to entice people in but they had gone a step further. Towering above the already towering women were half a dozen brick and tile sculptures made to look like... yes, more women, this time in long flowing colonial style dresses (made of different type of roof tiles).</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>The contrasts between this event and the rhetoric of the conference a week earlier were stark. This event show cased not only the big brands of transnational imperialism but also the big players in Bolivias industrial output. One stand had a variety of factory machinery from lathes to battery hens feeding mechanisms and dairy equipement. The Entel phone company had their logo on everything from bins to the main stages.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>I found myself comparing the place to glastonbury festival, we'd walked through the crowded babylon of the main drag past dozens of snazy corporate strands and endless cola and burger stalls. Our mission led us to the Ecoligical Pavillion with much smaller crowds. There, we watched the band perform, necked some chicha and checked out the variety of organic products being promoted by the green capitalists. Among the plastic vacum packs of dried tropical fruits and pots of herbal cure-alls, I came across some organic fairtrade coffee that is apparently made by climate refugees from Bolivias altiplano. Having been driven from their homes by lack of water, they have moved to the tropical region where they now cultivate coffee plants under the rainforest canopy. This, and a number of conversations I participated in since I arrived, made me realise that migration isn't just about people moving from county to country but also being forced to shift within national borders, often swelling the masses in the cities.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>Anyway, when Agnes had gone and Alejandra and I were wandering around in awe, we came across one of the stages. A folk band was playing but although there was a crowd dancing, they did so against a fence which separated them from an obviously VIP section of tabled seating in front of the stage. Alejandra wanted to get inside and locating a security person standing at the one gap in the fencing she pulled some kind of 'my friends are inside blag' and we found ourselves inside.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>It was quiet surreal. On the outside were loads of people dancing and inside, with unrivaled views of the stage were perhaps a hundred rich people in suites and posh party dresses at tables crammed with classes, jugs of cocktails and wine bottles in coolers. They had table service from waiters in bow ties and I never saw any money change hands as the tables were kept flowing with booze. Despite the alcholic lubricants these people were almost entirely static, pretty much ignoring the band on stage. Just in case these people should feel a chill, the organisers had thoughtfully provided a number of gas powered patio heaters, perhaps inspired by the bastion of corporate evo awareness 'Hopenhagen' where people stopping to admire the seimens sponsored cycle power Xmas tree lights were also warmed by these fossil fuelled planet warmers.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>Things got more surreal when the rest of Alejandras band arrived. We had gone back outside of the VIP area to dance but soon found ourselves ursured back in when our dancing had formed a snake like chain twisting through the crowd. Perhaps desperate to liven things up a bit in the VIP, our human chain ended up right up the front of the stage. Eventually even some of the stuffed shirts on the tables got up an joined the dance. </span></div> <div><span></span> </div> <div><span>Afterwards Alejandra spoke about how strange (and wrong) it all was. The VIP section consisted mostly of the rich and powerful from places like Santa Cruz. The band had playing had managed to get a small critique into their set when they sang of the Miss Bolivia who became infamous for being white, blonde and non-spanish speaking Bolivian, who said she represented the other Bolivia.</span></div> <div><span></span> </div> <div><span>The next day I went to the another type of festival, a tradditional peoples festival of fertility. I had hoped this would cheer me up but actually it was pretty depressing. The location was a bit of land on the southern outskirts of Cochabamba which has been sacred for as long as can be remembered. Then the catholic church came along and build a church there. Now the festival merges ancient rituals to pachamama with the false idolism of catholisism and consumer aspirations. Before reaching the site you pass through a huge outdoor market where hundreds of stalls sell miniture ceramic cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, and even babies. These respresent the desires of the people, their dreams for the coming year. But the stalls also now sell fake money (including US dollars and Euros), credit cards, passports, driving licenses, houses, cars and motorbikes. I wouldnt be surprised if there were miniture flat screen plasma TV´s available as well. These were taken first to the dusty courtyard before the church were people built fires and made their offerings to mother earth, and then people queued to enter the church to hedge their bets with the holy trinity. </span></div> <div><span></span> </div> <div><span>Oh well, I guess it would be more depressing if I thought it would actually work. The last thing mother earth needs is to be handing out new cars and credit cards to an ever growing number of consumers intent on western style consumerism. </span></div> <div><span></span> </div> <div><span>I should finish with something perhaps a little more cheerful. In the last couple of days the Bolivia government has nationalised what I believe is the main electricty company here (and I think that includes the ´national´ grid). Althought it´s not nationalised in the true sense of the word and some people say it´s just propoganda, it seems that having a controlling interest could be an essential first step to ensuring a sensible energy policy is in place to address global warming. While profit is still being exctracted by investors, it might mean that the government now have a powerful tool by which to enact some of the rhetoric they have been so keen to have attributed to them. Time will tell. </span></div> <div><span></span> </div> <div><span> </span></div> <div><span></span> </div> <div><span> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 15px;"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 17px;"> </span></span></span></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/from-ben-in-bolivia-part10-a-tale-two-cities">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-48729670238269404702010-05-03T13:52:00.001-07:002010-05-03T13:52:30.916-07:00Climate Justice Activist Murdered in Mexico<div class='posterous_autopost'><span style=""><span>In Memoriam: Jyri Jaakkola</span><br /><span>May 1, 2010 by intlibecosoc</span><br /><span>The 33-year old Finn Jyri Jaakkola—climate activist, revolutionary,</span><br /><span>human—was murdered on 27 April while participating as an international</span><br /><span>observer in a caravan destined to the community of San Juan Copalá in</span><br /><span>the state of Oaxaca, México. He went as an associate of VOCAL</span><br /><span>(Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Liberty) in a convoy that</span><br /><span>was intended to deliver much-needed food and other supplies to the</span><br /><span>autonomous municipality which has for months been cut off by</span><br /><span>paramilitary organizations. The caravan was at a certain point</span><br /><span>ambushed and fired upon; Jyri and Beatriz Alberta Cariño Trujillo were</span><br /><span>killed. Those responsible are said to be members of the Union of</span><br /><span>Social Welfare for the Triqui Region (UBISORT), an organization that</span><br /><span>has been said to be a paramilitary group tied to México’s</span><br /><span>Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)—the party of the present</span><br /><span>governor of the state of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.[1]</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>The present author had the pleasure of knowing Jyri but for a few</span><br /><span>days, this during the Encounter for Autonomous Life that took place in</span><br /><span>Oaxaca de Juárez in early April. He was a member of the Finnish</span><br /><span>grassroots environmental organization Hyökyaalto as well as of Climate</span><br /><span>Justice Action, and he partook in protests during the 15th meeting of</span><br /><span>the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen last December. During the</span><br /><span>Encounter, he presented an account of the Copenhagen meeting and the</span><br /><span>activities that took place to resist it, showing pictures of sit-ins</span><br /><span>and manifestations organized by protestors as well as disturbing</span><br /><span>images of police brutality directed at such. He closed his plática,</span><br /><span>or talk, with a list of demands adapted from those advocated by</span><br /><span>Climate Justice Action: that fossil fuels be kept in the ground, that</span><br /><span>local communities obtain control over their resources, that</span><br /><span>food-production be localized, that Northern over-consumption patterns</span><br /><span>be massively reduced, that the concept of ecological and climate</span><br /><span>debt[2] be recognized and that reparations be granted to Southern</span><br /><span>societies, and that the rights of indigenous peoples and forests be</span><br /><span>respected.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>Jyri was in the audience for the talk “Atmospheric Dialectics,”</span><br /><span>presented during the final day of the Encounter, and it was he who</span><br /><span>spurred dialogue after the conclusion of this decidedly depressing</span><br /><span>speech. His kindness and warmth will not forgotten.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>Jyri expressed to the author his desire to participate in actions</span><br /><span>surrounding the COP-16 meeting that is slated to take place at Cancún</span><br /><span>in November and December of this year. Sadly, he will be able to do</span><br /><span>no such thing now. It is perhaps to be hoped, though, that that which</span><br /><span>will occur at Cancún would have pleased Jyri; in this sense, it may be</span><br /><span>that we can commemorate him thusly in life, against death.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>Beside the talk he gave during the “COP, Cochabamba, and local</span><br /><span>actions: sources in the struggle against global warming” event held on</span><br /><span>the second evening of the Encounter for Autonomous Life, Jyri was</span><br /><span>filmed in an interview by x while at the Encounter. It is available</span><br /><span>here; his section begins at 20:28.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>Jyri’s passing brings to mind some of Hannah Arendt’s comments in The</span><br /><span>Human Condition: “Men, though they must die, are not born in order to</span><br /><span>die but in order to begin.”[3] It is time that we began—that we act to</span><br /><span>realize Arendt’s affirming negation of her mentor and former lover</span><br /><span>Martin Heidegger here, that we work to realize “a rational</span><br /><span>establishment of overall society as humankind.”[4] It is to be</span><br /><span>imagined that Jyri, like the rest of the Earth’s multitude that today</span><br /><span>suffers brutal repression and violence, would wish for such.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>——————————————-</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>[1] Octavio Vélez Ascencio, “Desaparecidos, varios de los emboscados</span><br /><span>en Copala,” La Jornada, 29 April 2010.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>[2] Andrew Simms, Ecological Debt: Global Warming & the Wealth of</span><br /><span>Nations (London: Pluto, 2009).</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>[3] p. 246.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>[4] Theodor W. Adorno, “Progress,” Benjamin: Philosophy, Aesthetics,</span><br /><span>History, ed. Gary Smith, trans. Eric Krakauer (Chicago: Univ. of</span><br /><span>Chicago Press, 1989).</span><br /><span></span><br /><span></span><br /></span><p><br /><p /></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/climate-justice-activist-murdered-in-mexico">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-25144584356342652352010-05-01T14:02:00.001-07:002010-05-01T14:02:43.915-07:00From Ben in Bolivia (part9)<div class='posterous_autopost'><div> <p /> <div><span style="FONT-SIZE: 15px;">A few nights ago a bunch of us attending a public meeting of SomoSur (We Are South) who had organised a debrief of the conference declaration (which I posted an english translation of on this blog a couple of days ago). One of us got to make a presentation about Carbon Trading. During the event we were told that the Mesa 18 declaration has also been placed on the official website which is amazing if true. I´ve not confirmed it myself. Speaking of Mesa 18, last night we meet with some of the organisers for a chat and to get contact details for some of the organisations which spoke or are actively resisting extractive industries in Bolivia.</span></div> </div> <div><span style="FONT-SIZE: 15px;"> </span></div> <div><span style="FONT-SIZE: 15px;">Our numbers have dwindled, its´s just me an Chris remaining in Cochabamba now. I´ve rearranged my flight home as I´ve got emergency dental work to complete and there is now no point to me spending time in Mexico City on my stop over as Via Campesina have cancelled the meeting I was planning on attending. Chris has been pretty ill, diagnosed with three different types of stomoach infection including one with a 10 - 15% motality rate if left undiagnosed. Pretty much all of us have been ill to some degree, either flu like symptoms or stomach bugs. Personally those issues have been dewarfed by accute tooth ache which didn´t stop when I had the tooth pulled at the start off the conference. I´ve now got an old filling to be removed and replaced on Monday and had another decayed wisdom tooth pulled yesterday. Poor chris had to go to hospital as they were thinking of sticking him on a drip (they didn´t and hes much better now). Meanwhile, after the dentist I also found myself in hospital. Apparently some bone in my jaw needed cutting away which carried a high risk of infection so I ended up with my trousers around my ankles and a nurse jabing a dose of antibiotics in my arse.<br /> <span></span><br /><span>I briefly mentioned the 'Lachiwana' radio show 'Ankallis' (rebels) which we appeared on ealier in the week. We were invited by our amazing new friend Alejandra who last week shocked her Cochabamba comrades by suddenly revealing she could speak English. She was the person kind enough to take me to her dentists at the start of the conference. </span><span>I first came across Alejandra my first night in town. I was treating the first signs of toothache by swigging beer from a bottle in Plaza Colon while wondering if public drinking was frowned upon here. Meanwhile she was with a group of women practising pan pipes and wondering who the tall threatening street drinker was.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>I was surprised to be introduced to her the following evening at a meeting between local activists and our little gang of European imports. I actually recognised her by her bicycle (they don't seem to be very common here). </span><span>We were meeting in the main plaza before moving somewhere else to talk and this time I wasn't the only gringo on the bottle, and pretty much everyone else was chewing coca leaves. </span><span>I tried the coca leaves as relief from toothache but without success. I also learned that Alejandra also had tooth troubles which over the next few days would result in an affinity being formed.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>Alejandra works at the Democracy Centre in Cochabamba where I had been invited to a party on the last night of the conference. I spoke to her there briefly when I arrived but she was rushing off with her friends to dance somewhere. Aware that I hadn't been sent to have a good time, I stayed at the party to chat and took the opportunity to interview some of the activists there. I also grabbed a rushed an ill-conceived interview with Naomi Klein. She was reluctant and just about to leave but she owed me. She gave a couple of minutes which I wasted asking an irrelevant question before remembering she'd spoken briefly at Mesa 18 but by then it was too late. Fortunately I forgot to hit record so didnt actually waste any space. </span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>My other interviews went much better and should be available on Dissident Island radio after i get back to the UK. However, during one of the interviews my phone rang (terminating the recording since I use my phone as a recorder). It was Alejandra but I could barely make out the words due to excessive background noise at both ends. Basically it boiled down to cops giving people trouble a few streets away where third night of street partying was taking place to celebrate the end of the conference.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>I tried to pull others away to rush to the scene with me but without success so I arrived alone. About a dozen armed police were strutting about in the street and people were hanging about on the pavement and doorways. I soon found myself chocking on tear gas while I streamed live video on to <a href="http://qik.com/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://qik.com/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://qik.com/" target="_blank">qik.com</a>. However the cops soon moved off and within seconds people emerged from the cafes and bars carrying tables. In no time at all the party was back in full swing.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>At the heart of this street party was my friend Alejandra and the all women pan pipes band I mentioned earlier. They rocked the street and had the crowd in a frenzy of dancing and cheering. After a while they starting moving down the street but they were not alone. </span><span>Much like the Rythmns of Resistance samba band in London protests, the band took almost a hundred people in tow and soon blocked yet another road on route to their destination.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>I later learned that this group are highly unusual. Convention has it that women only sing or dance while the men play the instruments. However this band embraces indigenous traditions while rejecting sexist elements and developing the culture into the contemporary context. The band is highly political, rooted in resistance and struggle, not put off by a little tear gas. The lyrics, though based on traditional songs, are modified to carry more approbriate messaging. For example, one song previsously blaming women for men getting drunk has be transformed into a song calling women from their domestic chores to join those dancing. Another orginally about seducing women by getting them drunk is now a song about sexual concent and equality.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>This theme of strong women engaged in struggle is reflected throughout the history of Cochabamba. Agnes and I took </span></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 15px;"><span>the Red Tinku alternative political history tour of the city and learned how even the language here had been influenced by the women who have given their lives in struggle and resistance over the centuries. </span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>Red Tinku had been criticised by some for exploiting gringos during the conference. Our group had considered staying at their social centre but were put off by prices several times the cost of a cheap hostel in the city. However we did eventually end up there for a pachamama ritual which involved large quantities of coca leaves and bucket loads of booze. When I say buckets, I mean it literally - the bar consisted of three barrels from which people were served 5 litre buckets costing under £2.50 a go.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>The party involved lots of highly energetic dancing but also a performance about humanities relationship with nature. I followed as best I could with my limited Spanish and later checked with friends to see how accurate my attempts had been. For the most part I had it spot on until the end but I'm sure my version was better than their own.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>The performance told a story about a tree and a man, covering the period of the mans life from childhood to old age. At first the boy is entranced by the tree, playing amongst it's branches, they are friends. Some years pass and money is now the preoccupation of the young man. The tree offers it's fruit for the man to sell and the man greedily strips the tree bare. More time passes and the man returns to the tree complaint of needing something else. I'm not quite sure what exactly, perhaps a home or fuel but either way the tree kindly offers it's branches and the man thoughtlessly cuts them all off and drags them away. More years pass and the man returns to the tree which is now just a trunk. He complains of being restless, he needs a boat to go off and explore. Once more the tree offers itself, this time it's trunk, in order that the man can make a boat. In the final scene the man is back but an aged old man bent over and walking with a stick. Apparently he complains about his aching feet and the tree, now just a stump, offers itself as a seat and that's the end of the performance. However, I interpreted it differently. In my version the aged old man is complaining of having cancer and the tree is sorry to inform him that it's leaves once offered a cure for cancer but since being stripped down to a simple stump the tree now has nothing to offer beyond a place to sit and die.</span><br /> <span></span><br /><span>Anyway, on that cheerful note, I should probably wrap this up since the internet cafe I am in is about to close. I wanted to mention Agnes going on the campasina radio on a show about women in politics and I wanted to tell you about the amazing contrast I experienced last night at the Cochabamba International Fair but that will have to wait...</span></span><p /> </div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/from-ben-in-bolivia-part9">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-89996144561061739502010-04-28T15:56:00.001-07:002010-04-28T15:56:33.585-07:00Random photos from Cochabamba<div class='posterous_autopost'><p><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/sxfryJeiFDuqCjveaHahfqqIFwfqGyjHczBkkqiHjggnHbrqycHcfAIrBBGJ/IMG_0094.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/climatejustice/sxfryJeiFDuqCjveaHahfqqIFwfqGyjHczBkkqiHjggnHbrqycHcfAIrBBGJ/IMG_0094.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="375"/></a> </p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/random-photos-from-cochabamba">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-27925769863680537552010-04-28T12:34:00.001-07:002010-04-28T12:34:57.034-07:00Building Bridges Across Continents<div class='posterous_autopost'><span style=""><span>(From Agnes - Thursday 22 April)</span><br /><span></span><span></span><br /><span>This morning we had our side event which was entitled 'Building</span><br /><span>Bridges Across Continents with Grassroots Climate Justice Movements’.</span><br /><span>We used this space to introduce the movements within Europe, their</span><br /><span>politics and a bit of a background of mobilisation for Copenhagen</span><br /><span>through Climate Justice Action. We had a good turn out and many people</span><br /><span>from different struggles and different parts of the world were present</span><br /><span>- we know this because we asked them to fill in little papers about</span><br /><span>where they came from and more about their struggle - and then</span><br /><span>visualised it on an upside down map! It was good energy particularly</span><br /><span>because the plan was to use some of this time to start planning for a</span><br /><span>global day of action.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>CJA has taken up a call from the Global Minga for a day of action on</span><br /><span>October 12th. I believe that this day is symbolic because for some</span><br /><span>it's Columbus day and for this reason people in the South are trying</span><br /><span>to reclaim it. We split into groups to first discuss what are our</span><br /><span>allies and obstacles in building climate justice and then get into</span><br /><span>actual planning for the day of action.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>People like the face to face interaction and there were many ideas of</span><br /><span>how to start building for this day of action - being inclusive enough</span><br /><span>so that different tactics can be used by different groups,</span><br /><span>coordinating some type of media work so that actions are not isolated,</span><br /><span>etc. One of the barriers people spoke about in international planning</span><br /><span>is the inability to meet and the use of internet and unfortunately we</span><br /><span>finished the workshop with getting emails for a email list - but I</span><br /><span>hope that we layed the groundwork to get people talking back to their</span><br /><span>networks.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>The meeting continued outside, but I got distracted talking to some</span><br /><span>friends from the US and Italy where we shared stories about our</span><br /><span>networks. And then I got distracted by a Chilean friend who was</span><br /><span>looking for people to join a press conference of sort where they would</span><br /><span>discuss particular strategies against mining companies in Chile,</span><br /><span>Argentina and Bolivia. For some reason he thought I was a reporter.</span><br /><span>When I explained to him more about what Climate Camp did - take direct</span><br /><span>action on the root causes of climate change - his friend got really</span><br /><span>excited. I gave the example of RBS and tar sands and how we were</span><br /><span>trying to get at the financing part of the tar sands mining project</span><br /><span>and she just stood there and asked 'Why didn't they talk about this in</span><br /><span>the actions/strategies working group?' !! We swapped emails so we</span><br /><span>could keep one another updated and they went to look for more people.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>Closing remarks</span><br /><span>I somehow ended up going to the closing ceremony. I stayed through all</span><br /><span>the speeches and they were kind of interesting. I enjoyed the fact</span><br /><span>that Chavez said there were 18 working groups - admitting to the mesa</span><br /><span>18 - whether he knew it or not. The way he speaks is engaging - he was</span><br /><span>amassing us to the battle of Cancun so that we don't allow the</span><br /><span>politics of imperialism to continue. Giving personal anecdotes of how</span><br /><span>he was the only one who refused to sign the FTAA. He even said</span><br /><span>something about funding people to go to Cancun and ensure that our</span><br /><span>message is not lost because it is legitimate and this process was</span><br /><span>inclusive, open and an example of true democracy.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>Evo continued saying that we have achieved something great and now we</span><br /><span>have to ensure that the global north and UN listened to our voices -</span><br /><span>we need to convince, persuade, explain what has happened here - and if</span><br /><span>they don't listen we have to organise. It is a great discourse,</span><br /><span>powerful, necessary - no other world leaders have analysed climate</span><br /><span>change looking at its root causes and defended people and mother earth</span><br /><span>like Evo - but we didn't really discuss how we would organise if these</span><br /><span>words fell on deaf ears.</span></span><p><p /></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/building-bridges-across-continents">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-82279518006133542582010-04-28T12:31:00.001-07:002010-04-28T12:31:06.890-07:00Interventions and Declarations<div class='posterous_autopost'><span style=""><span>(From Agnes - Wednesday April 21, 2010)</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>I went back to the structural causes working group today. I was</span><br /><span>hoping to meet up with my Venezuelan friends. I was really interested</span><br /><span>in hearing more about the 'civilising model' that they kept talking</span><br /><span>about and also wanted to know what they thought of the process within</span><br /><span>Venezuela. Through whispered conversations I already knew that they</span><br /><span>saw it as a long process that would culminate when their country</span><br /><span>stopped using the capitalist extractive economic model to fund the</span><br /><span>socialist revolution, but I wondered how they saw it unfolding.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>I stayed long enough to hear two climate deniers ! They weren't really</span><br /><span>successful from swaying any focus from the task at hand - discussing</span><br /><span>the danger of green capitalism, individualism and the need for</span><br /><span>collectivism. Unfortunately, I didn't stay long enough to meet with my</span><br /><span>friends because they were focused on their interventions and I was</span><br /><span>distracted by the side event we were invited to by the Democracy</span><br /><span>Centre. I was getting nervous and went off to the internet to remind</span><br /><span>myself of all the wonderful actions we did against E.On and when I</span><br /><span>came back everyone had disappeared.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>MESA 18</span><br /><span>So I went back to the mesa 18 where Ben and I arranged to meet at 3pm</span><br /><span>because there was supposed to be a talk on San Cristobal. We thought</span><br /><span>it would be a good idea to let everyone know abut the action happening</span><br /><span>the next day in London and maybe work with someone on a message to</span><br /><span>send back. Before anything started I went up to one of the organisers</span><br /><span>telling him my intention - his eyes lit up. He told me that I must</span><br /><span>announce this to everyone once they got started. So I sat down and</span><br /><span>sent Ben ahead to the panel inteding to follow right after the</span><br /><span>announcement, but I never left.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>Instead of the discussion on San Cristobal the mesa 18 went straight</span><br /><span>into drafting a declaration so that it could be presented along with</span><br /><span>all the other ones later that eveing. A draft declaration went up on</span><br /><span>the screen and they went through it sentence by sentence - any</span><br /><span>intervention that was made went automatically into the document - it</span><br /><span>was only then challenged, discussed, questioned with further</span><br /><span>interventions or simply applauded in agreement. This is how in a space</span><br /><span>of more than 100 people consensus was reached.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>It was a hot/heated ( 'caliente' ) discussion and I was amazed and</span><br /><span>excited about the process and the end result. The declaration is raw</span><br /><span>and more powerful than anything else I read in the conference. I</span><br /><span>didn't really take notes, but I'll try to translate the final document</span><br /><span>and post it.</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>At no point did I feel it was appropriate for me to intervene in this</span><br /><span>process, my Argentine friend kept saying to wait until the end. But</span><br /><span>before the document was finalised the person I spoke to orginally made</span><br /><span>the announcement saying that some people in London would be having a</span><br /><span>solidarity action the following day. Everyone cheered. I smiled. This</span><br /><span>is what it's about!</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>This was followed by an announcement was about the cultural protest</span><br /><span>that would meet outside within a half hour. Over fifty people went to</span><br /><span>the university with their posters and masks hidden, but once inside</span><br /><span>they marched around the University denouncing the contradictions of</span><br /><span>this conference of the discourse chanting:</span><br /><span>'Basta de mentiras que aqui la pachamama esta siendo vendida' /</span><br /><span>'Enough with the lies, here mother earth is being sold'</span></span><p><p /></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/interventions-and-declarations">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-42045522005978302662010-04-28T07:13:00.001-07:002010-04-28T07:13:51.109-07:00World Peoples’ Agreement<div class='posterous_autopost'> <p>The english version of the declaration from the conference is now available. It´s also worth noting that apparently the declaration from Mesa 18 is now also included on the government website which is pretty amazing....</p> <p><em>Cochabamba, Bolivia April 22nd</em></p> <p><strong>Today, our Mother Earth is wounded and the future of humanity is in danger.</strong></p> <p>Should global warming increase by more than 2º C, which the so-called "Copenhagen Understanding" would lead us to, there is a 50% chance that the damage caused to our Mother Earth will be totally irreversible. Between 20% and 30% of species would be in danger of disappearing. Large tracts of forest would be affected, droughts and floods would afflict different regions of the planet, deserts would spread and the melting of the icecaps and glaciers in the Andes and the Himalayas would get worse. Many island states would disappear and Africa could suffer from a temperature increase of over 3º C. Likewise, reduced food production in the world would have catastrophic effects for the survival of the inhabitants of vast regions of the planet, and dramatically increase the number of hungry people in the world, which already exceeds a billion people.</p> <p>Corporations and governments of so called "more developed" countries in complicity with a segment of the scientific community, get us talking about climate change as a problem limited to the rise of temperature without questioning the root cause which is the capitalist system. We confront the terminal crisis of the patriarchal model of civilization based on the subjugation and destruction of human beings and nature that accelerated with the industrial revolution.</p> <p>The capitalist system has imposed upon us a logic of competition, progress, and unlimited growth. This mode of production and consumption seeks profit without limits, separating human beings from nature, establishing a logic of domination over her, turning everything into a commodity: water, land, the human genome, ancestral cultures, biodiversity, justice, ethics, peoples’ rights, death, and life itself.</p> <p>Under capitalism, Mother Earth in converted into merely a source of raw materials and human beings into merely the means of production and consumers, into people who are valued by what they have and not by what they are.</p> <p>Capitalism requires a strong military industry for its process of accumulation and control of territories and natural resources, thus suppressing people’s resistance. It is an imperialist system colonizing the planet. Humanity is facing a great dilemma: continue on the path of capitalism, predation and death, or the path of harmony with nature and respect for life. We need to build a new system to restore harmony with nature and among humans. There can only be balance with nature if there is equity among human beings.</p> <p>We propose to the peoples of the world: recovery, revaluing, and strengthening of the knowledge, wisdom, and traditional practices of Indigenous Peoples, affirmed in the experience and proposal of "Living Well", recognizing Mother Earth as a living being, with whom we have an indivisible, interdependent, complementary, and spiritual relationship.</p> <p>To face climate change we must recognize Mother Earth as the source of life and forge a new system based on the principles of:</p> <p><img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> harmony and balance between everyone and everything <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> complementarity, solidarity, and equity <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> collective well-being and satisfaction of everyone’s basic needs in harmony with Mother Earth <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> respect for Mother Earth’s Rights and Human Rights <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> recognition of human beings for what they are and not what they have <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Elimination of all forms of colonialism, imperialism, and interventionism <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> peace among peoples and Mother Earth.</p> <p>The model we promote is not about destructive or unlimited development. Countries need to produce goods and services to meet the basic needs of their population, but there is no way can they continue on this development path in which richer countries have a ecological footprint five times larger than the planet can bear. They have already exceeded the planet’s capacity to regenerate by 30%. At this rate of over-exploitation of our Mother Earth, two planets will be needed by 2030.</p> <p>In an interdependent system of which humans are only one of its components, it is not possible to only recognize the rights on the human side without causing an imbalance in the whole system. To ensure human rights and restore harmony with nature, it is necessary to recognize and enforce Mother Earth’s rights.</p> <p>To do that, we propose the attached draft of the Universal Declaration of Mother Earth’s Rights in which are recorded:</p> <p><img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Right to life and existence; <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Right to be respected; <br /><img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Rights to continue her vital processes and cycles free of human disturbance; <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Right to maintain her identity and integrity as distinct beings, self-regulated and interrelated; <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Right to water as the source of life; <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> The right to clean air; <br /><img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> The right to overall health; <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Right to be free from contamination and pollution, from toxic and radioactive waste; <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Right not to be genetically altered and structurally modified thus threatening her integrity or her vital and healthy functioning. <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Right to a full and speedy recovery from violations of the rights recognized in the Declaration caused by human activities.</p> <p>The shared vision is to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases to give effect to Article 2 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which determines the "stabilization of concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic interference within the climate system." Our vision is based on the historical principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. We demand that developed countries commit to quantified targets for reducing emissions that allow a return of atmospheric greenhouse gases concentrations to 300 ppm thus limiting the increase in global mean temperature to a maximum level of 1° C.</p> <p>Stressing the need for urgent action to achieve this vision, and with the support of peoples, movements, and countries, the developed countries should commit to ambitious targets for reducing emissions that achieve short-term objectives, while maintaining our vision of a balance in the Earth’s climate system, according to the ultimate objective of the Convention.</p> <p>The "shared vision" for the "Long-term Cooperative Action" should not be reduced to just the climate change negotiations which define limits to temperature increases and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but must include a comprehensive and balanced set of measures which cover finances, technology, adaptation, capacity building, patterns of production, consumption and other essentials such as the recognition of the rights of Mother Earth in order to restore harmony with nature.</p> <p>Developed countries - the primary culprits of climate change - assuming their historical and current responsibility, must recognize and honor their climate debt in all its dimensions as the basis for a just, effective, and scientific solution to climate change. In this context we urge developed countries to:</p> <p><img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Restore to developing countries their air space which is occupied by your emissions of greenhouse gases. This implies a decolonization of the atmosphere by reducing and absorbing your emissions. <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Assume the costs and technology transfer needs of developing countries to make up for their loss of development opportunities due to living in a restricted air space. <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> assume responsibility for the hundreds of millions that will have to migrate due to climate change which you have caused and eliminate your restrictive migration policies and provide migrants with a decent life and full rights in your countries. <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Assume adaptation debt related to the impacts of climate change on developing countries by providing the means to prevent, minimize and deal with damages arising from your excessive emissions. <br /> <img class="puce" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/local/cache-vignettes/L9xH12/puce-688e2.gif" height="12" alt="-" width="9" style="HEIGHT: 12px;" /> Honor those debts as part of a greater debt to Mother Earth adopting and implementing the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth at the United Nations.</p> <p>The focus should not be on just financial compensation but rather principally on restorative justice - that is restoring integrity to the people and other members who form a community of life on Earth.</p> <p>We deplore the attempt by a group of countries to cancel the Kyoto Protocol - the only specific binding instrument for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in developed countries.</p> <p>We warn the world that despite being legally bound, the emissions of developed countries were not reduced but rather grew by 11.2% between 1990 and 2007.</p> <p>Because of unlimited consumption, the United States’ GHG emissions increased by 16.8% over the period 1990 to 2007, emitting on average between 20 and 23 tons of CO2 per capita. This represents more than 9 times the emissions of an average inhabitant of the Third World, and more than 20 times the emissions of an inhabitant of sub-Saharan Africa. We completely reject the illegitimate "Copenhagen Understanding", which allows developed countries to offer insufficient reductions of greenhouse gases, based on voluntary and individual commitments that violate the environmental integrity of Mother Earth leading us to an increase of about 4 º C.</p> <p>The forthcoming Climate Change Conference to be held later this year in Mexico should adopt the amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, for the second commitment period to begin in 2013-2017 in which developed countries must commit significant domestic reductions of at least 50% compared to 1990 base excluding carbon markets or other diversion systems that mask the failure of actual reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases. We first need to establish a goal for all developed countries and then make individual allocations for each country developed in the context of a comparison of effort between each of them, thus maintaining the Kyoto Protocol system for emission reductions.</p> <p>The United States of America, as the only country on Earth in Annex 1 which did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol has a significant responsibility to all peoples of the world as it should ratify the Kyoto Protocol and commit to, respect, and comply with economy-wide emissions reduction targets.</p> <p>The people have the same rights of protection from the impacts of climate change and reject the notion of adaptation to climate change understood as a resignation to the impacts caused by historic emissions of developed countries, who must adapt their life styles and consumption patterns to this planetary emergency. We are forced to deal with the impacts of climate change, considering adaptation to be a process rather than an imposition, and also as a tool that serves to counteract the impacts, showing that it is possible to live in harmony under a different model of life.</p> <p>An Adaptation Fund needs to be created: a fund exclusively devoted to addressing climate change as part of a financial mechanism operated and managed in a sovereign, transparent and equitable manner for our states. Under this fund, the following should be evaluated: the impacts and their costs to developing countries and the needs that arise due to these impacts, as well as recording and monitoring the support given by developed countries. It also must operate a mechanism to indemnify for damages caused by impacts, past and future, for opportunities lost and restoration due to extreme and gradual climate events, and additional costs that could arise if our planet exceeds the ecological thresholds such as those impacts that are curtailing the right to live well.</p> <p>The immense challenge we face as humanity to stop global warming and to cool the planet will only be achieved by profoundly transforming agriculture into a sustainable agricultural production model with indigenous/native origins as well as other ancestral ecological models and practices that contribute towards a solution to the problem of climate change and ensure food sovereignty This is understood to be the right of peoples to control their own seeds, land, water and food production, thus ensuring that people have access to sufficient, varied and nutritious foods through local and culturally appropriate production in harmony with and which complements Mother Earth thus deepening the independent production (participatory, community oriented, and shared) of each nation and people.</p> <p>Climate change is already having profound impacts on the agriculture, livelihoods, and ways of life of indigenous / native peoples and peasants in the world and these impacts will become worse in the future.</p> <p>Agribusiness through its social, economic and cultural development model of globalized capitalist production, and its logic of food production for the market rather than fulfilling the right to food, is a major cause of climate change. Its technological tools, commercial and political do nothing but deepen the climate crisis and increase hunger in the world. For this reason we reject Free Trade and Association Agreements and the application of all forms of Intellectual Property Rights on life, current technological packages (agrochemical and GM), and those that offer themselves as false solutions (biofuels, geo-engineering, nanotechnology, terminator technology and the like) which will only exacerbate the current crisis.</p> <p>At the same time, we denounce the way in which this capitalist model imposes infrastructure mega-projects, invades territories with extractive projects, privatizes and commodifies water, militarizes territories and expells indigenous peoples and peasants from their lands, thus thwarting Food Sovereignty and deepening the socio-environmental crisis.</p> <p>We demand recognition of the right of all peoples, living beings, and Mother Earth to have access to and enjoy water and we support the Bolivian Government´s proposal to recognize water as a Fundamental Human Right. The definition of forest used in the negotiations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which includes plantations, is unacceptable. Monoculture plantations are not forests. Therefore, we require a definition for negotiating purposes that recognizes native forests, rainforests, and the diversity of ecosystems on earth.</p> <p>The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be fully recognized, implemented and integrated into the climate change negotiations. The best strategy and action to avoid deforestation and degradation and to protect native forests and rainforest is to recognize and guarantee collective rights to lands and territories, especially considering that most of the forests and rainforests are in territories belonging to indigenous peoples and nations, peasant and traditional communities. We condemn market mechanisms such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and its + and + +, versions, which violate the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and their right to free, prior, and informed consent, as well as the sovereignty of nation states which violate of the rights and customs of Peoples and the Rights of Nature.</p> <p>Polluting countries are required to directly transfer the economic and technological resources to pay for the restoration and maintenance of forests and rainforests to the benefit of organic, ancestral, indigenous, native, and peasant peoples and structures. This should be a direct compensation and additional to the sources of funding committed to by developed countries, outside of the carbon market and never serving as carbon offsets. We demand that countries stop local initiatives in forests and rainforests that are based on market mechanisms and that propose conditional and non-existent results. We demand from governments a global program to restore native forests and rainforests, managed and administered by the peoples, implementing forest seeds, fruit trees, and native flora. Governments should eliminate forest concessions and support the conservation of oil in the ground and urgently stop the exploitation of hydrocarbons in rainforests.</p> <p>In particular, we call upon States to legally recognize the prior existence of the right to our territories, lands, and natural resources which provide a basis for and strengthen our traditional ways of life and contribute effectively to solving the climate change.</p> <p>We demand the full and effective implementation of the right to consultation, participation, and prior, free, and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in all negotiation processes as well as in the design and implementation of measures relating to climate change.</p> <p>At present, environmental degradation and climate change will reach critical levels, and one of the main consequences will be internal and international migration. According to some projections, in 1995 there were around 25 million climate migrants, at present this is estimated to be 50 million, and projections for 2050 show that between 200 - 1000 million people will be displaced by situations resulting from climate change.</p> <p>Developed countries must take responsibility for climate migrants, welcoming them into their territories and recognizing their fundamental rights through the signing of international conventions providing for the definition of migrant climate that all States abide by its determinations.</p> <p>Establish an International Tribunal of Conscience to denounce, expose, document, try and punish violations of the rights of the migrants, refugees and displaced persons in countries of origin, transit, and destination, clearly identifying the responsibilities of States, companies and other actors.</p> <p>Current funding earmarked for developing countries for climate change and the Copenhagen Understanding proposal are insignificant. Developed countries must commit to new annual funding, in addition to official development assistance and public sources, of at least 6% of their GDP to tackle climate change in developing countries. This is feasible considering that a similar amount is spent on national defense and that five times more than that was spent to rescue failing banks and speculators, which raises serious questions about their global priorities and political will. This funding should be direct, unconditional and not violate the national sovereignty or self-determination of the communities and groups most affected.</p> <p>Given the inefficiency of the current mechanism, the Mexico Conference should establish a new funding mechanism that operates under the authority of and is accountable to the United Nations Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, with significant representation from developing countries to ensure Annex 1 countries comply with funding commitments.</p> <p>It has been confirmed that over the period 1990 - 2007, the developed countries increased their emissions despite having stated that the reduction would be substantially assisted by market mechanisms.</p> <p>The carbon market has turned into a lucrative business by commercializing our Mother Earth. This does not represent an alternative to tackling climate change since it loots and ravages the land, water, and even life itself. The recent financial crisis has shown that the market is incapable of regulating the financial system, which is fragile and uncertain when faced with speculation and the emergence of middle men, therefore, it would be totally irresponsible to leave in its hands the care and protection of human existence itself and of our Mother Earth.</p> <p>Expand and promote the carbon market given that existing mechanisms never solved the problem of climate change or became real and direct action in reducing greenhouse gases .We consider it unacceptable that the current negotiations seek to create new mechanisms that expand and promote the carbon market given that existing mechanisms have never solved the problem of climate change nor did they ever turn into real and direct action towards reducing greenhouse gases.</p> <p>It is essential to require compliance with the commitments made by developed countries at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change regarding the development and transfer of technology and reject the "technological showcase" proposed by developed countries that only comercialize the technology. It is essential to establish guidelines for creating multilateral, multidisciplinary and participatory control, management, and ongoing evaluation of the exchange of technologies. These technologies must be useful, clean, and socially appropriate. It is equally essential to establish a fund for the financing and inventory of technologies that are appropriate and free of intellectual property rights, in particular of patents that should be transferred from private monopolies into the public domain, freely accessible and at low cost.</p> <p>Knowledge is universal, and may not for any reason be the subject of private ownership and private use, nor its applications in the form of technology. It is the duty of developed countries to share their technology with developing countries, to create research centers for the creation of their own technologies and innovations, as well as defending and promoting their development and application in order to live well. The world needs to regain, learn, and relearn the principles and approaches of the ancestral legacy of Indigenous peoples in order to stop the destruction of the planet, as well as ancestral knowledge and practices and the recovery of spirituality in the reintegration of living well together with Mother Earth.</p> <p>It must support States submitting claims in the International Court of Justice against developed countries that fail to meet their commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, including their commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. We urge the people to propose and promote a thorough reform of the United Nations (UN), so that all Member States comply with the decisions of the International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal.</p> <p>The future of humanity is in danger, and we cannot accept that a group of leaders of developed countries want to decide for all countries, as they tried to do unsuccessfully at the Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen. This decision rests with all peoples. It is therefore necessary to hold a world referendum, plebiscite, or popular vote on climate change where we are all consulted on: the level of emission reductions that should be made by developed countries and transnational corporations, the financing that developed countries should provide, the creation of an International Climate Justice Tribunal: the need for a Universal Declaration of the rights of Mother Earth, and the need to change the current capitalist system.</p> <p>The process of a World Referendum, plebiscite or popular vote will be the result of a process of preparation that ensures its successful development. In order to coordinate our international actions and implement the results of this "Peoples’ Agreement" we call for building a Global People’s Movement for Mother Earth which is based on the principles of complementarity and respect for diversity of origin and visions of its members, constituting a broad and democratic space for coordination and joint action worldwide.</p> <p>To this end, we adopt the attached global action plan so that in Mexico the Annex 1 developed countries will respect the existing legal framework and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 50% and take on the various proposals contained in this Agreement.</p> <p>Finally, we agree to hold the 2nd World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in 2011 as part of this process of building a Peoples’ Global Movement for Mother Earth and to react to the results of the Climate Change Conference to be held later this year in Cancun, Mexico.</p> <p>(translated by Alan Forsberg <a href="http://www.cmpcc.org.bo/PEOPLES-AGREEMENT">http://www.cmpcc.org.bo/PEOPLES-AGREEMENT</a>)</p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/world-peoples-agreement">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-82874280001401513792010-04-27T14:21:00.001-07:002010-04-27T14:21:45.937-07:00Together we can fight and win!<div class='posterous_autopost'><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span><em>(From Agnes - Monday 19th)</em></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>The day started at 7AM with us going to get our accreditation. <span> </span>In Bolivia you quickly learn that times are a reference and rarely observed.<span> </span>The accreditation opened at 8:30 and supposedly the working groups were to start at the same time. </span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>While in the queue I spoke to two women from Oruro – they had taken a four hour journey to get there that morning and hadn´t registered online (this should not be a problem as another line inside was formed for those who been able to get online – this line was much longer and mostly of indigenous local peoples). Our conversation started with her asking me a simple question ‘What effects of climate change do you feel from where you come from?’ and my heart sank because I could already imagine her answer. My own answer was that right now where I am from we did not yet feel any impacts. I continued that we were here because we knew that this was a global issue and that we needed to do something to stop it. <span> </span>I then asked her the same question and quietly she replied that things were not the same – the rivers were dry, the rain doesn’t come, which means their harvest doesn’t come either. She said her community was worried. I said we were worried as well, but then her friend pointed out that this may be true, but that there were contradictions. She gave me the example of agrofuels which lowered our emissions, but threatened their ability to feed themselves! That’s when the line moved and we were quickly ushered into the coliseum and separated into separate lines to register.<span> </span></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>Once we got our shiny passes we quickly made our way to the university to try and find the forest working group. Rumours were that REDD made its way into the draft declaration and many of the grassroots groups and NGOs who have been fighting this were planning an intervention – which may still happen depending on how the group goes today and tomorrow. The working group is moderated by a UN bureaucrat, but is also filled with many strong voices that I am sure will not allow this to happen, and if it does, then I am sure they will leave the process. For now there is still hope. </span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>As I do not know much about the technicalities of REDD and I left this group and went to find the structural causes group thinking it would be interesting to see how capitalism is deconstructed. I sat there for the rest of the morning listening to the interventions signaling capitalism as the problem - agro industries, transnationals, agro fuels, consumption, business, imperialism and militarism were all mentioned. Many interventions blamed the US and said that it was up to individuals to change, but some strong voices said that we should look at the system that touches everything. The most interesting intervention came from people in Venezuela who talked of the need to look at the ‘modelo civilizatorio’ <span> </span>- civilizing model – which from my understanding includes a criticism of the states such as Venezuela and Bolivia who have maintained an extractive capitalist economic model as their way to fund the socialist revolution. <span> </span>I heard this the day before when in the thematic tent of the Water Forum someone pointed out the contradiction within Bolivia of blaming capitalism to the world, but not changing their own extractive industries. The lady insisted they needed nationalization and someone pointed out perhaps a new economic system would be even better. </span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>One last thing that I want to share with you – probably the thing that inspired me the most – I attended the a side event entitled ‘Megaprojects and repression.’ It was a toss up between this and a feminist workshop, but something nudged me here. Perhaps it was because the Mapuche woman from Argentina asked for support the day before – because as it turns out the side event was almost cancelled. Supposedly the Argentine government met with the Bolivian ambassador to try and pull it. I quickly understood their worry as it was a powerful account of the Mapuche people’s struggle against mining extraction and the repression they suffer from military, police, and private security forces (<a href="http://catamarcacontaminada.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://catamarcacontaminada.blogspot.com/</a>). <span> </span></span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>The floor opened up for questions – but instead more stories of extraction and repression were told from Nicaragua to Chile. <span> </span>In Northern Chile, the Canadian transnational company Barrick Gold wants to mine gold, silver, copper and other minerals using open cast/pit mining – which threatens the nearby glaciers and the clean water supply to the traditional farming communities.<span> </span>The mood got heavy, but then a Bolivian companero <span> </span>stood up and said that we all fight and that it is hard to win, but not impossible, he said he fought in the water war and the people threw out the multinational company from Cochabamba and everyone cheered – together we can fight and win!</span></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/together-we-can-fight-and-win">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-27478555471450716462010-04-27T14:19:00.001-07:002010-04-27T14:19:22.036-07:00‘Oye amigo el tierra esta en peligro!’<div class='posterous_autopost'><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">(From Agnes - Tuesday 20 April)</p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><strong>Capitalism is crisis</strong></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>I’m sitting here in the stadium waiting for the inauguration of the conference to start. Everyone is chanting ‘oye amigo el tierra esta en peligro’ – 'listen friend the land is in danger.' The stadium is filled with colourful flags and banners representing the many Latin American nations and organizations that are here, the sea of green from Via Campesina’s scarves and flags is notable. The sun is out and the mountains surround us – we wait for the stadium to fill and Evo Morales to arrive. </span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>The inauguration starts two hours later with speakers from all over the world. I’m sure it’s well covered all over the press, but here are some things that stood out for me. The representative from Via Campesina talked of two projects – one of getting rid of the capitalism, imperialism and its false solutions - and the other one of constructing an alternative system that defends life stating that we are capable of creating this alternative! Somehow Via Campesina always fills me with hope…</span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>The other interesting moment was to see the UN representative speak who stopped in the middle of her discourse to acknowledge the fact that people were yelling ‘fuera’ / ‘get off / get out’ whilst she was speaking. It was clear that the people have no hope in the UN process and did not come here to be given false promises, false solutions and guarantees from the UN. What struck me was that she defended herself by stating ‘we represent peoples too’ and I wonder if that is in anyway true?! Evo picked this up in his speech and said that the UN should be here, but only to listen and respect the solutions that will come out of this conference and through this a real dialogue between the people and governments in this world can begin. </span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>Evo’s speech can be divided into two parts – first talking about the capitalist system and the responsibility that the developed world had to acknowledge in tackling climate change. He said that the last 20 years have been the hottest years in the last 400 years, and that during the same time 20% of the population has generated 76% of the emissions. <span> </span>The cause of the destruction is capitalism and it is our right and obligation to stop it! </span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>The other part of his speech focused on the need to recuperate traditional indigenous knowledge and customs in order to combat the culture of capitalism.<span> </span>He started with the anecdote about having a headache:<span> </span><span> </span>‘When we have a headache the North gives us alkaselzer – this may stop the headache – but will cause a stomachache. I don’t understand why we do not take our own medicines, such as coca or chamomile teas.’<span> </span>He could have stopped here, but went on to give examples of clay dishes as opposed to plastic ones, chicha (fermented drink) as opposed to coca cola, etc. A lot of people within the country were angry with this because it went too far and to some it was embarrassing, but I can imagine that some identified with the morale of taking in pride in traditional ways. </span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>I’m not sure what I expected from his speech, but I know that we need more than words. </span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>Rising Tide International</span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>In the afternoon we joined the rising tide meeting with people from Australia, US and climate justice activists from Europe. It seems that in the rest of the world climate camps are organized by Rising Tide or coalition of groups and there isn’t a ‘climate camp’ identity as has formed in the UK. It´s also interesting that no matter where we are in the world, or how we organize, we face some of the same challenges of how to build an inclusive mass movement. It was really inspiring to hear stories from Rising Tide Australia and the actions that they were taking against coal (<a href="http://www.risingtide.org.au/" target="_blank">http://www.risingtide.org.au/</a>) </span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>Engagement with UNFCCC?</span></p> <p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span>From there some of us went on to see what would be discussed in the CJN organized side event ‘how social movements should should engage with the UNFCCC process’. I didn’t pay much attention to those that encouraged engagement or started talking about mobilization, rather what struck me were two female voices that called us to action. The European Via Campesina representative that told us that there was no reason to think that any proposals from the UN or governments would get any better, we needed to take action ourselves. Similarly a Mexican woman who as it turns out belongs to the Rising Tide network called on us to not wait for the UNFCCC to deliver, but to take effective action now. </span></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/oye-amigo-el-tierra-esta-en-peligro">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-13694547201713795972010-04-27T10:03:00.001-07:002010-04-27T10:03:43.976-07:00Change the System - Not The Climate!<div class='posterous_autopost'><div>The climate conference has been a platform for many different groups attempting to rally suppot for specific campaigns or initiatives. Last year the UK Camp for Climate Action decided to work within the Climate Justice Action network to mobilise for COP15. At a meeting of the CJA in Amsterdam earlier in the year, it was agreed the network would support a callout for a global day of action in October and mobilise in Europe for the date. Although climate camp has yet to discuss the callout, those of us from the camp have been working with the CJA in Cochabamba to promote support for the day of action which came from a callout from a Latin American network called ´Global Minga´. While making connections here in Bolivia we´ve made sure to mention the callout in the meetings we´ve been invited to and it´s been greeted with much interest. </div> <div> </div> <div><em>CJA callout text...</em></div> <div><em><strong></strong></em> </div> <div><em><strong>On October 12, 2010: change the system, not the climate! Call for a global day of direct action for climate justice</strong></em></div> <div><em> </em></div> <div><em>The disaster that was the climate summit in Copenhagen highlighted one thing above all: that we cannot expect UN-negotiations to solve the climate crisis for us. Governments and corporations are unable (even if they were willing) to deliver real climate justice. Only powerful, global climate justice movements can achieve the structural changes that are necessary, whether it is ending our addiction to fossil fuels, replacing industrial agriculture with local systems of food sovereignty, halting systems based on endless growth and consumption, or addressing the historical responsibility of the global elites’ massive ecological debt to the global exploited.</em></div> <div><em> </em></div> <div><em>In 2008, the Latin American network ‘Global Minga’ called for an annual day of action in defence of mother earth on October 12, reclaiming the day that used to be imposed as ‘Columbus Day’. Responding to this call, and the demand for a day of action for ‘system change, not climate change’ made in Copenhagen by global movements, Climate Justice Action is proposing a day of direct action for climate justice on October 12, 2010.</em></div> <div><em> </em></div> <div><em>We invite all those who fight for social and ecological justice to organise direct actions targeting climate criminals and false solutions, or creating real alternatives. This is an open callout, we are not picking targets. But it is not a day for marches or petitions: it is time for us to reclaim our power, and take control of our lives and futures.</em></div> <div><em> </em></div> <div><em>An open international meeting to begin to organise and coordinate this day of action will be held in Bonn on 28-29th May 2010.</em></div> <div> </div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/change-the-system-not-the-climate">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-44979969174973296422010-04-27T08:02:00.001-07:002010-04-27T08:02:39.650-07:00A little less talk<div class='posterous_autopost'><div><p /><div><span style="">With the conference over it's time to put all the rhetoric into action. In the UK, activists from Rising Tide have been busy doing just that - blockading a rail link from an open cast coal mine in Wales. </span></div><p /><div><span style="">The timing was perfect (for me at least), as I got to refer to the action while being interviewed on a campesina radio station in Cochabamba. Asked why people struggled in the UK and what that struggle looked like, I pointed out that while the UK might not currently be suffering such immediate and pressing problems from climate change, we all share the same planet and ecosystem and we share the same fight. I talked about the Rising Tide blockade which was happening as I spoke and about the climate campers who did an action in London in solidarity with protesters at San Cristobel.</span></div><p /><div><span style="">Ben</span></div><div><span style="" /><blockquote type="cite"><span></span></blockquote><br /><blockquote type="cite"><span>PRESS RELEASE</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>For Immediate Release – No Embargo</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Bristol and Bath Rising Tide Stop Coal Train – Happening Now !</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Today, people involved in the Rising Tide Network have literally puts their necks on the line by chaining themselves to the rails in order to block the rail link to the Ffoss y Fran Open Cast Coal mine near Merthyr Tydfil. They are currently blocking the movement of coal</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>trains from the mine to Aberthaw Power Station</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>.</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Please Call <a>07835366330</a> For on-site interviews and updates. Alternative</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>number (off site): <a>07909172768</a></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Kim Green from Rising Tide (UK) said:</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>“We are Protesting the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels in the face of a global climate emergency. The failure of the Copenhagen climate talks to deal with this huge problem, and the obvious policy inadequacy the three main UK parties contesting the general election to take the necessary action to tackle the problem has highlighted the need for the people to take grass-roots direct action.”</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Kim Green continues:</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>“This action is also in support of the local people of Merthyr Tydfil whose campaign 'Residents Against Ffoss y Fran' have been fighting the mine for over six years. The mine causes noise pollution for up to 16 hours a day, dust and dirt are carried into the town by the wind, and it turns the rain black.”</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>The process by which Miller-Argent <#12839b95d12ae6d5_12839a907942cd50_1283996b59ac00fa_128398b0dc47dae8_sdfootnote3sym>were able to get the go ahead to exploit this resource at the social cost of both the local and global community, highlighting the democratic deficit in the planning process, which takes in to consideration the social-environmental impact of such projects. The newly formed quango “The Planning Commission” will only make these things worse, being able to ignore any consideration in favour of profit.</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Miller Argent have been quick to pressure their small workforce into mobilising against local concerns - but their apparent concern for their</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>workers is betrayed by the fact that they are actually looking to sell the mine as the quantity of high quality coal is only about as half as good as</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>they initially believed. They are in fact making a loss on the project.</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Notes To Editor:</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>1. Rising Tide is an international network of groups tackling the Root Causes of Climate Change and Climate Injustice .<a href="http://risingtide.org.uk/"></a><a href="http://risingtide.org.uk/"></a><a href="http://risingtide.org.uk/"></a><a href="http://risingtide.org.uk/">http://risingtide.org.uk/</a></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>2.Aberthaw Power Station is the biggest polluter in Wales. In 2006 it released 7.4. million tonnes of Co2. It is Projected to run until 2025 with</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>NO PLANS to fit carbon capture storage (CCS) technology. 40% of the coal for the power station is supplied by Ffos y Fran. It was targeted by Bristol & Cardiff Rising Tide in 2008.</span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br /></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>3.Miller Argent own and run Ffos Y fran. Argent are in turn owned by the BT Pensions Group. Both of these organisations make much of their ethical and sustainable practices But in this case they seem to be placing profits over and above any element of social responsibility.</span></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span></blockquote></span><p /></div></div><p /> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/a-little-less-talk">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2225693259856085600.post-46938072082104780842010-04-27T07:53:00.001-07:002010-04-27T07:53:28.178-07:00From Ben in Bolivia (part8) 'The Black Waters of Imperialism'<div class='posterous_autopost'>It's been a few days since I've blogged, initially due to being unwell and more recently because the prospect of catching up has been so daunting. However, having had a couple of days to relax, reflect and recover a little, and since there is now a less output on other bloggers, I figure it's time to put finger to touch screen. <p /> I'd already been starving myself of decent nutrition doing the overland leg of my journey to Cochabamba and then, when I got a stomach bug a couple of days in, I returned to very limited diet. That probably would have been fine for a day or two buy I then had trouble with a wisdom tooth that no cocktail of pain killers could disguise. Unable to sleep, I had no choice but to see a dentist who pulled it out there and then. <p /> Unfortunately the conference had now started and I had to go as I was on a panel in one of the side workshops. To add to my problems, the dentist hsd said I must stay out of the sun, no work and no food. <p /> Having already consumed pretty much only water for previous couple of days I knew I need calories so started to make my way to the conference (with a climate camp flag over my head as an ineffective sun hat) and I tried to locate a bag of chocolate soya milk on route to keep me going. Having failed to find any before Unsuccessful reaching the conference I purchased a huge bottle of coca-cola, ubiquitous at every street stall and store. <p /> I'd arranged to met Agnes at Mesa 18 before heading over to the workshop together. I was in pain, thumping headache, parched and starving. I sat down amongst the participants of Mesa 18 and even as I heard the speaker say the words I pulled out this huge bottle of coke, unscrewed the lid to a satisfying hiss and gulped down a long thirst quenching slug of the stuff. <p /> It could have been worse. Okay, I'd cracked it open right at the moment that the speaker was taking a pop at the coca-cola and all it represents, but at least the bottle hadn't been shaken up and sprayed everyone with the evil liquid. <p /> As I lowered the bottle from my lips I could see dozens of people giving me evil looks but there was no point me trying to tell people that it was purely medicinal. <p /> I hate coke, not just the company for it having union workers killed in Columbia or sucking drying water supplies in India and elsewhere. It's also just not an especially nice drink. However, there was no chance that it had been made with local tap water and since it's stuffed with so much sugar, it was the closest thing I'd have to meal for a while. <p /> Anyway, I located Agnes who was waiting for an opportunity to tell Mesa 18 about the solidarity action climate campers had done at the offices of the company which owns the San Cristobel mines in London. We agree to meet later at the workshop so I headed off. <p /> I'd not prepared anything for this workshop which involved three people on the panel talking about specific campaigns against multinational corporations, the tactics used and what lessons might be shared. I was last to speak and my head killing me. I took a couple of pain killers from my pocket and washed them down with some more coke. When my turn came round spoke about the campaign to stop a new wave of coal power in the Uk which targeted German energy giant Eon. <p /> The session went well but over ran a little leaving no time for the planed question and answer session so instead the facilitators handed out paper and pen. Everyone was asked to write down one tactic that could be used to fight corporations. The slips of paper were then passed around so people could read the different responses, then some were read allowed at random. Imagine my shame as somebody read out a slip saying, "stop drinking coca-cola"! <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://climatejustice.posterous.com/from-ben-in-bolivia-part8-the-black-waters-of">World People's Conference</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0