By Ana Filippini, Latin American Focal Point of the international  network Gender CC, Women for Climate Justice, mujeresporjusticiaclimatica@gmail.co

An analysis of the Peoples’ Agreement (1) that emerged from the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, held from 20 to 22 April in Cochabamba (Bolivia) may lead us to think that the gender issue was not present at that Conference.

Although in general terms it may be true that a gender perspective was not substantially incorporated into the conclusions of the working groups, gender language and references to women can be found in some of the texts. However, when women are brought up in the working groups’ conclusions, it is mainly as vulnerable group. For example, group 6 on migrations specifies that it is women who suffer the most in situations arising from migration; group 7 on indigenous peoples, calls for the full and effective participation of vulnerable groups, including women; group 8 on climate debt mentions women twice in connection with vulnerable groups; group 12 on funding appeals for women to have representation in the new funding mechanism that should be set up to take on the costs of climate change; and group 14 on forests asks for recognition of the role of women in the preservation of cultures and the conservation of native forests and jungles and proposes the establishment of an expert group with representation of at least 50% by women. (1)

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by Tadzio Mueller, May 2010

The Run-Up

Copenhagen, Denmark, December 2009. The climate summit’s failure manages to underwhelm even the already low expectations of the emerging global climate justice movement. Once it becomes obvious that none of the major emitters, neither the US nor the EU, Japan or Australia, has committed to the necessary dramatic emissions reductions, the so-called “Copenhagen Accord” is being negotiated outside the official processes under the leadership of the United States. (And why should the major emitters reduce their emissions? In a fossil-fuel based capitalist economy, reducing emissions implies a politically unpalatable reduction of economic growth.) The Accord claims it wants to limit global warming to 2° Celsius, but in pursuit of this ambitious goal it proposes only voluntary emissions reductions, without any mechanisms for enforcing these commitments, or for penalising those countries that fail to meet their commitments.

It is the resistance of governments from Venezuela, Sudan and Bolivia that ultimately stops the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) from officially adopting the Accord. Instead, the text it is merely “taken note of” – as is the quality of the catering at the summit. The worst-case scenario feared by many in the movements and in critical NGOs, that a bad deal might be greenwashed, thus does not come to pass. Only the politically colour-blind could see the Accord as being genuinely green. The supposedly “last, best chance to save the planet” thus passes, after a two-week summit during which the prospect of the disappearance of entire island states under water and the evacuation of their populations had become a new normality that people accepted without flinching.

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Towards a Jubilee South Platform on Climate Change, Ecological Debt and Financial Sovereignty
Jubilee South shares with you the electronic version of a document it has produced on the relation between climate change, finance and ecological debt and false solutions. We invite you to continue reflecting and contributing to this debate. http://www.jubileesouth.org/files/cambioclimatico_en_baja_calidad.pdf

By Patrick Bond

May 5, 2010 — The “climate debt” that the industries and over-consumers of the global North owe Africans and other victims of climate change not responsible for causing the problem has accrued by virtue of the North’s excessive dumping of greenhouse gas emissions into the collective environmental space. Damage is being accounted for, including the more constrained space the South has for emissions. This historical injustice – and “debt” — is now nearly universally acknowledged (aside from Washington holdouts), and reparations plus adaptation finance are being widely demanded.

In Copenhagen, the 2009 United Nations summit on climate change witnessed a great deal of theatre over conceptual problems, including, who should make emissions cuts and to what degree; should markets be the main mechanism; who owes a climate debt; how much is owed; and how the debt should be collected. The willingness of African heads of state to raise the matter publicly beginning in mid-2009 was notable, but their inability to ensure political solidarity led to the imposition of the Copenhagen Accord on December 18, in a manner that sets back the cause.

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The new version of the CJN! website was published at the middle of April 2010 and we focused on the Cochabamba Conference (all the articles related on Cochabamba are available in the “events” section).

Now we are opening a new front page, with two columns: one for the latest news, the other for texts & analysis coming from movements and networks. We open this column with the Story of Cap and Trade!

The other debt crisis: climate debt

The climate crisis in Bolivia is not a headline or an abstraction – it is playing out in people’s lives in real time.

Melting glaciers are threatening the water supply of the country’s two biggest cities. Increasing droughts and floods are playing havoc with agriculture.

So it is no surprise that in climate negotiations, Bolivia is emerging as a leader in the global south – advancing both radical solutions and analysis that make rich countries distinctly nervous.

On this edition of Fault Lines, Avi Lewis travels to Bolivia to explore the country’s climate crusade from the inside.

It is the story of an emerging movement, based in the global south, raising questions about who owes what to whom in confronting the climate crisis.

And it is playing out in Bolivia’s epic landscape – from the tropical glaciers to the endless salt flats. A landscape that in normal times seems to mock the very idea that human beings can change the course of nature.

This episode of Fault Lines can be seen from Thursday, May 20, 2010 at the following times GMT: Thursday: 0600; Friday: 0030, 0830; Saturday: 2330; Sunday: 0630, 2130; Tuesday: 0530, 1230; Wednesday: 0300

To view the video on a full screen http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/faultlines/2010/05/2010518121127315453.html

What next for climate protection?

June 3-4, 2010, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Colmantstraße 14–16, Bonn, Germany

The climate crisis is upon us. But despite widespread political claims of support for climate protection, the UN negotiations in Copenhagen collapsed. A breakthrough for just and effective climate protection is not in sight – either nationally or at the international level. Good reason for social movements and environmental groups worldwide to continue our efforts for climate justice.

On the occasion of UN climate talks in Bonn, the German section of Attac and the BUND (Friends of the Earth, Germany) in cooperation with Alliance Klimawelle (“Climate Wave”) Bonn are organizing the strategy and action conference Climate Forum Bonn.

This alternative summit will continue the important work of the Climate Forum 09 during the Copenhagen Summit.

The program will include workshops and panel discussions on energy, mobility, agriculture, trade and social policy as well as international climate policy.

We must do it ourselves! New Strategies for just and effective climate protection!

More information

Several meetings were held in Mexico City 1-7 May to discuss mobilisation plans in Mexico, and towards Cancun for the COP16. These meetings were held during the Mexico Social Forum (2-4 May) and during the WSF International Council meeting (3-7 May). In all the discussions, organisations acknowledged the importance of the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Defence of Mother Earth, and saw the «Peoples Accord » as a key political reference on the road from Cochabamba to Cancun.

The following is a short summary of the current situation, no doubt with many gaps.

In Mexico City itself, there is a broad gathering, of organisations, including international NGOs such as Greenpeace, networks such as the RMALC (formed to fight against trade liberalisation), and numerous local and national organisations, many of them active on environmental issues. This gathering, facilitated by the Mexico office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, does not yet have a platform or a precise identity.

At this stage this is an open space, which obviously does not represent the totality of those who are preparing for the COP16. However, several initiatives are already underway, such as a « solidarity economy caravan » which will start in Aguascalientes, in the centre of Mexico in mid October, travelling via Mexico City and San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, and arriving in Cancun at the end of November. A group of activists is also building the « Klimaforum10 » — based on the model of the Klimaforum09 in Copenhagen. This group has a more defined platform however its relationship with other initiatives or organisations has yet to be defined.

Also present at the Mexico meetings were representatives Via Campesina North America and UNORCA (one of Via Campesina’s Mexico members) which has a strong base, especially in the south of the country. As a first priority, Via Campesina is committed to mobilising their members before becoming involved in a larger coalition.

Activists from Cancun itself were also present. Originally, the Mexican government announced that the COP16 would be held in Mexico City, assuming that an agreement would be reached in Copenhagen and therefore that the COP16 would pass without problems. Following the failure in Copenhagen and fears about mobilisations around the conference, the Mexican government decided to organise the conference in Cancun, more than 2000 kms from Mexico City and in a tourist zone which is easily isolated from the rest of the city. The local activists have decided to accept the challenge and construct a large coalition, but in the spirit of the Cochabamba « Peoples Accord ».

On the question of next meetings, all the participants, including activists from the US, Asia, Europe and Africa, agreed it would be useful to meet again, with the possibility of an international meeting in Mexico in September or early October. However, in the next months there are several other international meetings, including Bonn in early June during the UNFCCC intersessional, in Detroit at the end of June during the US Social Forum, in Istanbul in early July during the European Social Forum and in Asuncion Paraguay during the Americas Social Forum in August.

Christophe Aguiton and Nicola Bullard