After 9 days of negotiations there is no doubt that we saw this movie before. It is the third remake of Copenhagen and Cancun. Same actors. Same script. The documents are produced outside the formal negotiating scenario . In private meetings, dinners which the 193 member states do not attend. The result of these meetings is known only on the last day. In the case of Copenhagen it was at two in the morning after the event should have already ended. In Cancun, the draft decision just appeared at 5 p.m. on the last day and was not opened for negotiation, not even to correct a comma. Bolivia stood firm on both occasions. The reason: the very low emission reduction commitments of industrialized countries that would lead to an increase in average global temperatures of more than 4° Celsius. In Cancun, Bolivia stood alone. I could not do otherwise. How could we accept the same document that was rejected in Copenhagen, knowing that 350,000 people die each year due to natural disasters caused by climate change? To remain silent is to be complicit in genocide and ecocide. To accept a disastrous document in order not to be left alone is cowardly diplomacy. Even more so when one trumpets the “people’s diplomacy” and has pledged to defend the “People’s Agreement” of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in Bolivia last year.

Durban will be worse than Copenhagen and Cancun. Two days before the close of the meetings, the true text that is being negotiated is not yet known. Everyone knows that the actual 131-page document is just a compilation of proposals that were already on the table in Panama two months ago. The formal negotiations have barely advanced. The real document will appear toward the end of COP17.

But more importantly, the substance of the negotiations remains unchanged from Copenhagen. The emission reduction pledges by developed countries are still 13% to 17% based on 1990 levels. Everyone knows that this is a catastrophe. But instead of becoming outraged, they attempt to sweeten the poison. The wrapper of this package will be the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and a mandate for a new binding agreement. The substance of the package will be the same as in Copenhagen and Cancun: do virtually nothing during this decade in terms of reducing emissions, and get a mandate to negotiate an agreement that will be even weaker than the Kyoto Protocol and that will replace it in 2020. “The Great Escape III” is the name of this movie, and it tells the story of how the governments of rich countries along with transnational corporations are looking to escape their responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead of becoming stronger, the fight against climate change is becoming more soft and flexible, with voluntary commitments to reduce emissions. The question is, who will step up this time to denounce the fraud to the end? Or could it be that this time, everyone will accept the remake of Copenhagen and Cancun?

The truth is that beyond the setting and the last scene, the end of this film will be the same as in Copenhagen and Cancun: humanity and mother earth will be the victims of a rise in temperature not seen in 800,000 years.

(*) Pablo Solon is an international analyst and social activist. He was chief negotiator for climate change and United Nations Ambassador of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (2009-June 2011).

http://pablosolon.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/cop17-el-gran-escape-iii/#more-115

http://cmpcc.org/2011/12/07/cop17-el-gran-escape-iii/

This year is a critical one for the global climate change negotiations. Durban, South Africa will play host to the UN Conference of Parties (COP 17) later this year.

One of the challenges in the run-up to Durban is understanding the politics of climate change arising from the Copenhagen meeting and the subsequent Cancun conference, the outcomes of those meetings, and how these outcomes relate to Durban and, therefore, what civil society demands can and should be.

What happened in Copenhagen and Cancun?

The Copenhagen conference was essentially a train wreck. It ranks as one of the worst international meetings held in the last decade and a half, and may go down in infamy for the Danish government’s handling of it.

The mandate of Copenhagen was to come up with outcomes in two tracks of climate change negotiations under the UN Climate Convention and its Kyoto Protocol (KP). There was a heavy push to involve heads of states. The direct involvement of these leaders complicated the negotiations because once they arrived, the formal negotiations stalled and negotiations went underground.

Essentially, a number of high-level officials from a small group of countries, around 26 or 28 (the actual list has never been made public) disappeared into a backroom at the conference centre. So you had the delegates of around 190 countries negotiating as part of the formal process as they are supposed to while, in parallel, in a backroom, there was a meeting going on that even the chair of the negotiations had not been invited to.

That small group came up with a document that they called the ‘Copenhagen Accord’. This was basically a document that was drafted initially by the Danish government with input, as far as we can tell, from a fairly small group of developed countries.

The negotiations in the backroom continued until after midnight on the final day, while delegates from the remaining 150 countries waited in the plenary room for hours. The Danish prime minister came back and said to the governments assembled that a small group had been working very hard and had come up with a document that they wanted to present as the outcome of the meeting.

For many of the delegates it was the first time they had seen the document or that version of the document, and they were given one hour to go back to their groups and review the document and basically accept the outcome.

And of course the flags of dozens of countries went up in the air: ‘Point of order,’ was decalred. The deputy executive secretary bent over and said to the Danish prime minister that there were some ‘points of order’ but the prime minister lent back and said, ‘There will be no points of order.’ Unbeknown to him, his microphone was switched on and this was communicated to everyone in the room, triggering pandemonium. He stood up and walked off the podium.

Delegates then heard a resounding banging that ricocheted around the room. A delegate from Venezuela had picked up the plastic name tag of her country and was banging it on the table demanding that the Danish prime minister return to the room and the other countries be given the right to participate in the multi-lateral negotiations.

When the Danish prime minister was brought back reluctantly and red-faced to the podium, the delegate raised her bleeding hand and asked: ‘Do I have to bleed to have my country heard in this forum?’ There were other interventions. Tuvalu said they would not sell their future for ‘30 pieces of silver’. Sudan asked whether the document was a suicide pact and whether delegates were being asked to incinerate Africa.

In the ensuing discussions in the plenary, the UK and USA mounted pressure on other countries, basically bribery and pressure, using finance in an attempt to get countries to agree, but ultimately countries led by Bolivia and Nicaragua held firm and the Copenhagen Accord was merely noted, meaning that the UN neither agrees nor disagrees with it; it simply recognises that it exists.

Following Copenhagen, many of those same governments exerted massive pressure on developing countries to sign up to the Accord. Many African countries did so willingly, in part because Ethiopia had been one of the countries that had been in the room and had supported the Copenhagen Accord and had brought it back into the processes of the African Union, but many other African countries stood firm against the Accord.

Between Copenhagen and Cancun there was a strong process to reinstate the Copenhagen Accord as the basis of negotiations and to reintroduce it as one of the formal documents. As negotiations moved to Cancun there were continuing concerns about substantive demands, but also about the process of negotiations – whether countries would genuinely be able to participate and represent the interests of their people.

In Cancun it was recognisable that this was going to be a different type of negotiations: The developed countries were not going to repeat the same mistake that they made in Copenhagen. Instead, there was a much more sophisticated process established that involved a number of things that were extraordinary in the UN process. This included meetings of small groups of countries that were not announced. A new text was developed in a process that no-one quite understands. In subsequent meetings of the Africa group, delegates acknowledge they still have no idea who drafted the document. The document was again tabled with a few hours notice, but this time with a much more sophisticated process and ultimately only Bolivia was really willing to stand up and raise questions about the process.

They enumerated their concerns, including a shift to a pledge-based process; the continuation of market mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol, even if there is no second commitment process; questions around the scale of financing; and concerns around technology and intellectual property.

Ultimately, the views of Bolivia were dismissed by the chair, the text was not opened for any negotiation and the chair said that consensus did not mean unanimity. In other words, the fact that a sovereign state opposes a consensus does not prevent the document from being adopted, which is inconsistent with the traditional understanding of consensus, which means that all parties participate.

Basically, what happened in Cancun was that there were a number of undertakings for further work and, in a sense, these are deliverables for the Durban meeting. But there were a number of issues that were left unaddressed because Cancun addressed the easy issues, but left the hard issues that arose in the Bali Action Plan.

CLASH OF PARADIGMS

Underlying these meetings is the clash of paradigms between the science-based, equity-based, rule-of-law-based process that was envisaged in the Bali roadmap and the pledge-and-review approach which the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reveals will lead to between 2.5 and five degrees Celsius of warming and associated impacts that include massive levels of loss and damage, particularly in Africa.

At Cancun, there were two main outcomes: One under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and the other under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). Two key questions arise: What is on the table and what are the key things that need to be addressed in both of these areas?

On the table on the AWG-LCA is a two degree Celsius goal and a review to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. The position of various countries reflects their underlying material interests: The Annex 1 countries (developed countries) have supported two degrees Celsius while within the African group there is support that has flip-flopped between two degrees Celsius and 1.5 degrees Celsius. The last statement was for 1.5 degrees Celsius.

There are also issues around mitigation, all related to the effort sharing question, because all of them affect how much the developed countries do and how much the developing countries do, and how much reduction need be made in each of a country’s economic sectors.

Obviously the level of cuts in terms of mitigation by the developed countries is important, but also their access to the carbon markets – how much of the effort they can shift back to the developing countries through carbon markets. Also, the use of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) agreement and the proposed forest carbon markets have to be added in to understand the basic effort sharing model to ensure that adequate effort is made by the developed countries and isn’t pushed onto developing countries in a manner that is unjust and unsustainable.

In terms of the general issues, there is a need to protect the current system and also ensure there is an adequate level of emissions reductions by the developed countries. On the table, however, there are a variety of different proposals. The most ambitious is a 50 per cent cut by 2017 put forward by Bolivia and a number of other countries, basically asking the developed countries to change their lifestyles and consumption patterns to halve emissions. The African group has again oscillated between two different demands: A weaker one (40 per cent by 2020) and a stronger one (45 per cent by 2020). African countries need to stick to the stronger end of the demands again to ensure the effort is undertaken by the developed countries and it doesn’t fall to Africa to pick up an unfair share of the burden.

Another issue is the question of markets and loopholes. In other words, do developed countries do what they say they are going to do and how much are they going to achieve through creative accounting, through loopholes. And then there are questions of how the system then accounts for this in terms of measurement and verification.

Via the Cancun agreement, the Annex 1 countries are merely going to take on targets to be implemented by them that are both not legally binding and negotiated. Developing countries have rejected this flawed model.

There also are concerns about the levels of the emissions gaps by Annex 1 countries and the comparability of efforts by the USA and the level of stringency of the reporting requirements of the Annex 1 countries. And so, again in response to that, the demands have been 40-50 per cent by 2017 or 2020, clearly comparable efforts by the USA in terms of their level of ambition, the legal form and their compliance and then maintaining the current system of mitigation pledges.

Attaining these desires may demand a political strategy, engagement by heads of state in Africa with their counterparts in the run-up to Durban, as well as very strong efforts in terms of media and communication and mobilisation by civil society and other actors in the developed countries to apply pressure on their governments.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the big demands are for a second commitment period. If the Africa group’s central demand is a second commitment period, Durban must not be the graveyard of the Kyoto Protocol – this has to be made very clear to the Annex 1 countries. They cannot come to Africa and expect to kill the Kyoto Protocol and fail to honour their legal obligations and fail to respond to the most basic demand of African negotiators. The challenge here, of course, is getting an adequate scale of emissions reduction and then closing the loopholes in the markets to close the emissions gap as well as ensure that Annex 1 countries do their fair share.

Durban is one stepping stone but there is also the danger that developing countries may be forced back into discussions around institutions, and the big picture issues taken off the table.

Developing countries and indeed the world are basically being herded into a fait accompli around the Kyoto Protocol and a fait accompli about the global system for stabilising the Earth’s climate. One that, from UNEP (a very conservative multi-lateral institution) figures, is likely to lead the Earth to between 2.5 degrees Celsius and five degrees Celsius of warming.

There are people and institutions working to block progress on climate change. They are the same people that are undertaking projects in Ogoniland and other parts of Africa. They are the same companies that are undermining climate legislation in the United States Congress and they are the same corporations that are emitting the greenhouse gasses that are causing the problems that the world is saddled with.

Africa, and indeed the larger developing world, needs to put forward alternatives that are inspiring, that will actually lead negotiations to the solutions that are needed to save the Earth and humanity from destruction. So, Durban is a stepping stone and must deliver a bold step on the path to a just climate outcome.

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The climate change talks have been going on for a long time. Since Rio in 1992, when the Climate Convention was adopted, there have been 16 Conference of the Parties (COPs). Then in 2007, a new round of negotiations was launched in Bali.

Many thought Parties were going to arrive at a deal in Copenhagen, COP 15, but that proved a mirage. And then there was Cancun, and now Durban, where it is clear that negotiations will not conclude. What is perhaps unclear is what will happen after Durban.
How are humans going to live with climate change? One response to this is the climate justice response. The challenge here is that climate change impacts everything and everybody. It is a really big challenge, but it is also a huge opportunity. There is an opportunity to promote solutions that are real solutions – people-centered solutions, ecological solutions and socially just solutions.

Climate change is also a justice issue. The rich and corporations are the principal drivers of climate change. And here the culprits are mainly the extractive industries, the fossil fuel industries, mining and oil companies and, of course, consumers of what these companies are extracting from the ground, so it is also a demand-side problem.

But it is really the rich minority in this world that have principally caused the problem of climate change. However, those who did not cause the problem, the poorest, who are the world’s majority, will feel the impacts worst and first. This is a fundamental fact and the basic foundation for the climate justice analysis and the climate justice movement.

The developed countries – forming only 20 per cent of the world’s population – have emitted nearly three-quarters of all the historic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) into the atmosphere, so there is a fundamental imbalance here. This atmosphere is not theirs alone; this atmosphere is shared by all of us and they have polluted the atmosphere that they share with everyone, causing this problem of climate change.

If there is a limit to what can be emitted into the atmosphere, and developed countries have emitted so much, it means that there is little capacity for more. The fact is that these countries have already over-consumed what we might call their fair share. They have already taken away that space from us in developing countries, who arguably need it more to develop.

If this is the case, then we need to talk about how we develop – we need real, sustainable development. We need to de-link our development from emissions pollution. But because we haven’t yet been able to do this successfully – and even developed countries have not been able to show us that they can de-link their development from GHG emissions – we are still facing the struggle of how we are going to do it. At the moment the predominant model is to grow and develop our way out of poverty and that requires emissions.

On actual, historic emissions, since 1850, Annex 1 countries (the developed countries) have used more than three-quarters of available emissions space. This situation should probably be the reverse since the population in developing countries is around 80 per cent of the world’s population. What the developed countries propose in the negotiations is that they still take a very big share of the available emissions space in terms of population, when it should be much less because they have already over-consumed in the past and they have a much smaller population. That’s where the basic problem lies.

One of the key discourses in the climate justice agenda, proposed by Bolivia and backed up by NGOs and civil society, is what they have framed as climate debt: Because the developed countries have already over-used, and propose to continue over-using in the future, their share of the atmospheric capacity (a global commons), they have diminished the Earth’s ability to absorb GHG emissions and this has denied developing countries the fair space needed to further their development. This is an emissions debt to developing countries and has led to climate change and its impacts.

Then there is also an adaptation debt, as now there are adverse effects of climate change, and these impacts are being felt in developing countries. The adaptation debt to developing countries is in terms of loss and damage, the imperative to adapt and for lost development opportunities. Together, the emissions debt and the adaptation debt comprise a climate debt. This is how Bolivia and many climate justice groups have framed it.

Many groups have been calling for the adoption of the climate debt principle so that developed countries would be compelled to repay climate debt through finance and technology transfers. This obliges developed countries to accept full accounting for their historical emissions debt and commit to making the deepest possible emission reductions in the negotiations.

If one actually were to do a full accounting of the emissions debt of developed countries, this would probably show that they would need to cut emissions by minus 300 per cent. You might say that is impossible – we can’t cut it even by 100 per cent, how are we going to go to minus 300 per cent? We do acknowledge that such a cut back might not be technically possible at the moment. However, developed countries need to make the deepest cuts technically possible at this time. So what they need to do and what they can do may differ because there are presently technological and other practical limits. They need, however, to accept their responsibility and do the utmost.

And for what cannot be done, they must transfer finance and technology to developing countries who will have to make emissions cuts or be faced with the impacts that excessive global emissions bring. This is a debt that developed countries owe to developing countries, it isn’t aid. It is an obligation, a right that developing countries have to finance and technology transfers from developed countries.

This framing has allowed for a methodology that developing countries like Bolivia and others have put forward in the negotiations. Using the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities as a basis, Bolivia and other countries have demanded that developed countries reduce their emissions by 50 per cent from 1990 levels without offsetting by 2017, and transfer finance and technology to do likewise in developing countries.

There is a full spectrum of positions at the climate negotiations. There are the ‘usual suspects’ led by the worst of all, the United States. Others such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Japan – basically the industrialised OECD countries – adopt hard-line positions. And then there is the European Union and the other developed countries that are either not in the European Union or are not quite in the developed country bloc, such as Mexico and South Korea, which are OECD countries, but are not Annex 1 countries.

Furthermore, there is the full range of non-Annex 1 countries. The largest bloc is the G77 and China, which comprises nearly all developing countries. Among the G77 and China there is the alliance of small island states, quite a prominent bloc in the negotiations because they represent the small islands who, up until this point, have been the moral voice of the negotiations owing to their focus on sea-level rise and the right to survival. There are the least developed countries, the African group and the ideologically left South American countries: Bolivia is key among them, also Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and others. There is also the BASIC grouping of emerging developing countries, not negotiating as a bloc, yet meeting regularly in an effort to coordinate positions. This group is viewed with suspicion by other developing countries. There is also the Arab group which overlaps with the African group.

What happened after the debacle in Copenhagen was that Bolivia went on to organise a large conference in Cochabamba in 2010. The idea came about as the Copenhagen meeting had failed miserably since the developed countries had tried to force the Copenhagen Accord onto other countries. Countries including Tuvalu, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Sudan basically rejected the Copenhagen Accord and there was no formal decision at that meeting. So Bolivia organised a World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth to bring together governments, civil society, and climate justice and social movements to discuss and address this issue. The idea was that it was supposed to be democratic and open to the peoples of the world to decide on this fundamental issue. There is much we can draw on from this.

The problem is what developed countries are trying to do: They acknowledge that climate change is a problem (some sectors in the US don’t acknowledge it is a problem and that is another problem altogether), however, their approach to solving the problem is incorrect. What they are trying to do, instead of acknowledging that they are the ones responsible for the problem, is to push the burden onto developing countries. This is an injustice.

They are trying to push climate change mitigation onto the BASIC countries in particular with the argument that their emissions are growing considerably hence they are responsible for a lot of the climate problem. Historical responsibility is not considered, as the developed countries argue that they can’t be responsible for the actions of generations before them, and what matters is emissions today. The US is saying that China’s absolute emissions today are bigger than their own, yet on a per capita basis, US emissions are still much greater than China’s. They are also not considering their historical responsibility, and this is fundamentally unfair.

What developed countries are also doing, instead of meeting reductions domestically, is to basically buy them from developing countries. This is possible with market mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism in the Kyoto Protocol. Instead of effecting domestic emission reductions, developed countries can pay developing countries to mitigate for them. On paper they meet their obligations, but actually the emission reductions are made elsewhere. Developing countries are trying to expand the market mechanisms and introduce new ones.

What developed countries are also trying to do is to use accounting loopholes that will allow them to show on paper that they have reduced emissions, when in reality, they have not made these emissions reductions.

They are also trying to deny finance and technology transfers to developing countries. What of the $100 billion that was first mentioned in the Copenhagen Accord? This is basically re-programmed aid money and it is not a pledge to give $100 billion, it is a pledge to help mobilise $100 billion, and that would include mobilising it from developing countries.

Developed countries have also been trying to push the problem of adaptation back onto developing countries. They are really not going to pass on the finance and technology, but instead leave the problem to developing countries to deal with themselves.

All of this plays out in the climate negotiations and has crystallised into the fight over what kind of emissions reduction system we should adopt. Up until this point we have always had a system of legally binding international commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Countries came together under the UN to say this is what we need to do because the science calls for it and we will negotiate as such and have an international agreement because it is an international problem. There is already a system for accounting, review, reporting and compliance and all of this is agreed and binding internationally.

However, what is happening now is that the US is promoting a system of bottom-up domestic pledges. They are pledging to reduce their emissions by around three per cent based on 1990 levels. They are resisting common accounting, reporting and review rules, and instead talk about “the sunshine of transparency”. They do not envisage a system with international compliance but a reliance on domestic legislation. However, it is clear that they are not going to have any climate legislation in the near future, so they can’t even promise that their pledge will be in domestic legislation, they merely state that this is what they are pledging to do domestically.

What is happening now is that the discussions have shifted. Countries like Canada, Russia and Japan are using the US as an excuse and have said that they will not commit to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, developed countries are pushing for a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, and the new treaty that they want will likely legalise a domestic pledge and review system. This is now the fundamental fight that is playing out in the climate negotiations over the Kyoto Protocol.

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4 & 5 OCTOBER 2009, BANGKOK THAILAND

IN THIS REPORT

1. Highlights and key decisions

2. Vision statement

3. Consolidated demands for COP15

4. Next steps for CJN!

Annex 1: Agenda

Annex 2: Participant list

1. HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY DECISIONS

The “vision statement” statement “What is CJN!” was adopted (see point 2 below)

The meeting agreed to the following proposals:

-         CJN! members to co-organise with Climate Justice Action (CJA) the 16 December “Reclaim Power: Push for Climate Justice”

-         CJN! to form a common bloc with CJA and anyone else who cares to join at the 12 December global day of action in Copenhagen under the banner “System change not climate change”

-         CJN! to organise a common day of events at the Klimaforum on 13 December

-         CJN! to support the “Pre-session of the Peoples Tribunal on Ecological Debt”

Three working groups were established: facilitation, communication, mobilisation and action (see point 4 below)

2. VISION STATEMENT

What is CJN!

This statement is the result of small working group and plenary discussions. It was adopted at the afternoon plenary on 5 October and it was agreed that it should be preceded by the CJN! principles:

What is CJN?

-         CJN is a loose network of like-minded organisations and movements coming together on the basis of the CJN principles

-         CJN is based in the politics and structures of movements and community organisations

-         CJN is a platform for community struggles and alternatives

What is CJN! doing?

-         building a wider awareness of climate justice issues and perspectives

-         building national, transborder and regional coalitions

-         linking communities, issues and sectors

-         supporting communities and their struggles

-         reaching out to other movements and networks to be part of the growing climate justice movement

-         campaigning to promote the demands in the CJN principles and alternatives

How is CJN doing this?

-         developing a strong, radical, gender and rights-based concept of climate justice

-         bringing the climate justice critique into the heart of the climate negotiations, the G8, the G20 and other sites of power

-         sharing information and analysis in different languages

-         ensuring that all regions and territories are part of CJN

-         engaging in a permanent “outside” strategy beyond the UNFCCC

-         bringing community and marginalized voices and views into the UNFCCC

-         coordinating actions and strategies outside and inside the UNFCCC

-         debating the positions of other networks whose positions are not based in a climate justice framework

-         pushing governments at the national level to adopt climate justice policies

3. CONSOLIDATED CJN! DEMANDS FOR THE COP 15

This is a compilation of the demands from small working groups. The final text was not debated.

Change the current development paradigm – No to neo-liberal policies, no to trade liberalisation, demand for a just transition for a ‘renewably powered planet’.

Promote and support alternatives based on a peoples’ agenda: – food sovereignty, energy sovereignty, agrarian reform, small-scale sustainable agriculture

Recognition, respect and promotion of the rights of women and of indigenous, traditional populations and campesina/os over their territories and resources based on harmony with nature, respecting the rights of mother earth.

Respect the rights of those populations and other activists to resist and struggle against climate change.

Support an alternative funding mechanism under UNFCCC

Full reparations for ecological and climate debt – reparations must be made in the form of deep and drastic GHG emission cuts in the North domestically & transfer of financing and technology to the South. There should be strong penalties for countries that do not follow targets. Reparations also means that funds for mitigation and adaptation cannot be based on debt creating loans or grants.

IFIs out of climate – out of climate negotiations, climate funds, and projects that exacerbate climate change!

Keep fossil fuels in the ground – keep oil in the soil, tar in the sand, coal in the hole. This includes stopping all public subsidies for fossil fuel extraction, & other projects that aggravate climate crisis

Create an international entity to judge ecological crimes and recognize climate-displaced populations under international law for refugees

No to false solutions!

-     nuclear energy

-     carbon offsets

-     techno-fixes like geo-engineering

-     “clean” coal

-     agro-fuels

-     large scale hydro-electric dams

Demands related to REDD might need further discussion: some groups advocated supporting the position of the indigenous peoples caucus, whereas others felt that CJN! could take a clearer “no carbon market” position.

The various positions aired were:

No to REDD in any form (1, 2, – + or whatever)!

REDD is a false solution to climate change. It violates the rights of indigenous peoples, traditional populations and campesina/os over their territories.

Need to follow and respect International Indigenous Peoples Forum position (not for or against REDD – but bottom line of Indigenous Rights)

REDD – full land rights to IP and forest peoples before any talk of REDD

No carbon markets including REDD

Statement of Climate Justice Now! on the COP 15

Call for “system change not climate change” unites global movement

Corrupt Copenhagen ‘accord’ exposes gulf between peoples demands and elite interests

The highly anticipated UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen ended with a fraudulent agreement, engineered by the United States and dropped into the conference at the last moment. The “agreement” was not adopted. Instead, it was “noted” in an absurd parliamentary invention designed to accommodate the United States and permit Ban Ki-moon to utter the ridiculous pronouncement “We have a deal.”

The UN conference was unable to deliver solutions to the climate crisis, or even minimal progress toward them. Instead, the talks were a complete betrayal of impoverished nations and island states, producing embarrassment for the United Nations and the Danish government. In a conference designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions there was very little talk of emission reductions. Rich, developed countries continued to delay any talk of deep and binding cuts, instead shifting the burden to less developed countries and showing no willingness to make reparations for the damage they have caused.

The Climate Justice Now! coalition, alongside other networks, was united here at COP15 in the call for System Change, Not Climate Change. In contrast, the Copenhagen climate conference itself demonstrated that real solutions, as opposed to false, market-based solutions, will not be adopted until we overcome the existing unjust political and economic system.

Government and corporate elites here in Copenhagen made no attempt to satisfy the expectations of the world. False solutions and corporations completely co-opted the United Nations process. The global elite would like to privatize the atmosphere through carbon markets; carve up the remaining forests, bush and grasslands of the world through the violation of Indigenous Peoples’ rights and land-grabbing; promote high-risk technologies to restructure the climate; convert real forests into monoculture tree plantations and agricultural soils into carbon sinks; and complete the enclosure and privatisation of the commons. Virtually every proposal discussed in Copenhagen was based on a desire to create opportunities for profit rather than to reduce emissions, and even the small amounts of financing promised could end up paying for the transfer of risky technologies.

The only discussions of real solutions in Copenhagen took place in social movements. Climate Justice Now!, Climate Justice Action and Klimaforum09 articulated many creative ideas and attempted to deliver those ideas to the UN Climate Change Conference through the Klimaforum09 People’s Declaration and the Reclaim Power People’s Assembly. Among nations, the ALBA countries, many African nations and AOSIS often echoed the messages of the climate justice movement, speaking of the need to repay climate debt, create mitigation and adaptation funds outside of neoliberal institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, and keep global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees.

The UN and the Danish government served the interests of the rich, industrialized countries, excluding our voices and the voices of the least powerful throughout the world, and attempting to silence our demands to talk about real solutions. Nevertheless, our voices grew stronger and more united day by day during the two-week conference. As we grew stronger, the mechanisms implemented by the UN and the Danish authorities for the participation of civil society grew more dysfunctional, repressive and undemocratic, very much like the WTO and Davos.

Social movement participation was limited throughout the conference, drastically curtailed in week two, and several civil society organizations even had their admission credentials revoked midway through the second week. At the same time, corporations continued lobbying inside the Bella Center.

Outside the conference,the Danish police extended the repressive framework, launching a massive clampdown on the right to free expression and arresting and beating thousands, including civil society delegates to the climate conference. Our movement overcame this repression to raise our voices in protest over and over again. Our demonstrations, organised together with Danish trade unions, movements and NGOs, mobilized more than 100,000 people in Denmark to press for climate justice, while social movements around the world mobilized hundreds of thousands more in local climate justice demonstrations. In spite of repression by the Danish government and exclusion by the United Nations, the movement for system change not climate change is now stronger than when we arrived in Denmark.

While Copenhagen has been a disaster for just and equitable climate solutions, it has been an inspiring watershed moment in the battle for climate justice. The governments of the elite have no solutions to offer, but the climate justice movement has provided strong vision and clear alternatives. Copenhagen will be remembered as an historic event for global social movements. It will be remembered, along with Seattle and Cancun, as a critical moment when the diverse agendas of many social movements coalesced and became stronger, asking in one voice for system change, not climate change.

The Climate Justice Now! coalition calls for social movements around the world to mobilize in support of climate justice.

We will take our struggle forward not just in climate talks, but on the ground and in the streets, to promote genuine solutions that include:

• leaving fossil fuels in the ground and investing instead in appropriate energy-efficiency and safe, clean and community-led renewable energy
• radically reducing wasteful consumption, first and foremost in the North, but also by Southern elites
• huge financial transfers from North to South, based on reparations for climate debts and subject to democratic control. The costs of adaptation and mitigation should be paid for by redirecting military budgets, progressive and innovative taxes, and debt cancellation
• rights-based resource conservation that enforces Indigenous land rights and promotes peoples’ sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water
• sustainable family farming and fishing, and peoples’ food sovereignty.

We are committed to building a diverse movement – locally and globally – for a better world.

Climate Justice Now!

Copenhagen

19 December 2009

www.climate-justice-now.org

and supported by the following organisations and individuals, as of  1 March 2010

Organisations

Supported by the following organisations and individuals, 14 January 2010

Organisations

Afrika Kontact, Denmark

Aitec-IPAM, France

Alianza Mexicana por la Autodeterminación de los Pueblos-AMAP, Mexico

Alternatives International

Anti Debt Coalition (KAU), Indonesia

ARCI, Italy

Asamblea de Huehuetenango por la defensa de los recursos naturales, Guatemala

Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development/Jubilee South

Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN)

ATTAC Germany Working Group on Energy, Climate and Environment, Germany

Attac Malmö, Sweden

ATTAC, France

ATTAC, Germany

ATTAC, Japan

ATTAC, Switzerland

Balochistan Climate Change Alliance, Pakistan.

Belarusian Social Forum, Belarus

Camp for Climate Action, UK

Campaign Against Climate Change (CCC) Trade Union Group, UK

Canadians for Action on Climate Change, Canada

Carbon Trade Watch

Centre for Civil Society Environmental Justice Project, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

Centre for Environmental Justice, Sri Lanka

Centro de Estudios Internacionales (CEI), Nicaragua

Climat 37, France

Climat et justice sociale, Belgium

Climate-change-trade-union-network, UK

Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM)

Confederazione dei Comitati di Base (COBAS),  Italy

Consejo de los pueblos del occidente de Guatemala por la defensa del territorio, Guatemala

Convergencia de Movimientos de los Pueblos de las Américas (COMPA)

Corner House, UK

Corporate Europe Observatory

DICE Foundation, India

Down To Earth, Indonesia/UK

Energy and Climate Policy Institute (ECPI), Korea

Enhedslisten/the Red-Green Alliance, Denmark

Escuela de Pensamiento Ecologista, Guatemala

ESK Sindikatua, Basque Country

Euromarches/Marches européennes

Europe solidaire sans frontières (ESSF), France

Fair, Italy

Family Farm Defenders, USA

FelS-Klima AG (Für eine linke Strömung), Germany

FERN

FOCO Foro Ciudadano de Participación por la Justicia y los Derechos Humanos, Argentina

Focus on the Global South, Thailand, Philippines and India

Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, USA

Friends of the Earth International

Friends of the Earth Sydney Collective, Australia

Friends of the Earth, Flanders & Brussels, Belgium

Friends of the Earth, Sweden

Galiza Non Se Vende

gegenstromberlin, Germany

Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)

Global Exchange, USA

Global Forest Coalition and Friends of the Siberian Forests, Russia

Global Justice Ecology Project, USA

Greater Boston United for Justice with Peace (UJP), USA

Green Party, UK

Hacktivist News Service, hns-info.net

Hemispheric Social Alliance, the Americas

HOPE, Pakistan

Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), India

Indonesia Fisherfolk Union/ Serikat Nelayan Imdonesia (SNI), Indonesia

Institute for Social Ecology, USA

Internationale Socialister, Denmark

Jubilee South – International

Jubilee South – Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD)

Klimabevægelsen (Climate Movement), Denmark

KlimaX, Denmark

La Via Campesina

Labour, Health and Human Rights Development Centre, Nigeria

Les Amis de la Terre, France

Links Ecologisch Forum, Belgium

Linksjugend['solid], Germany

Living Seas, Denmark

Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, USA

Massachusetts Forest Watch, USA

Mémoire des luttes, France

Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project, USA

Movimiento Mexicano de Afectados por las Represas (MAPDER), Mexico

National Fishers Solidarity Movement, Sri Lanka

National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR), USA

Otros Mindos Chiapas, Mexico

Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition

Peoples Movement on Climate Change (PMCC)

Plymouth Trades Union Council, UK

Polaris Institute, Canada

projecto270, Portugal

Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC), Mexico

Red Mexicana de Afectados por la Minería (REMA), Mexico

REDES/Friends of the Earth, Uruguay

Renewable Energy Centre (REC), South Africa

Rising Tide North America

SmartMeme, USA

Socialist Workers Party, Britain

Steering Committee of Green Left, UK

Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies, USA

Texas Climate Emergency Campaign, USA

Thai Working Group for Climate Justice, Thailand

The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, UK

The Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations (RECOMA)/Red Latinoamericana contra los Monocultivos de Arboles (RECOMA)

The Respect Party, UK

Timberwatch Coalition, South Africa

Transform! Europe

Transnational Institute (TNI)

Union de Comunidades Indigenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo-UCIZONI, Mexico

United for Justice and Peace, Greater Boston, USA

Urgence Climat 13, France

Utopia, France

VOICE, Bangladesh

Walhi, Friends of the Earth, Indonesia

World Development Movement, UK

Zukunftskonvent, Germany

Individuals

Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies, Kings College London, UK

Bente Hessellund Andersen, Denmark

Beth Adams, Massachusetts, USA

Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary, Public and Commercial Services union, Britain

Clive Searle, National Secretary, The Respect Party, UK

Corinna Genschel, Committee of Basic Rights and Democracy, Germany

Dave Bleakney, national union representative, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Canada

David Hallowes, Durban, South Africa

Dr Isabelle Fremeaux, Birkbeck College, UK

Elana Bulman, UK

Francine Mestrum, Global Social Justice, Belgium

Graham Petersen, National Environment Officer, University and College Union, UK

Inger V. Johansen, Enhedslisten/the Red-Green Alliance, Denmark

Jeroen Robbe, Young Friends of the Earth, Europe

Jessica Bell, People for Climate Justice, Canada

John Jordan, UK

Jonathan Neale, UK

Jurgen Kraus, coordination of the caravan from WTO to COP15

Kirsten Gamst-Nielsen, Denmark

Laura Grainger, Young Friends of the Earth

Marie-France Astegiani-Merrain, vice/Présidente d’ADEN, France

Matthew Firth, staff representative, environmental issues, Canadian Union of Public Employees.

MK Dorsey, Dartmouth University, USA

Nicola Bullard, Australia

Patrick Bond, University of KwaZulu Natal

Pete Sirois, Maine, USA

Professor Andrew Dobson, Keele University, UK

Rebecca Sommer, Representative of the NGO Society for Threatened Peoples International, in consultative status to the United Nations ECOSOC and in participatory status with the Council of Europe. Indigenous Peoples Department,  USA

Richard Greeman (socialist scholar)

Roger Leisner, Radio Free Maine, USA

Ruth Reitan, University of Miami, USA

Tony Staunton, UK