Presented by Lim Li Lin (TWN) on behalf of CJN! members and the women and gender constituency

Distinguished delegates:

We appreciate this opportunity to share the views of some members of Climate Justice Now!, and from members of the women and gender constituency with you. We wanted to share these views at the beginning of this workshop, but regretfully we were not allowed to present. We also regret that we are not invited to attend the entire workshop.

We share the concern of many other stakeholders that methodologies and modalities for land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) accounting should not undermine the integrity of the Kyoto Protocol and its effectiveness as a legally binding instrument to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

To effectively address climate change and ensure environmental integrity, all significant emissions, including those from the land use sector must be properly accounted for and reduced in the second commitment period.  However, the current LULUCF rules and draft proposals represent a serious threat to environmental integrity and are the most outrageous of many loopholes that need to be closed in the second commitment period.

It is unacceptable that countries can simply choose not to account for emissions from forest management. In the second commitment period, Parties must not be allowed to pick and choose which segments of the land use sector they account for.

We also object to attempts to set reference levels that would allow countries to increase their emissions from LULUCF related activities considerably, instead of reducing them in line with the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention.

We would like to reiterate our strong concern in this respect that the forest definition that is currently used for LULUCF includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. That is, it includes real, biologically diverse forests, which are an essential source of livelihood for women and their families, but it also includes monoculture tree plantations, including large-scale monoculture tree plantations that have a devastating impact on women’s livelihoods and communities in general. These plantations destroy ecosystems and subsistence agriculture, cause rural unemployment and depopulation, deplete soils and water resources and violate Indigenous Peoples’ rights. That is why we insist that the definition of “forests” is revised jointly with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) so as to exclude monoculture tree plantations. Moreover, it should be ensured that forest degradation is fully taken into account in any scheme to conserve forest.

We also insist that forest management accounting methodologies and modalities within the framework of this Rio Convention should not lead to practices that impact negatively on the objectives of the other major Rio Convention, the CBD, or on the rights and livelihoods of women, Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the North or South.

We strongly object to the proposed continuation of clean development mechanism (CDM) credits for monoculture tree plantations falsely classed as ‘afforestation and reforestation’ projects, and to proposals to increase the amount of such CDM credits for those plantations. We also object to proposals, contained in the LULUCF draft, to include forest, cropland and grazing land management, soil carbon and other ‘land use’ in the CDM.  If approved, this would provide major new carbon finance for monoculture tree and crop plantations of all types.  Annex I countries must not be allowed to “meet” or rather avoid their commitments under LULUCF or otherwise through offsetting.

Forest management accounting methodologies and modalities should not create incentives for forest management practices that are unsustainable from a social or environmental perspective. We reject any forest-related scheme that ignores or undermines the many different values forests have for women and men. Any incentive scheme that favors the carbon value of ecosystems more than other values will lead to serious negative impacts on food and water sovereignty, access to traditional medicines and seeds, and the other socio-economic, cultural, spiritual and ecological values of forests, which are of essential importance to our existence, and especially that of women.

We hope these general observations can be taken into account in your deliberations. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

I am speaking as a member of the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance and Climate Justice Now! – a network of organisations and movements from across the globe committed to the fight for genuine solutions – local and global – to the climate crisis.

Africa stands on the frontline of climate change. It is a cruel irony indeed that a people who have lived for so long in harmony with nature are now suffering the disastrous effects of greenhouse gases emitted by developed countries.

For over two centuries the industrialized world became wealthy by drenching the atmosphere in carbon and plundering resources from every region of the world.

The current proposal and pledges by Annex I Parties are supposedly aimed at limiting global warming to 2 degrees. They will not, and 2 degrees is a death sentence for Africa.  According to the IPCC, Africa will warm by more than the average global level. 2 degrees globally means 3 or more degrees for my continent.

Such an increase in temperature would lead to widespread devastation.

It will lead to massive reduction in crop yields in some areas, cutting food outputs in half. More than 600 million people left without adequate water supplies. Our coastlines, villages and cattle will be ravaged. Literally millions of people will die.

The injustice does not stop here. Based on Annex I Parties current proposals and pledges, the 20% of people living in developed countries would consume over 60% of the Earth’s atmospheric space – historically to 2050 – while the 80% who are poor will be consigned to live within the remaining 40%.  You are literally stealing from us the very sky over our heads.

A mere $10 billion is proposed under the Convention negotiations in so-called short-term financing, while the rich countries seek to appropriate from poor countries an atmospheric resource worth trillions. Your 10 billion will not be enough to buy our coffins.

We are expected to accept this deal. Worse still we are expected to celebrate this as success.

We will not.

This grab of our shared atmospheric resource is nothing less than climate colonialism.

Yesterday, African civil society marched alongside Parliamentarians from across the continent chanting: “Two degrees is suicide” and “One Africa, One Degree”.  You must all be absolutely clear: we will not die in silence.

]]> http://www.climate-justice-now.org/cjn-cmp-agenda-item-5-intervention/feed/ 0 http://www.climate-justice-now.org/cjn-lca-opening-intervention/ http://www.climate-justice-now.org/cjn-lca-opening-intervention/#comments Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:42:24 +0000 CJN http://www.climate-justice-now.org/?p=686 Delivered by Ricardo Navaro, CESTA – Friends of the Earth El Salvador

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

I am speaking today as a member of Climate Justice Now!

Climate change is the result of a global political and economic system where profits are more important than people and the planet. It is a problem created by the exploitation of the world’s resources to benefit the wealthy, living mostly in the global North. Therefore, the responsibility to solve the climate crisis lies with Northern countries. They must stop appropriating the earth’s atmosphere for a small minority of the population.

Climate change will not be solved by negotiating an agreement behind closed doors. Secret meetings that exclude affected peoples voices only perpetuate the system of injustice  – and is nothing less than criminal. We will not be able to stop a profound climate catastrophe if we do not include the voices and the interests of those who have been historically marginalized.

We demand that Northern countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 50%, with no offsets, by 2017, and pay reparations for the atmospheric space they have already used – as the Bolivian government is proposing. What is at stake here is the future of humanity.

Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

I am speaking today as a member of Climate Justice Now! – a network of organisations and movements from across the globe committed to the fight for genuine solutions – local and global – to the climate crisis.

From the interventions from several Annex I countries in the past days, it is clear that some parties are deliberately trying to undermine even the limited achievements of the Kyoto Protocol.

What we are witnessing here is history repeating itself. We respectfully remind parties that in the original negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol countries endlessly accommodated the needs of particular parties, only to find that these same parties were, in the end, not willing to ratify.

We cannot allow this to happen again. The future of the climate negotiations – and indeed the future of people and the planet – cannot be held hostage to the politics and interests of one particular state. We cannot allow the political ambition of the international climate regime to be sabotaged by recalcitrant positions.

The time is now to face the fact that dangerous climate change is a real and imminent threat. Rather than lowering the level of ambition, this meeting should be setting its sights on achieving emissions reductions demanded by science and by the reality on the ground. The next commitment phase of the Kyoto Protocol must achieve legally binding emission reductions in Annex 1 countries with no offsets, and consider truly innovative possibilities that include avoiding the release of new emissions, for example by leaving fossil fuels underground.

Annex I countries agreeing to ambitious emission reductions in future commitment periods in the Kyoto Protocol will unlock LCA discussions about non Annex I actions based on the availability of appropriate financing. Because of the climate debt they owe, the responsibility here lies squarely with Annex I countries to act.

Renegotiating the form and principles of the Kyoto Protocol to allow for the needs of one country, that has been reticent to come on board for 13 years, will lead us to an outcome that falls far short of the bare minimum of what is required to ensure the lives and livelihoods of billions of people. This we cannot afford.

Climate Justice Now! calls upon parties not to repeat the negotiating mistakes and compromises of the past – and to face the future that hurtles towards us.

Thank you.

Rich industrialized countries offer little hope for just climate agreement in Copenhagen

BONN, GERMANY—Throughout the United Nations climate talks ending today in Bonn, the United States blocked measures that would move negotiations forward, according to Friends of the Earth.

Rather than show global leadership, the Obama administration failed to live up to its responsibility as the world’s largest historical greenhouse gas polluter. This strategy damages prospects for a just, equitable, and effective outcome at the key UN conference planned in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December of this year.

“The election of President Obama created tremendous hope worldwide that the U.S. would finally play a leadership role in solving the climate crisis that—more than any other nation on Earth—it is responsible for causing. Unfortunately for the future of people and the planet, the Obama administration position at these UN negotiations sounds frighteningly similar to that of administration of George Bush,” said Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth U.S.

In particular, Friends of the Earth said the U.S. delegation failed to commit to greenhouse gas emission reduction targets that would account for its fair share of necessary global reductions. The U.S. also failed to commit to providing sufficient financial support to developing countries as they address climate impacts and transition to cleaner economies.

Domestic greenhouse gas emission reductions by industrialized countries of at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020—with no offsetting—are needed for a reasonable chance of avoiding catastrophic global climate change, many experts have said.

The U.S. administration, however, is still talking about zero percent reductions by 2020, compared to the 1990 baseline. Japan proposed a dangerously low emissions reduction target during the Bonn talks of eight percent below 1990 levels. The European Union remained unimpressive with its inadequate 2020 target of 20 percent below the 1990 baseline (30 percent if other industrialized countries commit to similar efforts). Considering that the EU is set to “offset” over half of its commitments, these already too-weak EU targets will be even further watered down.

Delegations from around the world repeatedly warned developed countries that their refusal to set their own adequate targets is preventing any progress in other aspects of the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Alliance of Small Island States called on developed countries to commit to stronger greenhouse gas reduction targets so that global temperature rise stays below 1.5ºC. Bolivia demanded repayment of the developed world’s climate debt. El Salvador and Paraguay stood strong to protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

Alarmingly, industrialized countries failed in Bonn to agree to the substantial transfer of money and technology cooperation needed to enable developing countries to tackle climate change.

“Industrialized countries need to assume their historical responsibility and pay back their climate debt. Developing countries must stay strong in calling for climate justice. By ignoring calls to repay their climate debt and hindering progress in these talks, rich countries are jeopardizing the lives and livelihoods of millions of people,” said Meena Raman, Honorary Secretary of Friends of the Earth Malaysia.

Industrialized nations owe developing countries a “climate debt” for excessive greenhouse gas pollution over the past 200 years and to compensate for the damage that pollution has caused and will cause.* Rich, industrialized countries account for some 20 percent of the world’s population but are responsible for around three-quarters of historical greenhouse gas emissions. But developed countries have so far refused to repay this debt and have continued to block progress in the negotiations.

Note to editors:

* For more information on climate debt, read the Third World Network briefing paper: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/climate/briefings/Bonn03/TWN.BPjune2009.bonn.02.doc

Friends of the Earth (www.foe.org) is the U.S. voice of the world’s largest grassroots environmental network, with member groups in 77 countries. Since 1969, Friends of the Earth has been at the forefront of high-profile efforts to create a more healthy, just world.

‘I’d rather see my country refuse an agreement with such low ambition. The political will of rich countries to make up for their historic responsibility and to safeguard poor people’s lives, dignity and development is just not there. Things have to change dramatically.’

– Mithika Mwenda, Coordinator of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance.

As the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany wind up and delegates set off for home, they leave behind a very large pile of newly assembled legal and negotiating text and a much larger gap in political will.

Some progress has been made. The negotiating parties have tabled amendments and negotiating texts have been compiled representing all their proposals. Somewhere within all that text the shape of a potential Copenhagen deal is now on the table.

But if you look at the core elements of what have to be agreed – deep emissions cuts from developed countries, support from developed countries to developing countries to help them cope with climate change impacts and develop in new low-carbon ways, and credible and legitimate institutions to monitor and deliver this low carbon transformation – and we are a long way from dealing with climate change.

The biggest issue is the failure of developed countries – referred to as Annex 1 countries in the talks – to put forward adequate targets for their emissions cuts. According to original timetables, by this point in the talks parties should have agreed an aggregate target for Annex 1.

Rich countries aiming low

Christian Aid has called for Annex 1 countries to sign up to at least a 40% cut in their emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. The G77 and China grouping which includes all developing countries tabled a call for this number on the last day of the talks, although many of the countries most vulnerable to climate change have called for even more ambition from developing countries.

In contrast an analysis by the UNFCCC secretariat calculated that the pledged emissions reductions by those developed countries that had put forward possible commitments added up to between a 16 to 24 % cut.

This number leaves out many developed countries, including the US that have yet to suggest what targets they might take. Those targets may be even lower, as Japan demonstrated to widespread international condemnation. Japan suggested they would achieve an 8% cut by 2020 – only 2% more than the cut they are committed to achieve by 2012.

One of the reasons for the general lack of ambition and foot dragging from developed countries is the reticence of the US. The US is hiding behind the progression of the Waxman-Markey Bill – which aims to deliver US emissions cuts – through Congress, and so it is all but absent. In fact many of its key negotiators skipped Bonn to attend talks with the Chinese government in Beijing.

Show us the money

As far as the negotiations are concerned the US seems to be acting as a world leader – in a race to the bottom. Beyond failing to have a target to table the major US contribution has been to popularise amongst rich countries the ‘double counting’ of emissions cuts and financial support to developing countries through offsetting.

Apart from the funds that might be raised through offsetting its own target can the richest country in the world provide money and technology to help poor countries cope with the impacts of a global catastrophe it is more responsible than anyone else for causing? At the moment the answer looks like ‘No we can’t’.

Europe is no better. They set the terms of their engagement when, during the middle of the second week of the negotiations, finance ministers from European members states met in Brussels and announced… very little.

What they did do was set out how funds that they show no signs of contributing to might be spent and then indicate their opinion that almost everyone else, from the private sector to some developing countries, should be contributing funds.

Legal matters

Another major discussion at Bonn was around what legal shape any agreement in Copenhagen should take. The terms of the Kyoto Protocol include provision to amend it to add further commitments for Annex 1 countries. Parties are also discussing whether there need to be further amendments to the existing protocol, and whether there should be a new Copenhagen Protocol, which could either supplement or replace Kyoto.

For poor countries this is very simple… action on climate change needs to start with rich countries who caused the problem. Before anything else can happen those countries need to show they are serious about doing their fair share.

This is the logic behind the form of commitments agreed in Kyoto in 1997 – where developed countries have binding commitments to cut their emissions and developing countries act as they are able given their priority of poverty eradication, and with support from rich countries.

But most rich countries look unlikely to meet their commitments under Kyoto, so new, stronger commitments need to be agreed and discussions need to take place on improving the implementation of these commitments. So developing countries want an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, and then some limited new legal instrument for further commitments.

However countries like Canada, Australia and Japan, and to some extent the US are only willing to act if poor countries do too and are trying to ‘turn the page’ on the Kyoto protocol and replace it with a new protocol or agreement that sees rich and poor countries taking on the same kinds of efforts.

An insight into the mindset of some developed country negotiators was given when Canadian NGOs obtained official briefing notes from their government through a freedom of information request.

The notes showed that the Canadian strategy included pressing the EU to take on weaker targets, and seeking to ‘extract binding emissions reduction commitments from the emerging economies’. Just for reference, Canada’s target for 2020 is a 2% cut.

Responsibility, capacity, equity

The developing countries, both separately and through the various groupings like G77 and China have been assertively calling for Annex 1 to meet up to their responsibilities, and were notably the source of all the ideas around how efforts can be shared between countries on a fair basis.

One key concept that was much discussed was historical responsibility for climate change. While much of the emissions causing current climate change were emitted in ignorance industrialised countries are responsible for the vast bulk of them and have benefited significantly from this.

Developing countries argue that this must be taken into account in any agreement to cooperate on tackling climate change. Otherwise the burden of tackling climate change will be unfairly shifted on to them and they will be denied the space to develop freely.

There were a number of sessions that discussed this concept, and finding a way to deal with it that both rich and poor countries can agree with will be important to finding agreement in Copenhagen.

Climate justice?

There is now less than six months to go to Copenhagen. Despite the complexity of the hundreds of pages of negotiating text the lines of disagreement are clear. Will rich countries find the political will to commit to deeply cutting their emissions and providing the money to help poor countries, or won’t they?

More than ever it is apparent that Copenhagen may represent an unprecedented opportunity to deliver global action on climate change, but it will need an unprecedented global movement to create the will to act required. Christian Aid and its partners across Europe and the world are working hard to be part of such a movement.

The second round of this year’s climate negotiations have wrapped up in Bonn, Germany, and government negotiators are digging in to their positions, making the chances of signing any global climate deal in Copenhagen this December – let alone a fair deal – increasingly slim.

A snapshot at the midpoint on the road to Copenhagen reveals that much has stayed the same since last time parties were assembled here in March. Two major hurdles block forward movement in reaching an agreement: the lack of political will by industrialized countries to commit to deep cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions, and resistance on their part to deliver comprehensive financing to help poorer countries deal with locked-in climate change and a shift to ecologically sustainable development.

What’s beginning to change with this round of talks is how developing countries and climate justice movements frame both of these issues.

The Climate Debt Must be Repaid

According to a growing number of governments and civil society organizations the developed world owes the developing world a twofold climate debt. The greenhouse gases that rich countries have released to date directly translate into physical impacts and financial losses in poorer countries. At a technical briefing arranged by UN officials on historical responsibility for climate change, Bolivian ambassador Angelica Navarro noted a loss of 4 to 17% of GDP each year in her country as a result of changing weather patterns. These impacts constitute an “adaptation debt.” And to pay it off, those who caused the problem must fully compensate developing countries for the effects of their emissions.

A second debt – an “emissions debt” – is a bit more complicated, but no less real. It’s based on the scientific fact that the atmosphere has a limited capacity to absorb greenhouse gases before reaching the tipping point of irreversible climate chaos – and on the principle that every person, no matter where he or she lives, has an equal right to the remaining atmospheric space.

The South Centre, a Geneva-based intergovernmental organization, estimates that the space left can hold up to 600 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions – and the people in industrialized countries have already used more than their fair share. With less than 20% of the world’s population, they have emitted almost three quarters of all climate change gases. According to Martin Khor, director of the South Centre, if rich countries don’t radically change course they will have used up 240 gigatons of the atmospheric space by 2050, although based on population their allocation should only be 125 gigatons.

In other words, developed countries have taken out a loan of 115 gigatons of carbon dioxide, and developing countries are asking for it back. As people in poorer nations continue to improve their quality of life, fight for access to electricity, and grow their domestic industry they will need this space. The idea that poorer countries shouldn’t use the atmospheric commons to develop is not only unjust, it’s unrealistic. Failing to take this reality into account at the negotiations will doom the people and economies of all nations.

How Low Can You Go?

The implications for developed countries here in Bonn and on the road to Copenhagen -where world leaders are supposed to reach an agreement that will pick up where the Kyoto Protocol leaves off in 2012 – are profound. To repay their emissions debt they must commit to drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Developing countries are calling for cuts of 45 to almost 80 percent from 1990 levels in the next 10 years. Some researchers are saying that to avoid a climate catastrophe reductions from rich countries actually have to plunge to 100 percent – and then go negative by the middle of the century.

Even with a clean energy and land use revolution, it’s close to impossible for countries like the U.S. to meet such ambitious targets. The balance of their climate debt, then, will have to be repaid in a transfer of money and clean technology to developing countries so that they can create new economies that are low-carbon and still meet the needs of their citizens. The price tag will be along the lines of hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Industrialized countries have balked at the sum, but their obligation to deliver this support is already enshrined in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a global agreement which even the U.S. signed. And if the bank bailouts have taught us anything, it’s that where there’s a political will, there’s a way to mobilize trillions of dollars.

Meena Raman, researcher and legal advisor to the Third World Network and former Chair of Friends of the Earth International, called the technical briefing and the introduction of the climate debt concept “one of the most important moments in the history of the Convention.” But if climate talks in Copenhagen are to yield a just and effective result, the conversation must move beyond concepts to commitments from nations with the greatest historical responsibility.

* Janet Redman is co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies where she provides analysis of the international financial institutions’ energy investment and carbon finance activities

Bonn, 12 June 2009.

Blame Game Begins

Rich countries are launching a blame game to avoid their obligations and undermine the UN climate negotiations, according to members of the Climate Justice Now! coalition of civil society organisations. Their assessment comes at the end of the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany.

“It looks like the US has a deliberate strategy to leave the UN talks stalled in arguments over brackets and commas, while it seeks to isolate China from the rest of the global South” said Meena Raman of Friends of the Earth International. “The Major Economies Forum is another example of how the industrialised countries are shifting the discussion in order to sidestep the more ambitious demands made by developing countries.”

The US has so far offered no reduction in its emissions compared to 1990 levels, while Japan announced a target that is just 8 per cent below 1990 levels. Such targets fall a long way short of the action needed to tackle dangerous climate change, and are further undermined by the use of carbon offsets which allow industrialised countries to avoid reducing their domestic greenhouse gas emissions.

“The industrialised countries portray the developing world as potential deal breakers, but the real roadblock remains their failure to address their historical or current responsibility for climate change on anything like the scale needed” says Chee Yoke Ling of Third World Network. “In fact, the Annex 1 countries are systematically trying to dismantle the Convention and wind back their Kyoto commitments.¨

“We find that the illiterates of our century are not those who cannot read or write but those who do not want to learn, un-learn and re-learn. And the champion of them all is Prime Minister Aso of Japan who cannot even read the science,¨ says Habtemariam Abate of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance. “ Colonising the remaining atmospheric space is no basis for a just deal.”

In stark contrast developing countries tabled a number of positive proposals. The Alliance of Small Island States called on developed countries to commit to higher greenhouse gas reduction targets so that global temperature rise stays below 1.5ºC. Bolivia demanded repayment of the developed world’s climate debt. El Salvador and Paraguay were strong advocates for the protection of Indigenous Peoples´ rights.

Climate Justice Now! is an international alliance of over 200 organisations and movements.

Further information

Chee Yoke Ling, Third World Network, +49 1520 6326564

Bonn, Germany – A coalition of youth, environmental groups, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples organizations and women’s groups delivered a plea to negotiators asking them to ensure a strong climate deal and warning them that they will put our survival at risk if they do not act immediately to halt deforestation and the industrial logging of the world’s primary forests (forest degradation). [Signatories and statement below in NOTE 1]

“Survival is not negotiable. The climate deal signed in Copenhagen needs to ensure the survival of all countries and people. The immediate protection of the world’s forests is no longer just an option, it is essential to ensure a safe climate for us and our kids,” stated youth spokesperson Gemma Tillack.

The coalitions’ plea asks delegates to ensure that any climate deal:

–Immediately ends deforestation, industrial scale logging in primary

forests and the conversion of forests to monoculture tree crops, plantations;

–Protects the world’s biodiverse forests including primary forests in

developed countries (e.g. Australia, Canada and Russia) and tropical forests in developing countries;

–Respects the rights of women, Indigenous peoples and local communities and allow them to lead healthy and sustainable lives whilst stopping deforestation and industrial logging of primary forests in their country; and

–Does not allow developed countries to use forest protection and the avoiding deforestation and industrial scale logging of primary forests in other countries as an offset mechanism for their own emissions.

“The forest is our life, without the forests we would not exist. Avoiding deforestation and stopping industrial logging will allow Indigenous peoples to live and will secure our future,” said Adolphine Muley, of the Union pour l’Emancipation de la Femme Autochtone in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“We need to ensure that climate change mitigation plans do not drive the establishment of monoculture tree plantations. The rapid ongoing direct and indirect replacement of forests by plantations is a significant cause of social and environmental harm and contributes significantly to climate change,” said Diego Cardona from Friends of the Earth -Colombia and the Global Forest Coalition.

“The definition of forests in the climate change negotiations includes monoculture tree plantations thus allowing their promotion disguised as forests in market-based mechanisms that could be used in REDD. All countries need to accept and adopt a forest definition in the climate deal that clearly distinguishes forests from monoculture tree plantations,” said Raquel Nunez from the World Rainforest Movement.

“A commitment to protect biodiversity and halt deforestation in primary forests would send a positive signal to the global community that we are on the right path towards avoiding a climate disaster,” said Joao Talocchi from Greenpeace Brazil.

“Developed countries like Australia, Canada and Russia need to stop undermining the climate negotiations. They should stop industrial logging and woodchipping of their biodiverse forests, permanently protect their own carbon reservoirs and start accounting for their emissions from forestry activities. Only then can they ask developing countries to protect their forests,” said Claire Spoors from Global Witness.

Ms. Tillack concluded saying, “We need to act now to secure a safe climate and peak our emissions by 2015. Every day of delay results in the release of huge amounts of dangerous carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We can not wait to take these first steps to ensuring our survival.”

Contact:

Gemma Tillack: The Wilderness Society and youth caucus +61 427 057 643

Claire Spoors: Global Witness +49 1763 546 3586

Joao Talocchi: Greenpeace Brazil  +55 11 8351 0169

Full text of plea

Halt Climate Change —- Halt Forest destruction —- Halt Plantations

The undersigned broad coalition of NGOs, Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations and women’s groups call upon the Parties to the FCCC to take into account the critical role of forest conservation in climate change mitigation. The protection of forest biodiversity is vital for life on earth. Native forest ecosystems  provide us with clean air, clean water, a safe climate, food, fodder and shelter and they are an important part of our global and cultural identity. Forests provide aesthetic and intrinsic values. Indigenous Peoples and traditional local communities of the forests are the guardians and original conservationists  of the forest. They maintain a food sustenance and socio-cultural relationship to the forests based on their cosmovision.

For that reason, we call upon Parties to:

- Immediately put in place rights-based and equitable policies and institutions to halt deforestation and forest degradation and the destruction of other natural ecosystems like peatlands and grasslands in all continents

- Identify and address the direct and underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation;

- Ensure that these policies and measures uphold international human rights and environmental standards and are  fully consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This includes the effective adoption and implementation by all Parties and all UN agencies and multilateral banks of the Right to Free Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples and local forest dependent communities;

- Ensure that these policies take into account the specific role, rights and interests of women and are fully consistent with Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women;

- Ensure that these policies are fully consistent with the Convention on Biodiversity and its Expanded Program of Work on Forest Biodiversity and contribute meaningfully to conserving and enhancing biodiversity and related cultural diversity, traditional knowledge and spirituality;

- Explicitly exclude the establishment and management of monoculture tree plantations, including genetically modified tree plantations, and the practice of industrial logging from these policies. This also implies adopting a forest definition that clearly distinguishes forests from monoculture tree plantations;

- Ensure any policies intended to reduce deforestation and forest degradation include measures to reduce consumption of forest products, especially in the Industrialized North;

- Ensure these policies secure the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits of forests and other ecosystems, both between countries and within countries, taking into account the critical role of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and women in conserving and restoring forests and other ecosystems. This also implies recognizing the customary and collective land tenure and forest rights of Indigenous Peoples and ensuring the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and women in all decision-making processes related to forests;

We call upon developed countries to recognize the historical debt to developing countries caused by their excessive greenhouse gas emissions. This implies immediate and drastic cuts in their domestic greenhouse gas emissions (45% by 2020/ 95% by 2050 as an absolute minimum) AS WELL AS providing sufficient financial and technological support to enable developing countries to halt the destruction of forests and other ecosystems. It is too late for either/or policies. Any form of carbon offsetting, including CDM afforestation/reforestation and REDD offset projects will only increase the ecological footprint and carbon debt of developed countries and must thus be avoided. (Due to a broad range of ethical, social and methodological risks, forest-based carbon offsets will undermine an effective, equitable and socially just climate regime.) Climate change mitigation and sustainable forest management must be based on different mindsets with full respect for Nature, and not on carbon offset mechanisms. Public funding mechanisms that ensure environmental integrity and equitable distribution of funds must be made established.

NOTE:

[1] The coalition of youth, environmental groups, NGOs, Indigenous peoples’ Organizations, women’s groups who have signed this survival plea include:

International Youth caucus in Bonn

Ecosystems Climate Alliance

Global Forest Coalition

The Wilderness Society

World Rainforest Movement

Global Witness

Greenpeace

Rainforest Action Network

Wetlands International

Rainforest Foundation Norway

Rainforest Foundation UK

FERN

Friends of the Earth

Sobrevivencia/FoE-Paraguay

Indigenous Environmental Network

Global Justice Ecology Project

CORE India

Life gender, Environment and Diversity Germany

Sustainable Population Australia

Tanzania Forest Conservation Group

the Tanzania Community Forest Conservation Network MJUMITA

Stop GE Tree Campaign

RAVA Institute Indonesia

SWBC Nepal

Timberwatch Coalition South Africa

Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition

Friends of the Siberian Forests Russia

Focus on the Global South

Women´s Environment Network Australia

Biofuelwatch

Women Environmental Programme Nigeria

Just Environment

COECO-CEIBA-Friends of the Earth Costa Rica

WALHI-Friends of the Earth-Indonesia

Down to Earth

Carbon Trade Watch

Women’s Environment and Development Organization

Watch Indonesia

Asociacion ANDES Peru

Ecologistas en Accion Spain

Sustainable Energy and Economy Network

North East Peoples Alliance on Trade, Finance and Development India

WISE Inc. Philippines

GenderCC

FASE Solidarity and Education Brazil

Global Exchange

Kingdom Narintarakul Thai Working group for Climate Justice

Union pour l’Emancipation de la Femme Autochtone