The Dominion - climate change

REDD Light!

Moira Peters — Mon, 30 May 2011 05:37:55 +0000

Indigenous say offset plan threatens traditional title

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO—The carbon market was the hottest issue at last year’s Conference of the Parties (COP)-16 summit in Cancun. Inside the meeting, delegates approved the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Conservation program (REDD+). However, outside the official meeting, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Indigenous-led organizations clashed over its merits.

Opponents of REDD+ (or simply “REDD”), say the mechanism is a false solution to the climate crisis which will intensify a pattern of land grabs by the private sector throughout the Third World. The final Cancun text on REDD does little to address these concerns, as it does not contain wording that would prevent conservation projects from encroaching on the rights and title of Indigenous peoples living in forest-rich lands.

Deforestation is responsible for at least 18 per cent of global carbon emissions—more than aviation and global transport combined—according to a report by carbon management company Carbon Planet. REDD is a mechanism by which forests in developing countries are “sustainably managed” or designated as carbon sinks in order to mitigate climate change. Though REDD primarily emerged from the COP-13 in Bali in 2007, the idea germinated during Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1997.

In Cancun, a clear anti-REDD message unified many Mexican Indigenous, environmental and peasant groups, but NGOs such as Greenpeace International, the World Wildlife Federation, the Environmental Defense Fund, and Conservation International promoted the REDD agreement.

No REDD projects have yet been implemented in Chiapas, which, as a state with heavy forest cover, is a target region for the program. According to Gustavo Castro Soto, an organizer with Otros Mundos (“Other Worlds,” a social and environmental justice organization) in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, the mechanisms for measuring the effectiveness and impact of REDD programs have yet to be designed.

Already, precursors to the implementation of REDD have people like Castro worried. Barring people’s access to forests on ejidos (communally-held lands) is the first necessary step in putting these forested areas on the carbon market.

“This is how the government will ensure that there is a forest in each ejido, and this will obviously be sold as an Environmental Service [a UN-defined category of the carbon market], for which the government will receive a quantity of money, of which the community will receive a fraction,” said Castro.

“This is what they call sustainable community forest management,” he said dryly.

Decisions about how exactly to finance REDD have been postponed to COP-17 in Durban.

“If REDD is going to be financed through the carbon market, it won’t be a real solution to climate change,” Mariana Porras of Friends of the Earth Costa Rica told The Dominion in a phone interview from San Jose. “We’ve denounced this, but government groups don’t see it the same way,” she said.

Market-based financing for REDD will likely complement the ongoing privatization of forest reserves, which moves ownership and access rights of forests currently owned communally by Indigenous or peasant communities into the hands of individuals.

In Costa Rica, as in Mexico, the government is in the early phases of implementing REDD, which means engaging in public consultations. “If you see who gets invited to the meetings about REDD—to the consultations—it’s rare that you’ll see a peasant community, or peasant organizations,” said Porras. “Mostly, you’ll see people who own private lands, or people from private organizations.”

In Cancun, the Indigenous Environmental Network stood in opposition to the discourse of many other NGOs. In a final statement from Cancun, they berated COP-16 as the “World Trade Organization of the sky,” and harshly criticized the REDD plan. “The agreements implicitly promote carbon markets, offsets, unproven technologies and land grabs—anything but a commitment to real emissions reductions,” reads their final release.

In the streets of Cancun, Greenpeace International brought delegates from around the world to show support for popular movements, but the organization’s language fell short of grassroots solidarity. Days before the final agreement was reached, Executive Director Kumi Naidoo released a statement saying that “a good REDD deal would benefit biodiversity, people and the climate.”

Greenpeace was steadfast in its support for the outcome of the climate negotiations in Mexico, and after COP-16 wound down, Naidoo posed for a photo with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and praised the president’s leadership in reaching a global climate agreement.

Resistance to the REDD program did not end with COP-16. Activists say that the COP-17 meeting in Durban at the end of the year will be decisive as to the future of REDD, and the carbon market is sure to be a key issue in the months preceding the conference.

Dawn Paley is a journalist based in Vancouver.

Cop 16 Picture 3

Infographic: Northern Canada's Frontlines

Tim McSorley — Fri, 20 May 2011 14:42:02 +0000

Final Edits Northern Infographic.jpg

This infographic was published in A People's Forecast: The Climate Justice Issue, our 2011 special issue. To read more articles as they are published, click here.

Infographic: Degrees of Disaster

dru — Fri, 06 May 2011 05:02:33 +0000

degreesofdisaster.png

This infographic was published in A People's Forecast: The Climate Justice Issue, our 2011 special issue. To read more articles as they are published, click here.

Science Fixin'?

hillarybain — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 05:14:52 +0000

Moratorium halts real-world geo-engineering experiments, for now

MONTREAL—Covering entire deserts with sun-reflecting plastics. Fertilizing oceans with iron to increase phyto-plankton growth and soak up carbon dioxide. Blasting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere and installing massive mirrors in space to decrease incoming solar radiation to Earth.

What may seem like stories out of a science fiction novel are actually part of a new wave of “geo-engineering” technologies designed for large-scale scientific manipulation of natural systems. The goal: to slow down global temperature increases and mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.

But a growing tide of critics argue that geo-engineering technology is not only unproven, but may pose a grave threat to the planet. Its allure, according to Diana Bronson of the technology and environmental watchdog organization ETC Group, is that "techno-fixes" appear to offer a silver bullet solution to climate change—while allowing business as usual to continue.

“Geo-engineering is both a set of technologies and a drive political strategy,” said Bronson. “It is a way to let rich countries not take responsibility for their climate debt; it is a way to continue living the way we do in an energy intensive and unsustainable way and it is a way to continue pumping fossil fuels from the ground and into the atmosphere.”

In Japan in October, critics won a victory at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an intergovernmental convention of 193 nations. All parties to the CBD announced they would be adopting a “precautionary approach” to geo-engineering, and agreed to prohibit real-world geo-engineering experiments.

“The agreement basically is a moratorium," said Bronson. "It was a very hot issue and entered many late nights of negotiations, and the text that came out is a very compromised text. Nevertheless it is a very important step forward. This is the first time that any intergovernmental body has made a decision on geo-engineering.”

While the CBD moratorium prevents the real-world testing of technologies with potential global implications for life and biodiversity, it does not prevent investment or small-scale research in geo-engineering—and the Canadian government has shown interest in becoming an increasingly larger player.

“I don't think the Canadian public, or even Parliament, has any idea that the government of Canada has already invested in geo-engineering research,” said Bronson.

The CBD agreement has created a speed bump on the techno-fix superhighway.

“Essentially what the decision [in Nagoya] says is that until we understand the implications of geo-engineering on biodiversity, or until there is a regulatory framework in place to monitor and control such activities, no geo-engineering should take place,” said Jaime Webbe of the Montreal-based Secretariat of CBD.

Geo-engineering is typically divided into two main categories: technologies designed to limit incoming solar radiation to the earth, and technologies designed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it. Both categories include everything from simple ideas—such as changing the colour of roads to better reflect sunlight—to seemingly more outlandish plans to spray sulfur—a byproduct of extractive industries such as the Alberta tar sands—into the upper atmosphere to emulate volcanic eruptions and limit incoming solar radiation.

Billionaires Bill Gates and Richard Branson have established multi-million-dollar funds to develop these technologies. Gates is the major benefactor of the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Resources, a $4.6 million fund managed in part by University of Calgary scientist David Keith, who researches and advocates geo-engineering.

While Keith agrees the CBD agreement is a positive step towards the creation of governance structure for how geo-engineering takes place, he, along with other scientists, also view it as a sign that the technology will eventually be implemented.

A major point of contention at the CBD talks in Japan was whether or not to include Carbon Capture and Storage technology (CCS) in the definition of geo-engineering. The final text excluded CCS from the definition—thereby allowing its real world use—with a footnote from Bolivia expressing disagreement and calling for “full consideration by the Conference of the Parties of [CCS] impacts on biodiversity in general.”

“There is a very complex debate that goes on around carbon capture and its relationship to geo-engineering, and it came to a head in Nagoya,” said Bronson. Excluding CCS from the definition of geo-engineering "was a compromise resulting from a number of countries negotiating together and some of those countries—including Canada and Norway—being very insistent that CCS not be included in the definition."

Henry Lau, spokesperson for Environment Canada, told The Dominion he disagreed.

“Carbon Capture and Storage is not a geo-engineering activity, because CCS provides a way to avoid emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," he said. "Geo-engineering activities attempt to modify interactions between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere; CCS methods store carbon dioxide underground.”

Much of the debate turns on the scope of the definition of CCS. Carbon capture includes a broad range of technologies, typically divided into two categories: those designed to capture tailpipe and smokestack emissions, and those designed to remove carbon from the atmosphere for storage. The latter include everything from tree plantations to artificially fertilizing the ocean to increase its capacity to sequester carbon. It also includes proposals such as constructing artificial trees that attempt to chemically replicate photosynthesis.

“Those [technologies] which pull carbon out of the atmosphere are definitely covered under the moratorium,” Bronson said. “That includes everything like ocean fertilization, synthetic trees and bio-char...but CCS is categorically excluded when it comes to carbon captured at source.”

Canada has invested heavily in this kind of research, development and implementation.

“The government of Canada is supporting Carbon Capture and Storage with substantial investments in large-scale demonstration projects,” said Micheline Joanisse, a spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN). She points to over $3 billion in funding for projects in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Colombia, including $466 million for CCS demonstration projects, as well as $151 million for research and development of new technologies.

A large portion of this funding has gone to the University of Calgary’s Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy (ISEEE). The ISEEE is a multi-disciplinary research organization, and one of the largest CCS research centres in the world. It is also where David Keith sits as Director of its Energy and Environmental Systems Group.

On its website the ISEEE lists its "collaborators," including major tar sands corporations such as Suncor, Total, Shell Canada, and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. It also lists the Pembina Institute—the sole NGO, the governments of Canada and Alberta, and the United States Department of Energy.

According to research by ETC group, over the past three years, Keith has received at least $150,000 in Canadian government funding for CCS technology research, specifically for inventing technologies designed to remove carbon from the atmosphere. According to a 2010 NRCAN report on the University of Calgary's funding for Carbon Capture and Storage, NRCAN, through the ISEEE, provided $50,000 to Keith’s research in 2008-2009.

On December 23, 2009, Keith filed a patent for a device that would involve “carbon dioxide capture systems and methods for the recovery of CO₂ from atmospheric air.” The patent describes how the invention could be implemented for the express purpose of generating environmental offsets, and creating carbon credits.

The same report states that in 2010 the federal government also awarded a $100,000 grant to Keith, along with Arvinder Pal Singh, Chief Technology Officer at Calgary-based Carbon Engineering, which describes itself as “an independent angel-funded company developing technologies to capture CO₂.” The grant is to develop CCS technologies for the direct capture of carbon from the atmosphere, technologies that, under the CBD moratorium, cannot be experimented with outside the laboratory.

Environmental critics like Greenpeace look at Canada’s investments in technologies like CCS as little more than a public relations strategy to cover up or distract from Canada’s international reputation as major polluter. They argue that CCS is not a solution and has no real impact on the root causes of climate change.

Low-tech CCS applications, such as bio-char and tree plantations for example, have critics worried about an upcoming “Earth grab.”

Bio-char is a process by which plant materials are burned in a low oxygen environment and buried to sequester carbon. Both bio-char and tree plantations require massive amounts of land, as well as monoculture crops of trees or bio-char. Used on a large scale, critics warn this could lead to the displacement of communities, the destruction of forests and the transformation of land to to produce biomass rather than food. Additionally, these sorts of solutions create an incentive for the genetic engineering of crops to be used for fuel and carbon storage. Similar trends have happened around biodiesel and tree plantations for biomass power production.

In Canada, a bio-char proposal has been submitted as part of the Alberta Offset Scheme, the government of Alberta’s carbon-trade-based plan for emissions reductions. According to a report from the United Kingdom-based Biofuel Watch, Keith Driver, one of the Alberta Offset System’s chief advisors, has been tapped to draft the International Bio-char Initiative's first set of standards.

In many ways, the debate over geo-engineering boils down to a debate between two models of dealing with climate change: continuing with business as usual, and transforming an unsustainable system of production and consumption.

As tar sands development continues, the Canadian government appears to be betting on business as usual. "I would not be surprised to see millions more dollars in the coming years poured into these 'climate technologies,'" said Bronson. "[These technologies] are more a distraction from emissions reduction than anything else.”

Cameron Fenton is a former intern and Membership Coordinator with The Dominion and a community organizer in Montreal.

Science Fixin?

Sharing Wheels

Moira Peters — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:43:38 +0000

Vancouver car sharing co-op’s success spurs private competition

VANCOUVER—I fired up my 1994 Volkswagen Golf. After two weeks of sitting idle, the decrepit car filled my East Vancouver cul-de-sac with thick blue exhaust. At the time—last year—I lived on East 10th Avenue, which is practically a highway for cyclists. I hung my head in shame as I pulled away and some poor biker disappeared, hacking in the toxic plume.

It was time for that horrible car to go.

In British Columbia you can trade in your crappy car for bus passes, bike discounts or a car sharing membership. This is how I discovered the Co-operative Auto Network (CAN). Formed in Vancouver in 1996 as part of a university project, the network has since expanded from a two-car, 16-member operation to one with 240 cars and more than 7,000 members. The network has also seen the rise of Zipcar, a competing car sharing organization that operates under a traditional business model.

Tanya Paz, client relations and development director of CAN, sees a couple of advantages of running car sharing as a co-op instead of as a for-profit enterprise. Besides the availability of seed funding from local credit unions, “people feel like they have more of a sense of ownership,” which motivates members to respect the cars, according to Paz.

In the beginning, 28-year-old Tracey Axelson, CAN’s founder, struggled to have her vision taken seriously—by insurance companies, the city and financiers—as she lacked business experience. . Car sharing organizations already existed in Germany, Switzerland and Montreal, but Paz recalls critics telling the organizers of the fledgling network that on “the West Coast, people will never give up their cars.”

Car sharing works best, according to Paz, in areas where there is a combination of easy, pleasant walking, safe cycling and frequent transit. The costs are worthwhile if somebody doesn’t need to drive every day and only takes short trips. For out-of-town trips, the per-kilometre rate charged by the co-op is often more expensive than renting.

“The car co-op program has taught me that I probably need a car in the future,” said Brandy Trudeau, a former Zipcar member and current CAN member, “because of my mobility issues and the fact that there isn’t a car right outside my door.” Trudeau has arthritis and found Zipcars were not easily accessible in her neighborhood. She is content with her CAN membership for now. “I actually like being able to try different cars,” she said. “The variety of vehicles is kind of fun.”

Currently, CAN’s roaming agreements with other car sharing organizations allow members access to cars in Victoria, San Francisco and Halifax, and Paz says CAN is working on expanding to other cities.

CAN has consulted for other car sharing start-ups around the world, but staff did not expect a private car sharing organization they consulted for to become competition. Zipcar launched about 10 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has spread to 94 American cities as well as to London, Toronto and Vancouver. Zipcar now has more than 400,000 members.

“Of course we never expected them to go to Toronto or come here,” said Paz. “But I would say that they made us grow smarter, and the amount of money that they spend on advertising has really brought a lot of members to us.”

CAN was already established in Vancouver when Zipcar arrived, so Zipcar employed a different growth strategy in the West Coast city. Paz is critical. “They don’t grow in a very sustainable manner and some of their business decisions don’t make much sense to me,” she said. Zipcar launched its Vancouver operation in 2007 with 100 cars and the expectation of expansion, but wound up culling the fleet to 80.

Whether co-operative or private, car sharing networks can boast that they help reduce carbon emissions—over three quarters of a ton per household per year, according to a June, 2010 study by the Mineta Institute at the San Jose State University.

The study acknowledges that at an individual level, emissions can increase. “There are times when it’s really nice to have a car and previously I would just suck it up or take a cab,” said Trudeau. “Now I find that instead I’m booking a car for a day and going and doing all the things I want to do. I find that I’m spending a little bit more money.”

Running a co-operative can be a challenge because it is subject to the whims of its ever-changing democratically elected board of volunteers, said Paz. Members do not necessarily have business experience. The board might request that staff use cheques instead of credit cards for business expenses, for example. “The reality of doing business today is that [using cheques] is quite a delay,” said Paz. “There are times that I’m sure the founder thinks, ‘Why didn’t I just own this myself?'”

Paz is passionate about the co-operative business model because it fosters a co-operative economy as a whole.

“It’s basically a different way of doing business, of thinking about things,” said Paz. “[Co-ops] have the heart of an NGO and the mind of a business. So you’re working for the best interests of the members, but also for the benefit of your society around you as a whole.”

Erin Empey is a Vancouver-based writer.

Car share

Climate Call

Martin Lukacs — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:07:05 +0000

Shifting focus from UN to grassroots organizing in lead-up to Cancun meetings

MONTREAL—Battle lines are being drawn as governments, environmental organizations and grassroots organizers are gearing up for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancun, Mexico.

On one side, nations from the Global North—including Canada—are setting up to push the agenda of the Copenhagen Accord, an agreement that emerged from last winter’s UN conference in Denmark—one that failed to establish any binding terms for carbon emissions reductions.

On the other side, many nations from the Global South have rallied around the Cochabamba Accord, the end result of April’s World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia. The final text includes calls for a global referendum on climate change, the establishment of an international climate justice tribunal and the recognition of a declaration on the rights of Mother Earth.

Civil society organizations in the North have also begun to lend support to the Cochabamba proposals. A statement from this summer’s United States Social Forum in Detroit issued a call for “all governments engaged in the United Nations (UN) to incorporate proposals from the Cochabamba Protocol and to adopt and implement the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.”

“After significant efforts on the part of the Bolivian government and social movements, text from the Cochabamba Accord, or People's Agreement is included in the negotiating text for Cancun negotiations,” said Andrea Harden, Climate Campaigner for the Council of Canadians. “While some commentators have framed this as a step backwards...it is finally putting goals reflective of social movement demands and the gravity of the crisis we face on the table.”

Indeed, Bolivia and its allies have faced resistance from the governments of many wealthy, highly polluting nations in getting the Cochabamba text recognized for consideration at the Cancun round of talks.

The Canadian Government has been one of those opponents.

“Canada welcomes all input into the UNFCCC process; however, Canada remains committed to the Copenhagen Accord as the basis for a new global climate change regime,” Henry Lau, a representative of Environment Canada, told The Dominion.

Harden points out that governments from the Global North called the Copenhagen text an accord even though it wasn't approved by the consensual process usually required to grant the "accord" label—an indication of their lack of respect for the UNFCCC process.

Lau declined to answer questions about the Athabasca tar sands and its expansion projects—such as the Keystone XL pipeline—which were a focus of protests during the Copenhagen talks. Instead, he focused on draft regulations for personal vehicle tailpipe emissions and reductions in coal-fired power generation to “help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve air quality for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.” According to a 2008 report from the National Energy Board, around 13 per cent of Canada’s total power generation capacity comes from burning coal.

These commitments are part of the Canadian and US strategy of setting "economy-wide emissions targets," a move that may have influenced the selection of Canada’s new chief climate negotiator, Guy Saint-Jacques. A seasoned diplomat, he is also a vocal promoter of Canada-US economic interdependency. At a speech on free trade to US Chamber of Commerce in 2008 he noted that “as the new US administration defines its energy policy, it is important to keep in mind that America’s largest supplier of energy is your neighbour to the north.”

The Canadian government has pledged “$400 million in new and additional climate change financing,” a promise that many believe has a darker side.

Organizers point to these proposals as false solutions which fail to deal with climate change, and which have the potential to exacerbate existing economic, social and environmental problems. “This amount still pales in comparison to what the Global South is asking for,” Harden said. “There is also a lot of concern as to where this money is coming from...such as the REDD program (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), carbon offsets and using other market based mechanisms to meet nation’s climate debt.”

During inter-sessional negotiations in Bonn, Germany, in August, proponents of the Copenhagen Accord announced that access to financing coming from the Global North would be contingent on support for the Accord.

As Cancun draws nearer the United Nations is introducing stricter rules for civil society participation. Bright red text in the UNFCCC Information Note on Cancun warns that they hold “the authority to take any action necessary to maintain [their] security.” Civil society representatives are barred from holding “unauthorized demonstrations." Limits have been placed on the distribution of materials or displaying posters at the discretion of UN officials.

Many civil society delegates were excluded from the Copenhagen conference after participating in the Reclaim Power action—where organizers inside and outside the summit attempted to create a People's Assembly inside the Copenhagen talks—a precedent that has many organizers worried these rules are meant to stifle political dissent.

But Cancun is not the only place where organizers are looking to mobilize. In late July, La Via Campesina, the international peasant network, issued a call for "thousands of Cancuns...[to] unite the force and resistance of peasant peoples of the world, who are already cooling the planet." Their call is for people around the globe to take action in support of grassroots solutions such as those articulated in the Cochabamba Accord.

This call represents shifting values within parts of what is being called the global climate justice movement. Many grassroots climate activists are seeing this summit as an opportunity to shift focus away from UN meetings towards local, grassroots community organizing.

"I don't plan to attend Cancun because it is not my place," said Dave Vasey, a Toronto-based climate justice organizer who was in Copenhagen last winter. "But it is important to respond to the vision and wisdom [of local organizers].”

Vasey, along with many other organizers will be staying home this time. Instead, they plan on bringing the message of "System Change, Not Climate Change" to communities across Canada, and taking action against the root causes of a changing climate.

Cameron Fenton is a former intern and Membership Coordinator with The Dominion and a community organizer in Montreal.

Playing deaf on climate change

Canadian Reflections on the Cochabamba Climate Summit

Cameron Fenton — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:06:25 +0000

TORONTO—Last month, representatives from around the globe gathered in Cochabamba, Bolivia for the first World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Called by Bolivian President Evo Morales in the wake of last winter’s Copenhagen United Nations Summit, he called “the peoples of the world, social movements and Mother Earth's defenders,” to gather for a People’s Summit. The conference captured popular sentiment, ballooning from an expected 5,000 participants to well over 30,000 from over 140 countries. This compares with around 40,000 participants to the Copenhagen summit, although "civil society" only made up half that number—making it the largest gathering of non-governmental voices on climate change.

High-level delegations also came from Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru and Cuba, with representatives of 40 other governments present. Crucially, however, talks were led by those in attendance, not by governments. This was a sharp distinction from any UN processes, where civil society and Indigenous Peoples must often fight to be heard, let alone have their input respected. This meant that those voices had not only the opportunity to talk climate justice; they had the ability to challenge the terms of the traditional climate debate and put forth radically different solutions.

These are reflections from Canadians who attended the summit in various capacities.

****

I was invited to sit as Secretary of the Indigenous Peoples Working Group, one of 17 distinct working groups. In all of the working groups, we built upon an online discussion process that had started weeks before, and involved people who couldn’t make it to the conference. In all the working groups, Indigenous peoples from South America were prominent, which gave a particular flavour to the documents and discussions.

This was evident in the discussions that pushed for a return to principles of "living well," granting rights to nature, and building upon long-ranging debates about interculturalism—beyond laissez-faire liberal multiculturalism—while ensuring that these ideas found a receptive audience in the global climate justice community.

After prolonged debate on the various issues, our job as secretaries was to come up with a final text from each working group. Eventually, the results of each working group were consolidated into one final text, which was presented to a crowd of tens of thousands on the final day of the conference.

Indigenous peoples called for transnational corporations to be banned from Indigenous lands, while calling for the universal application of the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, not only as a protective measure for the climate, but also against the negative impacts of any climate "mitigation" projects, such as biofuels or mega-dams, which have already devastated many Indigenous communities. Indigenous groups also made a call for people to "live well" instead of seeking unimpeded economic growth.

 In the end, the participants made a call to developed countries to reduce emissions by 50 per cent within the next decade, while paying off the ecological debt owed to the countries and peoples most impacted by climate change.

Also noteworthy was the development of the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, which attempts to articulate a new class of rights towards the non-human world. This compliments the proposal to form an International Climate Justice Tribunal that would be empowered to prosecute countries and companies who violate environmental agreements.

Key ideas articulated in this Universal Declaration, already forwarded to the UN by the Bolivian government, include granting Mother Earth and her dependent beings the rights to life, to water, to be free of contamination and genetic modification, while laying out complimentary obligations for humanity.

Participants also issued a rejection of carbon markets as a neo-liberal means of avoiding real emissions cuts, while privatizing the planet. Understanding these projects as a way to impose devastating mega-projects on many local communities, they soundly condemned the UN proposals on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) as another mechanism that threatens to privatize and rob Indigenous peoples of their land, while letting developed countries off the hook.  

Despite all the powerful words, the conference still faced a number of challenges, starting with an unruly volcano in Europe that kept many participants from attending. Timelines were short, resources were sparse, and sufficiently large meeting rooms far too uncommon. Three presidents even had to stay home because of domestic issues, leaving only Morales, Hugo Chavez and Esteban Lazo Hernandez, vice-president of Cuba, to attend.

The challenges internationally stemmed from the lack of attention paid to the conference by the international press, except to an out-of-context statement by Morales on the potential effects of growth hormones in poultry on male sexuality, for which he was ridiculed to no end. Otherwise, the conference was a media black hole outside of South America, with Canadian press not even showing up to a joint press conference organized in Ottawa during the conference.

In the long term, the challenge will be to use the momentum and strategies fostered at this conference to build and strengthen local movements worldwide, and force real change in government and non-governmental institutions. The other challenge is to translate and communicate the conclusions of this historic conference into local contexts and strategies. Here in Canada, reports have taken place and are planned for different communities. But it will not be enough—movements and organizations in Canada and abroad must make the space for the voices from the South to inform and lead.

The mobilization towards the G8/G20 in Toronto and the US Social Forum in Detroit cannot miss this important opportunity to advance the case for climate justice and build the connections between peoples and movements to challenge Canadian governments and corporations. With only six months remaining until the Cancun Climate Conference, we have a chance to see if we’ve learned anything since Copenhagen.

—Ben Powless

When I think back to Cochabamba, there’s one afternoon I remember. Surrounded by Indigenous families, it was very different from any conference I’d been to before, where the only "civil society" present are representatives from NGOs, civil servants and union leaders. The vast majority of people in Cochabamba were community members—individuals and families whose livelihoods are deeply threatened by the climate crisis. They weren’t speaking about someone else’s struggle, but their own—a vast contrast from the typical climate conference, and this influenced the type of discussions that were had. What I learned in those few hours was far more valuable than anything a scientific report could tell me.

In Cochabamba, I heard story after story of people’s direct knowledge and experience with climate change—droughts have ruined harvests for poor farmers; floods have displaced families; melting glaciers have led to extreme water shortages in major cities—it was all right in their backyards. People were telling their own stories as evidence of how climate change has exacerbated poverty, illness and displacement for their communities. As I listened to people’s interventions, I realized how different the discourse in Canada is. Our arguments for climate action are mostly based on science and scary predictions about a looming future, because many of us are not personally impacted by the climate crisis yet. We use numbers and statistics as evidence that we have an unprecedented crisis on our hands, but we just end up confusing Canadians along the way.

There was also a common thread in people’s stories that afternoon—of the extreme air, land and water pollution, health impacts, and military presence of mining industries forcefully setting up shop in their communities. The connection between the extractive industries and the creation of the climate crisis was seamless, as were the links to the global capitalist system, which has allowed unregulated resource extraction to ravage the people's land, their health, their way of life and their self-determination as Indigenous peoples—all this in the name of unfettered profit for the global North.

That afternoon I realized, maybe we—the Canadian climate movement—have been asking ourselves the wrong questions. We have been so focused on how to "fix" climate change that we haven’t spent enough time asking ourselves, what caused such an unprecedented catastrophe to begin with? Is the way that we frame the issues and solutions in Canada only validating the existing capitalist system that has caused the climate crisis? Are we even educated enough to know the difference between false solutions that perpetuate human inequality and ecological destruction, and the real, just solutions expressed in the People’s Declaration from Cochabamba? How often do we talk about the depth of systematic change that is needed to overcome this crisis?

It is time that the climate movement in Canada better aligns itself with the demands of the growing resistance in the global South.

The Climate Change Accountability Act has passed its third reading—an amazing victory—but the hard work comes as we determine how Canada will achieve these targets. Moving forward, we have to question how each of our actions and strategies fit into a larger struggle—restructuring our relationships, our jobs, our economy and our production and consumption of goods. Each small victory should be one step closer to transforming the overarching systems we wish to change. Each victory should bring us one step closer to the paradigm shift that we envision as a movement. If we are committed to climate justice, then we are committing ourselves to challenging current global systems that continue to exploit, oppress and kill. We are committed to standing in solidarity with communities on the front lines of this struggle. We are committed to spreading the real solutions articulated in the People’s Declaration with our families, our peers, our communities and our politicians. The world has spoken in Cochabamba and it’s time to heed the call.

As we mobilize toward the Toronto G20 this month, followed by the UN climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, in November, we will see if the voices of the global civil society, so beautifully articulated in the People’s Declaration, will be heard by the world’s biggest powers and polluters.

—Kimia Ghomeshi

Kimia Ghomeshi is an Iranian-Canadian based in Toronto. She works as the G20 Campaign Co-ordinator for the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition.

Ben Powless is a student at Carleton University in Ottawa, and works as a climate justice campaigner with the Indigenous Environmental Network in Ottawa.

Cochabamba, Evo and Hugo

Cochabamba, Closing

Staking the North

hillarybain — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:53:05 +0000

The Arctic is being developed—in whose interest?

MONTREAL—On March 28 Indigenous leaders and environmental activists called for a moratorium on Arctic oil and gas exploration, as Foreign Affairs Ministers from Canada, Norway, Denmark, Russia and the United States met at the “Arctic Summit” in Chelsea, Quebec to discuss their plans for the resource-rich North.

Canada has acknowledged its interest in metals, oil and gas in the Arctic, which the melting sea ice is opening up to exploration. But critics are expressing concerns about the impact of Arctic industrialization on Indigenous peoples and the climate.

“New oil and gas development is anything but responsible in the face of a very serious climate crisis,” says Andrea Harden, Energy Campaigner with the Council of Canadians. “It is no small irony that increased access to exploit reserves in the fragile Arctic Ocean ecosystem is largely the result of melting sea ice.”

The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), the Alaska-based Resisting Environmental Destruction On Indigenous Lands (REDOIL) and the Council of Canadians travelled to the Arctic Summit to deliver their appeal for a moratorium on oil exploration.

According to a joint press release issued by the IEN, REDOIL and the Council of Canadians, 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas have been discovered in the arctic. Clayton Thomas-Muller of IEN is concerned that talk of developing oil and gas reserves in the north is just part of a larger initiative to exploit the world’s remaining natural resources.

“The Arctic development plan is part of an ongoing psychotic initiative lead by the G8/G20 nations to exploit the world’s last remaining pristine ecosystems for energy [and] for raw resources,” explains Thomas-Muller.

According to past communiques, G8 meetings have explicitly encouraged the development of new oil reserves. A new resolution to phase out G20 country subsidies to oil companies was passed at a G20 meeting last September but the resolution lacked any time-frame for action.

Thomas-Muller was also concerned by the lack of Native representation at the Arctic Summit considering the difficulties Inuit people face as a result of oil and gas exploration.

“Indigenous peoples in the circumpolar region are the true canaries in the coal mine when we think about the global climate crisis,” Thomas-Muller explains. “They carry a disproportionate impact from the global climate crisis and then are doubly impacted by the immense presence of unsustainable energy development in that region.”

Inuit have observed changes in animal populations and behaviour, thinning sea ice and unpredictable weather patterns. An Inuit hunter was stranded in January when the ice floe he was on broke off and started to drift in the Northwest Passage.

Ongoing explorations in Nunavut are going after nickel, diamonds, sapphires, uranium, gold, silver and other metal deposits. The exploratory process may also adversely affect caribou herds on which Inuit depend for sustenance.

According to the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board (BQCMB), caribou populations suffered a “major population decline” since 1994. A 2004 position paper published by the BQCMB suggests that increasing demands for caribou, effects of climate change, and infrastructural and industrial development on caribou ranges—including exploration—are the major contributing factors to this decline.

Incidentally, food harvesting rights and land use planning with consideration of health, housing, education and other social services are guaranteed to the Inuit people of Nunavut, according to the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA). This agreement concurrently handed over immense swaths of land in modern-day Nunavut to the Crown.

G7 Finance Ministers met in Iqaluit, Nunavut, in February. Some speculated that Canada’s recent strategy of promoting “Arctic Sovereignty,” including Canada’s staking of subsurface rights to the Arctic seabed and control over the disputed Northwest Passage, played a role in the choice of location.

The Harper government has bolstered its talk of Arctic Sovereignty through its “Arctic Strategy,” and, since 2007, has announced $3.1 billion in military spending for infrastructure development, annual military training exercises in Nunavut and the creation of the Canadian Northern Development Agency (CanNor).

Since the signing of NLCA Canada has been handing out exploration permits within the territory. Mining companies have invested at least $700 million in exploration in the territory since 2007, according to Nunavut Minister of Economic Development and Transportation Peter Taptuna.

Meanwhile, critics have accused Canada of not fulfilling its obligations under the NLCA. The Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) is suing the federal government for $1 billion for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary obligation. NTI would not elaborate on the ongoing court case.

A judicial review of the NLCA produced a number of suggestions which the federal government dismissed as being too costly. The announcement for $3 billion toward military infrastructure in the Arctic was announced less than a year later.

Shailagh Keaney is a writer based in occupied Atikameksheng Anishnawbek territory.

This story was published in The Dominion's special issue on the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario. We will continue to publish independent, investigative news about the G8 and G20 throughout the month of June.

For up-to-the-minute G8/G20 news from the streets of Toronto, visit the Toronto Media Co-op.

Arctic Canary

Toronto vs. Cochabamba

Martin Lukacs — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:11:27 +0000

G20 to consolidate control over climate negotiations

MONTREAL—A small group of the wealthiest and largest carbon-polluting nations will use this summer’s G8 and G20 summits to advance an unjust global climate deal through unrepresentative, anti-democratic channels, say climate campaigners, Indigenous groups and representatives of nations in the global South.

According to documents released in February by the G20 Research Group—associated with the Munk Centre for International Studies—the European Union (EU) wants to “pursue a new deal on global warming through the G20, since the December 2009 Copenhagen conference of nearly 200 countries led to unwieldy negotiations that accomplished little.”

“This speaks to the inability of rich countries to recognize [their] climate debt, and speaks to their rejection of the UNFCCC process and a move to a much more undemocratic process,” said Andrea Harden, Climate and Energy Campaigner for the Council of Canadians.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established in 1992 and has met regularly since 1995 to create solutions to climate change. With 192 countries now party to the Convention, it is considered by many nations and civil society groups as the most democratic international forum for reaching an effective global climate treaty.

In Copenhagen, the “Circle of Commitment”—a group of wealthy nations, including the US and the UK—secretly circulated a document known as the Danish Text. It recommended consolidating climate negotiating power in wealthy nations, and placing control of climate financing under the purview of the World Bank. The result of the summit was the Copenhagen Accord, a US-backed, non-binding agreement that was similar in scope to the Danish Text. While supporting the UNFCCC as a forum for international negotiations, many nations and climate campaigners are reluctant to support the Accord.

“The Copenhagen Accord is a weak document that is not going to address the issue of climate change in any meaningful way,” said Harden. “The lack of any mandatory emissions targets means that whole countries will be facing dire consequences thanks to our government’s inaction.”

Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s chief envoy to the United Nations, told The Dominion such big power manoeuvring would undermine a just global response to climate change.

“Bolivia believes that on an issue that affects the whole of humanity, we cannot make decisions in small unrepresentative forums, whether it is a group of 20 nations or in secret dinners behind the UN facade as we saw in Copenhagen,” said Solon. “That is why we are calling for climate change to be brought back into the full UNFCCC process, and are supporting just, effective proposals put on the table by civil society organizations.”

While Canada and US politicians have refused to publicly acknowledge their policy shift, critics argue their statements about the UNFCCC processes indicate as much.

In the weeks after Copenhagen, head US climate negotiator Jonathan Pershing stated “it is...impossible to imagine a negotiation of enormous complexity where you have a table of 192 countries involved in all the detail.”

Critics’ speculation that the Copenhagen Accord would be used to undermine the UNFCCC was confirmed in early April 2010 at the Bonn intersessional meeting. The United States announced that nations refusing to sign the Accord would be ineligible for financial aid to developing nations to mitigate climate change.

“The US is acting like a bully, strong-arming the most vulnerable countries to get them to sign onto an ineffective and unfair deal that will not move the world closer to a just climate agreement,” said Kate Horner of Friends of the Earth in a statement to the media.

“This is in their rights, but unfair and clearly an attempt to punish Bolivia,” said Solon. “What kind of negotiation is it where you lose money if you disagree?” He said Bolivia’s negotiating positions would not change because of such threats. “We are a country with dignity and sovereignty and will maintain our position.”

Canada’s Environment Minister Jim Prentice denied rich countries would prefer to work outside the UNFCCC. When asked by The Dominion, he also pledged support for the Copenhagen Accord.

“Close to 90 per cent of the world’s emissions are now governed under the Copenhagen Accord,” Prentice said. “The [government’s] intent is to proceed through a multilateral process to turn that accord into a treaty. It may be discussed but the focus will be the multilateral process to turn this into a binding treaty, and that is not the role of the G8 or G20.”

For representatives of Indigenous communities, drowning island nations and nations of the global South, the Copenhagen Accord represents a step in the wrong direction.

“The Copenhagen Accord has no legal standing—it is a declaration of defeat by nations determined to avoid their responsibilities for climate change,” said Solon.

Canada has come under fire as a major destabilizing force in international climate politics, and recently lowered its emissions targets to meet those of the United States.

“Our economies are integrated to the point where it makes absolutely no sense to proceed without harmonizing and aligning a range of principles, policies, regulations and standards with respect to combating climate change,” said Tracy Lacroix-Wilson of Environment Canada.

Under the self-regulation measures of the Copenhagen Accord, the Conservative government has decided to harmonize its emissions targets with the United States at 17 per cent below 2006 levels by 2020.

When measured against the Kyoto Protocol’s 1990 base year, the Copenhagen Accord will only reduce emissions by three per cent. This is half of Canada’s legally binding targets under the Kyoto Implementation Act, and far below what climate scientists are calling for.

Critics point out that the Accord leaves 75 countries involved in the UNFCCC negotiations out of future climate plans, adding weight to speculations that Canada and other major polluting economies aim to undermine the UNFCCC.

“It is essentially the G20 that is holding back the international process to achieve a fair, ambitious and legally binding climate treaty,” said Kimia Ghomeshi, G8/20 Campaign Co-ordinator for the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. “It is these industrialized, wealthy countries that are historically responsible for causing climate change and therefore have the greatest responsibility to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.”

Gomeshi argues that without comprehensive, science-based targets enshrined in a global treaty, 76 nations “representing approximately 80 per cent of global emissions” will need to make cuts internally. Without enforcement measures, there are no forums for the most adversely affected nations to hold polluters accountable.

To address the Copenhagen Accord’s inadequacies, Bolivian Prime Minister Evo Morales convened the first World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in late April.

“The People’s Summit on Climate Change aimed to bring democracy and people back into decisions on climate change and our future,” said Solon.

The Council of Canadians was one of the organizations which sent civil society representatives to the Cochabamba conference. “We are excited to hear about and discuss some of the projects on the table, including the creation of a climate justice tribunal and an international referendum on a global climate treaty,” Harden told The Dominion. in the lead up to the summit.

Meanwhile, critics accuse wealthy nations of delaying innovative responses to climate change. At the G8 Foreign Minister’s meeting in Gatineau, Quebec in March, Japan’s was the only delegate to address the media on the subject of climate change.

“As we all know, the global community must address the issue of rising sea levels and rising temperatures. In order to address [climate change] there seems to be a consensus today,” said Kazuo Kodama, Japan’s Foreign Affairs press secretary. “We have to transform our society from a carbon intensive one to a low carbon society.”

According to documents obtained from the International Energy Agency (IEA), G8 and G20 leaders will likely table Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies as their main effort towards this transformation. The IEA’s 2009 CCS report to the G8 notes that “most of the major economies have announced ambitious plans (and associated funding) for large-scale CCS demonstration projects,” including a $3.5 billion investment from the Canadian government.

But a 2008 report released by Greenpeace called CCS technology a “false hope” solution that has yet to be effectively implemented by any large-scale coal-fired power plant or in the Canadian tar sands.

“Carbon Capture and Storage amounts to an expensive distraction from more meaningful actions addressing the climate crisis, like keeping fossil fuels in the ground, significant improvements in conservation and energy efficiency,” said Harden. “Even worse, emphasizing the proposed ‘potential’ of CCS masks the immediate impacts of ongoing expansion of destructive fossil fuel-based energy production, which the climate crisis demands we transition away from.”

The Toronto Community Mobilization’s G20 call-to-action included an invitation to Copenhagen to bring “climate justice” to the streets of Toronto.

“Following the collapse of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, [the G8/G20] will be discussing the global economy, development and climate change,” read the invitation. “These gatherings are about trying to fix capitalism, a system that cannot be fixed; about creating unsustainable market responses to ecological catastrophe that reinforce systems of oppression... The so-called leaders at these gatherings do not represent us.”

Organizers are looking to examples and proposals from the global South, such as those coming out of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.

“We imagine the beginnings of a people’s accord, a summary of proposals led by groups who have worked many years on these issues, which can be implemented at local, regional, national and international levels,” said Bolivia’s Solon. “And it could provide a road map for saving people and our planet.”

Cameron Fenton is an intern at The Dominion and an anthropology student at Concordia University in Montreal.

For up-to-the-minute G8/G20 news from the streets of Toronto, visit the Toronto Media Co-op.

Under water

Picking up the Copenhagen pieces

Sovereigntists, Environmental Groups Oppose Trailbreaker

dru — Wed, 05 May 2010 05:08:22 +0000

Pipeline reversal would bring 200,000 barrels daily of tar sands crude through Quebec

MONTREAL—Opposition is mounting to a planned pipeline reversal that would bring 200,000 barrels per day of tar sands bitumen through the island of Montreal and Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Environmental groups, Quebec sovereigntists and small-town mayors have been mobilizing opposition to the proposal known as the Enbridge Trailbreaker project.

The reversal of the Portland-Montreal pipeline is part of a large initiative to reverse and augment pipelines to carry tar sands crude from Chicago to Portland, Maine, where it would be loaded on tankers and transferred to refineries in Philadelphia and on the Gulf Coast of Mexico.

Bloc Quebecois Member of Parliament Christian Ouellet, speaking at a public meeting in Granby on April 24, said the decision to reverse the 60-year-old pipeline is being made by the National Energy Board in Ottawa. Approximately 200 people attended the meeting at the Hotel le Granbyen.

“The decision-making is going over the heads of Quebeckers,” said Ouellet. “We want a public hearing in every community along the pipeline route.”

Quebec’s Liberal government has so far refused to hold its own consultations.

“[Enbridge and Portland Montreal Pipeline] say that they’re good corporate citizens, and they say that’s good enough, but in the Gulf things broke, and they’re good corporate citizens over there, too,” said Ouellet, referring to the Deepwater Horizon, a BP oil-drilling platform that recently exploded, spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Guy Durand of the Environmental Committee of Dunham said that “people were already worried” about the pipeline proposal during an August 2008 information session, which in his opinion provided “incomplete information” to Dunham town council.

Dunham elected Jean-Guy Demers as Mayor in 2009. Demers campaigned against the pipeline reversal and the construction of a pumping station in Dunham, saying, "I will do everything in my power” to reverse the previous council’s decision to move forward with the pumping station. Since the election, the town council has voted five:two against the pumping station.

Citizens and elected officials in the region are worried that a flow reversal in the 60-year-old pipeline, coupled with the increase in pressure necessary to cross the Sutton Mountains, would increase the risk of a spill. In 1999, the pipeline, which currently flows from Portland, Maine, to Montreal, ruptured near St-Cesaire, leaking 45,000 litres of oil into the adjacent marsh. Twenty other spills have been reported during the pipeline’s operation.

Several attendees at the Granby public meeting expressed concern over potential water contamination in the event of a spill, since the pipeline crosses several rivers.

“Simply installing a toilet in a national park requires an environmental impact assessment,” said Daniel Cyr of COVABAR, a group dedicated to the protection of the Richelieu River. “Why is it unreasonable to ask for one for the pipeline reversal?” Cyr added that one litre of oil can contaminate as many as 2,000,000 litres of water.

Presenters warned meeting attendees about the ecological impacts of the bitumen to be passing through southern Quebec, including massive strip mining, runaway carbon emissions, and large-scale water pollution. One presenter referred to the tar sands as “Canada’s Mordor,” an allusion to the dark, mutant-infested industrial wasteland featured in The Lord of the Rings.

Jean Binette of the Environmental Committee of Dunham presented examples of past pipeline accidents, citing dramatic spills of thousands of barrels of oil from modern pipelines in Alaska and Minnesota. According to a Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration report, more than 2,000,000 barrels of oil were spilled as a result of pipeline ruptures in the US between 1986 and 2007, causing over $1 billion in damage.

“We don’t get a cent; the oil goes through—that’s it,” said Bloc Quebecois Member of Parliament Robert Vincent. “If it fails, we’re the ones who pay. It’s our drinking water that is contaminated.”

Dru Oja Jay is an Editor at The Dominion.

Anti-trailbreaker info-session

COP16 already Changing the Climate in Mexico

Moira Peters — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:55:07 +0000

An interview with Gustavo Castro Soto on environmentalism in Mexico, popular education, and the futility of profit-driven solutions

In November 2010, Mexico will play host to a Copenhagen Climate Summit follow-up. Activists around the country are already preparing for the 16th Conference of Parties (COP) summit, in Cancun.

I spoke with Gustavo Castro Soto, an activist, agitator and organizer based in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas. Castro is a founding member of Otros Mundos, an NGO that works on popular education and developing alternatives to capitalism, as well as with the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA). He is one of many who plan to be in the streets of Cancun in November, so I caught up with him to ask him about how he sees climate organizing playing out in Mexico over the next eight months.

Gustav Castro Soto, on the potential of COP16 in Cancun

"We are convinced that after 16 sessions of COP, things are not going to change. Governments and corporations have done everything possible to not make commitments. Rather, they’ve looked for a way to sort out all of the demands and difficulties, and begun incorporating new legislation and new ideas to continue doing the same thing, including making a business out of the climate change they’re generating.

"I think the opportunity for us is to generate political awareness in the population, and this is our big chance. We know there is going to be this conference, we want to be there, and this mobilization creates awareness. I think this is the biggest benefit we’re going to get; the fact that it’s here in Mexico obliges us to understand, to educate ourselves, to learn and reflect.

"The meeting itself requires us to put on the accelerator, so we can have an active presence there, a presence with a knowledge and understanding of why we’re there. If it wasn’t here in Mexico, in reality, I think this process would be much slower."

On awareness about climate change in Mexico

"There is not much information, not even among NGOs, with the exception of environmental NGOs, official and business NGOs, of what a Clean Development Mechanism is, what the Kyoto Protocol is, even what climate change means.

"I think there is, little by little, a developing interest in learning what [climate change] means. As we learn about what climate change is, we can see the links between these diverse projects, how they contribute to climate change.

"We as an organization, Otros Mundos, in workshops over the last six months, have been insisting on [making] the links not just between mining projects and climate change, but also with the other projects the government is implementing, such as dams, mines, bio-fuels and monocultures such as the African palm. All of these things are linked to climate change.

"Little by little, in the last workshops we’ve done, there have been 300 to 500 peasants and Indigenous people from many communities, and we have other workshops planned over the next weeks, where we will emphasize climate change."

"The people are demanding to know, 'What is this, and how does it work?

"This implies a long and sometimes complicated process of formation and education, to understand in a simple way what [climate change] is, and what it implies. The next step is people deciding, "We’re going to organize, we’re going to do something, we’re going to stop this," and the next step, an even bigger step, is, [people asking], 'What is the alternative?'"

On market solutions to climate change

"Our political position is very clear: clean development mechanisms don’t work.

"With them, the appropriation of Indigenous and peasant territories is justified, deforestation is justified, and as well, the very projects transnational companies are carrying out for profits are justified.

"These projects include eco-tourism, highways, forest plantations, bio-fuels, hydroelectric dams and mining. They just keep looking for justifications, and not just legal justifications through free trade agreements, but justification related to climate change [legislation].

"Our position is very clear. Bio-fuels, large monoculture plantations, dams, and mines don’t fight climate change. They significantly accelerate it.

"Here in the state [of Chiapas] we’re seeing how peasants and Indigenous people are getting in the way, and so they are being displaced by these megaprojects. The state of Chiapas has created a bio-fuels division; they call it the reconversion of production, which means peasant farmers and Indigenous peoples shouldn’t plant corn because it’s not profitable in economic terms.

"Instead, they are invited in a multitude of ways, including being convinced through trickery, to accept projects that benefit transnational companies."

On working with environmental organizations who accept market solutions to climate change

"It’s very difficult to work with them, and it’s actually quite a strong confrontation. We’ve been invited to have a dialogue about these mechanisms, and, for example, about environmental services.

"But we think accepting this dialogue implies accepting a discussion about, for example, whether or not they will pay Indigenous people and peasants well to render an environmental service, and if they pay them poorly, [they'll say] maybe they can pay them a little more. That’s not the root problem. We’d fall in a trap if we discussed these things.

"At the root, their framing and their mechanisms are false. They are false solutions to climate change. Quite simply they should not be used.

"We don’t want to discuss if they’ll give us more or less, or if, by way of example, they’ll pay producers of African palm well for their product or for their work. That’s not the main theme. It’s the mechanism itself that’s a false mechanism of clean development.

"That puts us up against some organizations that are implementing these mechanisms and the push for them, including some universities here. Even ECOSUR, Conservation International, Pronatura and Greenpeace are in favor of these mechanisms, and they’re also seeing how to implement them together with the state government. They know there is lots of money behind this. They know that this means administering resources and funds, and playing the investment game with the big transnational companies."

On Mexican organizing in the lead-up to COP16

"I think it’s going to be a big accomplishment to try to coordinate ourselves as a Mexican platform, to offer coordination to many networks coming from all over the world that have among them fundamentally contradictory positions.

"It seems there is an initial willingness, a political willingness, to coordinate ourselves and create a Mexican platform that helps and facilitates the arrival of many delegations from around the world, that facilitates coordination.

"But, it’s probable that as time goes on, these political differences will become more obvious, and there could even be splits, as there has been on other occasions, and that each group will define their position and their activities on their own.

"Hopefully it doesn’t end up that way, in the sense that we hope we could, given the sometimes radical political differences, offer a collective, coordinated space to receive the distinct positions that exist."

Dawn Paley is a Vancouver-based journalist.

A version of this article was previously published on Upside Down World.

Dawn COP16

The Tar Sands Oilympics

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:10:57 +0000

The London Tar Sands Network and London Rising Tide hold the inaugural Tar Sands Oilympics in Trafalgar Square, London.
Corporate contenders RBS, Shell and newcomer BP compete for the chance to wreak environmental havoc in their scramble for Canada's tar sands.
In the process they will lay waste to vast areas of boreal forest, poison First Nations communities and push the planet towards catastrophic climate change. The race for the most polluting fossil fuel resource on the planet is on. Forget the Winter Olympics in Canada, the real competition for the future of the planet is here.

Collapse in Copenhagen

Moira Peters — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:17:02 +0000

Negotiations, uninvitations, and what the Accord really means

OTTAWA—Unless you’ve developed a habit of only reading government press releases, you’ve probably gotten the idea by now that Copenhagen was more like Flopenhagen.

After negotiations spilled a day over the planned two weeks, countries failed to reach any sort of final deal and the proclaimed Copenhagen Accord failed to reach consensus, winding up as a reference document.

What went wrong?

The proffered reasons are nearly as abundant as the puns on Copenhagen (Brokenhagen, Nopenhagen, Jokenhagen—you get the idea).

In the weeks leading up to it, there was no shortage of chatter over the importance of Copenhagen’s Climate Conference, formally the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the end, over 46,000 delegates would show up to the meeting, including over a hundred Heads of State.

The first cracks in a deal came during the first week of the talks, as countries from the G77-plus-China group (actually made up of over one hundred "developing" countries) forced some of the negotiations to stop until their concerns were heard. Then, the much-reported “Danish Text” was leaked to journalists and civil society members, spurring outrage from developing countries that documents were being written in secret by select countries.

The conference also saw unprecedented attendance from civil society, which comprised 24,000 of the total 46,000 participants. This number only included accredited participants permitted inside Bella Center, the negotiations venue. A number of simultaneous fora were organized, the biggest being the Klimaforum, co-ordinated by Danish civil society and open to everyone. At Klimaforum, several thousand individuals and representatives of interest groups from the world over participated in dozens of workshops and discussions, finalizing a People's Declaration that focused solely on climate solutions.

On Saturday, December 12, mid-way through the talks, an estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of Copenhagen. Carrying banners proclaiming, “There is no Planet B,” “Climate Justice Now!” and “Tar Sands Oil is Blood Oil,” Indigenous Peoples from around the world led the march.

Despite the non-violence of the event, 1,000 arbitrary, “preventative” arrests were made. Only about five marchers would eventually be charged, but the bitter smell of the security state was already in the air. Human rights organizations denounced the police’s “kettling” of protesters as illegal and the tactic continued throughout the week.

The UNFCCC Secretariat failed to adequately forecast the inability of 46,000 people to fit into a space with a capacity of 15,000. This meant that only 7,000 civilians were able to get into Bella Center on the second Tuesday and Wednesday of the conference.

During the final days of the conference, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of accredited participants would wait outside the doors of Bella Center for seven or eight hours. Many had travelled from tropical countries and found the freezing temperatures unbearable, compounding their existing frustrations about having to line up for an event they expected to attend. Some would be unable to get into the building at all.

In a sudden and surprising move, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer, convened a meeting Wednesday night to announce that for Thursday and Friday, only 300 of the 24,000 members of accredited civil society would be allowed to participate in the formal negotiations. Environmental organizations, Indigenous groups and farmers were distraught that one per cent of their representatives would be allowed into one of the most important meetings ever held.

The Secretariat seemed to be reacting to a number of protests and specific incidents inside Bella Center. Some have speculated that it was simply an attempt to stifle public involvement. Regardless of its intention, this was the effect.

Thousands of stakeholders in climate justice who had come from around the world were now left to follow the negotiations from TVs and the internet in other parts of Copenhagen. In the eyes of many delegates, negotiations already in a state of free-fall were now doomed. No longer would they have an opportunity to hold negotiators accountable face-to-face, provide them with suggestions and feedback, communicate the proceedings to others, or even give the talks the legitimacy of public involvement.

The prime security concern on Thursday and Friday was the number of Presidents, Prime Ministers and Princes who arrived, joining ministers for the so-called High Level Segment. They gave flowery and sometimes impassioned speeches, as negotiations continued behind closed doors, and protests and vigils continued outside.

****

Over the last two years, countries have been negotiating on a process known as the Bali Roadmap. The Copenhagen meeting was meant to finalize these proceedings. Many agreements had been worked along specific negotiations tracks, which included themes such as adaptation (to change climate conditions by infrastructure and building renovations, increase the flood plain, reforestation/revegetation, population relocation, higher dykes), technology transfer (of clean development technology or adaptation technology—green energy, and carbon capture and storage respectively—from countries that have it to countries that don't), and finance (or control of the capital invested by polluters to offset their emissions, via mechanisms such as the carbon market).

They were often imperfect agreements, but they reflected the voices of all countries, and were forged through a consensus process. In the eyes of most developing countries, they were meant to expand upon the binding Kyoto Protocol.

Indigenous people had been following the negotiations, often concerned for their very survival. Indigenous rights had become a battleground in the talks, with years of work securing minimal references to and rights for Indigenous Peoples, despite the efforts of many colonial countries to keep such pesky restrictions out of formal considerations.

****

The United States ensured everyone was awake Friday morning as Obama delivered a speech reminiscent of Bush’s “You’re either with us or against us” rhetoric to a plenary hall of world leaders. He then assembled leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa (known as the BASIC Group) to hash out an agreement among some of the world’s biggest polluters in secret.

After hours of wrangling among the BASIC Group, these talks expanded to include 26 countries already selected by the Prime Minister of Denmark, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, and a new document emerged: the so-called Copenhagen Accord. That it was negotiated in secret, behind doors closed to most countries, was seen by many as an obvious attempt to circumvent the democratic and multilateral nature of the talks up to that point.

While some in the media and NGO community managed to score leaked drafts of the Accord, many government delegates from Southern countries didn’t even see the “agreement.” Such was the absurd situation where the few remaining civil participants found themselves making photocopies of and explaining the document to delegates, in all its shortcomings.

Rasmussen convened countries around 1:00am Saturday, after Obama had already given a press conference to announce a done deal and hopped on a plane back to Washington. A number of countries rebelled in the final negotiating session of the conference after the three-page Accord was dropped like a bomb into the plenary room.

The Prime Minister tried to present the document and give delegates an hour to think it over, but countries were immediately furious. More than 14 hours later, it became clear there was no consensus on the Copenhagen Accord, with the largest resistance coming from developing and small island states. Finally, delegates agreed to “take note” of the Accord, leaving off negotiations until next year’s meeting in Mexico.

The blame game began immediately, with the US and European countries pointing fingers at China and other developing countries for holding back negotiations.

As Martin Kohr of the Third World Network made clear in a letter to The Guardian, “The unwise attempt by the Danish presidency to impose a non-legitimate meeting to override the legitimate multilateral process was the reason why Copenhagen will be considered a disaster.” International climate negotiations have taken on an air of exclusivity and distrust usually reserved for World Trade Organization (WTO) talks.

****

The Accord itself seeks to collect non-legally binding pledges from developed countries. Even though it pushes for a global warming limit of two degrees Celcius, the UN’s own leaked research shows it would likely cause at least three degrees' warming.

One of the centrepieces of the Accord is the pledge that developed countries will “mobilize” $100 billion by 2020 for developing countries' adaptation and mitigation, though it acknowledges this could come from private and “alternative” sources, letting states off the hook, and limiting the direction of these resources to developing countries that sign the Accord, and not necessarily those that need it most.

However, the document can’t be simply dismissed as a collection of hot air about climate change. The risk remains that the Copenhagen Accord may be used to circumvent the UN process, which, while flawed, is the only truly democratic, transparent and fully multilateral process in the works.

According to Reede Stockton of Global Exchange, “The Copenhagen Accord really isn't a whole lot more than an aspirational G20 agreement. Given the method by which the agreement was reached, it really constitutes a cynical conversion of a UN process that gives significant weight to the voices of relatively powerless countries into one that completely disempowers them.”

Soon after the snow had settled on the Copenhagen Accord, the US was already pushing for a more limited role of the UN in further climate talks, and more decisions to be made by the world’s top polluters. Bolivia’s ambassador reacted swiftly, stating “The US admission that it wants to exclude the vast majority of the planet from decisions about climate change is deeply offensive, when the climate crisis will fall first on those who are most vulnerable.”

These are not idle threats. The G8 and G20 are coming to Canada in June, and climate change will be one of the biggest issues on the table. This means that Canada, as convener of the talks, could push for stronger climate action. This will not happen. More likely, efforts will be made to undermine the United Nations and block the path of progress toward climate justice, and Harper will try to drive the issue off the table altogether.

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The little good news to report out of Copenhagen comes from the empowerment and connections formed among the hundreds of groups and thousands of people who participated in the talks, and their renewed commitment to pushing for climate justice at home.

According to Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Environmental Network, “The main good thing to come out of Copenhagen was the massive solidarity, which came out in the movements formed against the tar sands, with Indigenous Peoples leading many actions, and the convergence of people-power to confront the co-ordinated corporate efforts.”

“Massive solidarity” included almost daily actions by Canadian youth, environmental and Indigenous groups targeting Canada’s shameful behaviour in the negotiations, especially taking the tar sands to task. Canada’s maneuvres earned it the Colossal Fossil non-award, given to the country most responsible for disrupting negotiations.

Canada was roundly criticized for coming to Copenhagen with nothing to offer, and for being unwilling to co-operate with other nations accepting more ambitious targets. Canada was also one of the few nations which opposed protection of Indigenous rights. Ben Wikler, climate campaigner for Avaaz, noted, “This government thinks there’s a choice between environment and economy, and for them, tar sands beats climate every time.”

Maryam Adrangi, a Canadian Youth Delegate from Vancouver, sees the beginning of a Canadian movement for climate justice.

“Canada’s role was definitely disappointing at the talks, but there was also lots of anger and energy to build a movement at home with real representation of the voices not [previously] being heard, the people whose lives and cultures are actually threatened. There’s a serious need for activism, because our so-called leaders haven’t been listening or leading.”

This follows the six climate justice sit-ins by young people across Canada, occupying the offices of federal ministers and MPs, and the Power Shift Conference, which saw nearly 1,000 youth converge on Ottawa for a four-day conference focused on climate activism. Recent campaigns against the tar sands have also picked up and plans are under way around climate camps and actions at the G8/G20 meeting in Toronto in June.

If the climate talks fail this year in Mexico, or if some countries get in the way of progress, the UN process could be sidelined. This could lead to non-binding, weak and unjust agreements signed between select groups of countries, or the collapse of talks completely, as has already befallen the WTO talks.

Without a determined grassroots movement in Canada, our government will continue to be a barrier to progress, misrepresenting Canadians. Our country will be responsible for untold suffering around the world. There is little time to build this movement, for Canadians to make a last stand for climate justice.

Ben Powless is a student at Carleton University in Ottawa, and works as a climate justice campaigner with the Indigenous Environmental Network in Ottawa.

Copenhagen Evo Morales

Copenhagen Tar Sands Block

Copenhagen Indigenous Block

Copenhagen Reclaim Power

UNPFII, IEN & REDD: Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples & U.N. credibility

Sandra — Sat, 23 May 2009 15:04:46 +0000

Watch a Democracy Now interview with Indigenous Environmental Network executive director Tom Goldtooth about climate change. The interview is from May 22nd, at the end of the first week of the 8th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) taking place at UN headquarters in New York City, May 18-29, 2009.

Last year, the theme of the UNPFII was climate change. Despite vocal opposition from the vast majority of the participating indigenous delegates, a document produced by the Permanent Forum chairs included support for a World Bank market-oriented carbon-trading initiative called REDD - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries. When their voices of opposition and protest were not going to be immediately permitted to be heard, the indigenous caucus and in particular a vocal contingent from the Americas began a loud chorus: "!La palabra! !La palabra!..." ['We want to speak!']

The "May Revolt" occurred on May 2, 2008, on the very last day of the 7th session of the UNPFII. An excellent video of the "revolt" and interviews with Tom Goldtooth, Art Manuel and others was produced by activist Rebecca Sommer for Earth Peoples and can be found on youtube.

Survival is Non-Negotiable!

dawn — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:23:13 +0000

Are climate talks the new World Trade Organization?

POZNAN, POLAND– The conclusion of December's climate change negotiations in Poznan, Poland, put another nail in the coffin for our collective survival. The event brought together tens of thousands of participants from environmental groups, Indigenous Peoples, other civil society groups, youth groups, and business interests, but meaningful action on climate change was railroaded by vetos enacted by a handful of nations, including Canada.

Be it stupidity or malice, coming from a country that is 60 per cent Arctic with an Inuit culture completely threatened by climate change, Canada’s position only helped to further the marginalization Indigenous groups have faced at these negotiations.

At the conference, I was part of the Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus, as a representative of the Indigenous Environmental Network. Only recently being recognized by the UN as distinct from ‘environmental groups,’ we have struggled to have our voices heard in the debates and have our rights protected. We have often had to contend with the countries who claim to represent us telling us they are selling out our future for our best interest.

Despite being the most impacted by climate change, Indigenous Peoples often have the most to share, and our effective exclusion from the talks only shows how little concern Canada has with dealing with climate change and aboriginal issues.

In fact, Canada won the daily "fossil award" for worst performance 10 times during the conference. Canada also won the overall "colossal fossil award," at the end of the conference, for winning the most fossil of the day awards.

Canada outperformed even the United States, who had little mandate to negotiate with a lame-duck President, which left the world waiting to see how things would change under Barack Obama. Canada’s performance - which included such episodes as Minister of the Environment Jim Prentice making the members of the Canadian youth delegation cry with his frivolous jokes about the environment and forcing them to take down a photo exhibition of the tar sands - should make every Canadian wonder whose interests were being represented at the conference.

To drive the point home, Canada even brought out the ‘Minister of the Tar Sands,’ Alberta’s Environment Minister, to play cheerleader for the Tar Sands.

It wasn’t the first climate conference to end without action and it likely won’t be the last. But the successor conference to the 2007 UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, failed to deliver even on the most modest aspirations held to it. This puts humanity on shaky ground as nations and civil society representatives proceed to the next round of negotiations in December 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark, to come up with a plan to tackle climate change after 2012.

In 1998, countries agreed to (and failed miserably to meet) the Kyoto Protocol, which had a series of weak targets by which developed countries would reduce their emissions levels by 2012. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, comprised of over 2,000 scientists from around the world, tells us we need to cut our emissions levels from 25 to 40 per cent (from our 1990 levels, the universal baseline) by 2020 to have a chance at survival. Common sense tells us we should set our aims much higher.

Sadly, in Poznan, countries were not able to agree on any limits to the destruction we are wreaking. Survival should not be something we are negotiating, on behalf of ourselves or the planet.

The event in Poznan was held under the umbrella of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the same organization responsible for the Kyoto Protocol.

Consensus was not reached on a number of important issues, particularly on whether or not developing countries are to be expected to curb their development in the name of reducing their emissions.

Decisions at COP meetings are made by the few thousand representatives of countries around the world. Other participants were limited to protesting or watching from the sidelines. Resolutions are made by consensus, and in Poznan countries like Canada and the US once again stuck up for the oil companies and their friends, continuing their effective opposition to any positive action against climate change, and putting all our lives at risk.

At the talks, a colleague remarked that climate negotiations were increasingly assuming the same atmosphere that surrounded the World Trade Organization talks. Instead of civil society groups trying to influence specific decisions, they have become critical of the process itself, and many see the talks as doing more harm than good. While this view may not be universal, it is part of the growing consensus of a number of groups that make up the environmental justice-oriented group Climate Justice Now!

Among the prime criticisms of environmental justice campaigners over the years has been the reliance of the Kyoto Protocol on market solutions to climate change, such as selling carbon credits (essentially pollution permits) from developing countries to developed ones, in return for funding for “clean development” projects.

The problems are many, but central is the equity issue: Why should developing countries have the responsibility of cleaning up the mess that Western countries have made?

That many so-called clean development projects have been proven not to generate any environmental benefits (such as when dams were going to be built anyway, but received emissions credits for business-as-usual), have caused human rights abuses (forced evictions, for example, from such dams), and are opposed by local residents, should truly trouble us.

About a quarter of all Clean Development Mechanism projects are based on hydroelectric dams, provoking concern about displacement from many Indigenous Peoples who stand between governments, corporations, and millions of carbon-financed dollars. The basic methodology for actually verifying emissions reductions has been criticized by many groups, such as environmentalists, Indigenous groups, and even carbon traders, as being riddled with corruption, having negative impacts on local communities, being mismanaged, and in many cases, not having any verifiable reductions.

There is now a similar mechanism regarding stopping deforestation on the table, referred to as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). It is based around giving forests a value while they are standing, so that they have worth while they are alive and not just as furniture in someone’s living room.

The REDD scheme seems innocuous enough, until you realize it shares many of the same risks as carbon trading, since most would like it to be a credit-generating scheme. In fact, REDD goes further by dealing explicitly with the natural environment in which many Indigenous and traditional peoples live.

We know some of the threats posed by a scheme such as REDD because of past experiences with biofuels, which have devastated territories in many places. If Indigenous rights and other crucial social concerns are not incorporated, REDD schemes may similarly force people out of their traditional homelands. Think of Indigenous groups being forced out of the Amazon in the name of ‘protecting’ the forests.

There was an effort led by Bolivia and a few other governments sympathetic to Indigenous concerns in Poznan(including Panama and Ecuador, with the support of some EU countries) to incorporate some of these concerns, but this initiative failed due to the opposition of countries like Canada and the US, provoking a large protest by Indigenous Peoples and supporters.

At first, Canadian representatives denied this, but later, embarrassed by international media coverage, they went on the offensive, proclaiming Indigenous rights had no part in a climate change agreement.

This does not have to be the case. In a last minute attempt to raise the stakes and bring attention to the talks, youth staged a protest in the UN on the last day, many risking their passes to raise the banner ‘Survival is Not Negotiable.’

In the run-up to the 15th COP in December in Copenhagen, it may take a regime change in Canada to allow for the world community to come up with an agreement that is just and climate-friendly.

Already, in anticipation of COP 15 failing wretchedly, civil society groups worldwide are planning massive mobilizations around the world and in Copenhagen on the occasion of the summit. It is up to all of us to force Canada and other countries to come up with a plan that will safeguard the survival of all peoples and living things, but that work needs to start now, because by the time we get to Copenhagen it may be too late.

Ben Powless is a Mohawk student at Carleton University who works with the Indigenous Environmental Network and Canadian Youth Climate Coalition on climate justice issues.

Climate Justice Now!

Carbon Addiction