- “The poor are the most vulnerable: We have to change the macroeconomic model”
- “In Cancun, no agreement is better than bad agreements”
- “If you don’t listen to the people, you will never solve global warming”
- “REDD opens the door to a massive land-grab of peasant and indigenous lands”
People from peasant, labor, indigenous and environmentalist organizations met in Mexico City on Nov. 30 to hear international experts discuss the threats they face in the COP 16 Climate Change talks in Cancún.
Tousands of small farmers in straw sombreros, indigenous peoples, activists and workers, men and women of all ages, nearly filled the auditorium of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union. Along with international representatives, they came to share information about climate change, threats to the environment on planetary and local levels, the false solutions being imposed from above, and the real solutions they themselves hold in their hands.
Caravans for Environmental Justice
Many arrived after two grueling days on the road with the International Caravans for Environmental Justice. Busloads of Mexican and international delegates traveled through Mexican towns and cities where local battles have been fought, and in some cases won, against the environmental destruction in their communities.
Representatives from the United States, Canada, Italy, Ecuador, Bolivia, and other countries witnessed firsthand examples where the Mexican government--host of the U.N. Conference on Climate Change--has promoted environmentally destructive activities or condoned private sector acts that devastate the land and resources, in clear violation of the rights of its citizens and of the nation’s environmental laws.
Understanding Complex Issues
For most people, climate change and the array of market-based schemes to deal with it are difficult issues to grasp. The purpose of the forum for grassroots organizations heading to Cancun was to describe these issues and how they directly affect their daily lives.
Mexican economist Alejandro Nadal began by pointing out the absence of a fundamental aspect in climate change discussions—the macroeconomy. Nadal noted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recognized that the world’s poorest communities are the most vulnerable to climate change. Since the neoliberal model has steadily increased the number of poor in the world, we can deduce that the economic model increases climate vulnerability.
Nadal concluded that the current economic model must be changed to confront the crisis. “We need a macroeconomic policy that channels and generates resources for the urgent transformations needed in society,” he told the public, “a new policy that promotes full employment, regulation and major reforms in the current monetary and fiscal policies.”
Larry Lohmann, an expert on the so-called “Clean Development Mechanisms,” followed by contrasting the position of Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) who has close personal ties to interests in the carbon market, with the position of the people who presented their problems and struggles along the caravan routes.
“Her [Figueres’] work is to reduce costs for the large corporations involved in climate change, and expand the carbon market to increase the profits of banks and business owners,” Lohmann stated. He said this perspective views the crisis of global warming as a business and that her world is characterized by fraud, lies, and deception. The victims of climate change live, on the other hand, have become the true defenders of the planet with their commitment to the principle that the earth must be cherished and defended and not put up for sale.
The COP 16 negotiators don’t seem to understand, he said, that, “if they do not listen to the people, they will never solve the problem of climate change.”
Paul Nicholson from the Basque Country, Spain and La Via Campesina International highlighted the two contrasting models of agriculture: the destructive agricultural model of transnational corporations and the agricultural model of small producers. Small producers “cool and feed the world.” Their agro-ecological model of rotating crops, local and seasonal consumption, and the use of local seed adapted to ecosystems absorbs carbon, in contrast to the industrial agricultural model that emits carbon.
He said that the lack of an agreement on a climate accord at Copenhagen implies an increase of 3 to 4 degrees in global temperature, which would be a catastrophe. He affirmed that in the context of what is on the table at the Cancún negotiations, “no agreement is better than bad agreements.”
Mexican researcher Ana de Ita explained the United Nations’ REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) proposal, stating that in essence REDD would create a worldwide forest carbon market. The proposal would lead to the widespread theft of the commons and displacement of the people that have traditionally been the stewards of the forests. De Ita noted that REDD conceives of carbon and air as tradable commodities. Contrary to claims, it does not prevent deforestation, rather it promotes the expansion of tree plantations that destroy biodiversity.
Amid the bad news of the threats from global warming and market mechanisms developed in response, Ivonne Yañez of the Ecological Action of Ecuador (Acción Ecológica de Ecuador) and the Global Network of People Affected by Oil (la Red Mundial de Afectados por el Petroleo) spoke about new paths forward. Ecuador’s legal recognition of the rights of nature and programs to leave oil reserves in the ground provide examples of innovative government measures to address climate change and environmental destruction. Yañez warned that the negotiators at the COP 16 encourage speculating on the crisis of nature.
Beware of "False Solutions"
In summarizing the Forum, Andrés Barreda of the Assembly of the Environmentally Affected told the audience that we face a crisis of multiple dimensions, where the richest and most powerful seek to transfer the costs of the crisis to the workers and peasants. According to Barreda, “false solutions” like biofuels, the carbon market, genetically modified seeds, REDD, and the Clean Development Mechanisms, will only deepen the crisis--while meaning new business opportunities for corporations and bankers.
Many of the people in the audience will now continue on to Cancún, where they will participate in events parallel to the official negotiations. Everyone listened attentively to the explanations of what is at stake in these talks, and the disastrous impacts of not only a failure to come to a binding agreement on greenhouse gas emission controls, but also possible agreements on market mechanisms that seek to legitimize pollution while advancing the dispossession of the lands of peasants and indigenous peoples and the privatization of natural resources.
Laura Carlsen, translated from http://rumboalacop16.blogspot.
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