In 2004, the Durban Group for Climate Justice convened in Durban, South Africa to question the central role of carbon trading and carbon offsets in governments’ responses to the climate crisis. Members of the Durban Group are traveling in various cities throughout the US and Canada in January, February, and March 2008 to share experiences of the failures of carbon trading in Europe, India, Brazil, Uganda and elsewhere, and to learn more about U.S. carbon trading plans and climate politics.
Five internationally recognized experts, fresh from the climate meetings in Bali, Indonesia, will be visiting campuses and communities throughout Canada and the US. With over fifty groups in over forty cities, they’ll speak on carbon trading, carbon offsets, the effects of climate change and current international campaigns to keep the fossil fuels in the ground and affect meaningful change.
Check out the complete list of tour dates.
UPDATED: There are still a handful of dates open if you want the speaking tour to come to your town. We’re still booking the east coast and the midwest for late February and early March! Contact falsesolutions AT risingtidenorthamerica DOT org to host a talk.
The visiting activists are:
- Patrick Bond, a research professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban South Africa and director of the Centre for Civil Society. His is the author or editor of numerous books, including “Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society”, “Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation”, and “Against Global Apartheid: South Africa meets the World Bank”.
- Larry Lohmann, the editor of Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power, an exhaustively-documented new book critiquing carbon trading. Carbon trading “dispossesses ordinary people in the South of their lands and futures without resulting in appreciable progress toward alternative energy systems,” says Lohmann. “Tradable rights to pollute are handed out to Northern industry, allowing them to continue to profit from business as usual. At the same time, Northern polluters are encouraged to invest in supposedly carbon-saving projects in the South, very few of which promote clean energy at all.”
- Kevin Smith, a researcher with Carbon Trade Watch. Smith’s report “The Carbon Neutral Myth” documents and exposes the booming industry dedicated to avoiding the core of the climate issue, and offers expert advice on constructive ways forward.
- Tamra Gilbertson, the Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Project at the Transnational Institute and a researcher with Carbon Trade Watch. Gilbertson edited the recent report “Agrofuels - Toward a Reality Check in Nine Areas“. This report documents the use and abuse of biofuels in the Global South, often under the guise of “offsetting” tradeable carbon credits.
- Jutta Kill, the Coordinator of Sinkswatch. In “Forest Fraud - say no to fake carbon credits,” Kill exposes the funding of monoculture tree plantations and the enormous market offering incentives to seize communally-held forests in developing countries. “Indigenous peoples and rural communities already struggling against the encroachment of these ‘green deserts’ onto their lands will be hit twice by climate change.”
For a complete list of tour dates, and to contact local host organizers, please click here or contact or contact Jay Purcell <j.purcell@ucla.edu>.
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Sounds interesting. Is there a primary alternative global warming policy they have gotten behind?
Here are some alternative proposals… http://ips-dc.org/reports/070915_manifesto.pdf
A big mistake other countries have made is not having a 100% auction. This would prevent any credits from being given away. Other than that, I second Richard’s question: what’s the alternative?
first off, there’s a great interview with two of the tour participants at Celcias magazine:
http://www.celsias.com/2008/01/07/fighting-false-solutions-an-interview-with-kevin-smith-and-jutta-kill/
As for the question on alternative, I don’t believe there is a specific platform of solutions that these speakers are endorsing, although I’m sure they each have their own views on the subject - you’ll have to meet up at the tour at some point to find out!
One thing I think most of us can agree on is that an extremely aggressive renewable portfolio standard is a far more direct way to eliminate the use of fossil fuels than trading carbon, and leaves far less loopholes open to manipulation.
One of the strongest arguments against carbon trading in my mind is that (in no small part because of it’s complexity and opacity) it’s a method that is extremely susceptible to industry influence. 99.9% of people in this world have no idea what the difference between auction and give-a-way systems of cap-and-trade are for example….it seems incredibly likely to me, given the nature of political compromises in politics that if the enviro mainstream demands cap-and-auction, and the right wing demands no action, that we’ll get the compromise of cap-and-giveaway.
On the other hand, almost everyone can understand “mandatory phase out fossil fuel portfolios by [X % by] this year, with targets based on the best available science” …which makes it less a demand that is far less susceptible to manipulate and resolve by a bogus “compromise”.
Another VERY serious problem some countries in Europe are seeing is that Cap and Trade has the potential to OVERRULE other efforts for promoting renewables and/or make them political unviable (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/23/renewableenergy.energy).
This — another too-extremely-nuanced for public understanding yet environmentally devastating reality — should really drive fear in the hearts of anyone who has the slightest doubt that corporations could rig and/or play Carbon Trading to their own interests….
Ask yourself this: why are so many of huge companies that care only about the bottom line promoting it? Do you really think companies that have endorsed cap-and-trade like BP (developers of the Tar Sands) and Duke Energy (one of the worst coal companies in the US) have suddenly started caring about global warming?
They haven’t. If they have they wouldn’t be simultaneously and constantly expanding their fossil fuel portfolios. They think they can pull a fast one on us (exactly like they did in Europe) and make some big bucks on cap-and-giveaway.
It amazes me that so many enviros can on the one hand call these companies villains and destroyers of our future, and at the same time swallow hook and sinker — no, actively promote! — their recommendations for solving the problems they created, even as they brazenly continue to perpetuate them.
Thought folks might be interested in this:
Biotech firm plans to fund GM rice crops with carbon credits
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/08/gmcrops.food
why arent there any workshops in washington d.c.?
There actually is DC dates! They haven’t been posted yet, but they will be soon and are in late February.