It’s Getting Hot In Here

RADICAL NEW AGENDA NEEDED TO ACHIEVE CLIMATE JUSTICE

Poznan statement from the Climate Justice Now! alliance
12 December 2008

Members of Climate Justice Now! – a worldwide
alliance of more than 160 organisations — have
been in Poznan for the past two weeks closely
following developments in the UN climate
negotiations.

This statement is our assessment of the
Conference of Parties (COP) 14, and articulates
our principles for achieving climate justice.

THE URGENCY OF CLIMATE JUSTICE
We will not be able to stop climate change if we
don’t change the neo-liberal and corporate-based
economy which stops us from achieving sustainable
societies. Corporate globalisation must be
stopped.

The historical responsibility for the vast
majority of greenhouse gas emissions lies with
the industrialised countries of the North. Even
though the primary responsibility of the North to
reduce emissions has been recognised in the
Convention, their production and consumption
habits continue to threaten the survival of
humanity and biodiversity. It is imperative that
the North urgently shifts to a low carbon
economy. At the same time in order to avoid the
damaging carbon intensive model of
industrialisation, the South is entitled to
resources and technology to make this transition.

We believe that any ´shared vision´ on addressing
the climate crisis must start with climate
justice and with a radical re-thinking of the
dominant development model.

Indigenous Peoples, peasant communities,
fisherfolk, and especially women in these
communities, have been living harmoniously and
sustainably with the Earth for millennia. They
are not only the most affected by climate change,
but also its false solutions, such as agrofuels,
mega-dams, genetic modification, tree plantations
and carbon offset schemes. Instead of market led
schemes, their sustainable practices should be
seen as offering the real solutions to climate
change.

UNFCCC IN CRISIS
Governments and international institutions have
to recognise that the Kyoto mechanisms have
failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The principles of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – common
but differentiated responsibilities,
inter-generational equity, and polluter pays –
have been undermined in favour of market
mechanisms. The three main pillars of the Kyoto
agreement –the clean development mechanism,
joint implementation and emissions trading
schemes — have been completely ineffective in
reducing emissions, yet they continue to be at
the center of the negotiations.

Kyoto is based on carbon-trading mechanisms which
allow Northern countries to continue business as
usual by paying for “clean development” projects
in developing and transition countries. This is a
scheme designed deliberately to allow polluters
to avoid reducing emissions domestically. Clean
development mechanism projects, which are
supposed to support “sustainable development”,
include infrastructure projects such as big dams
and coal-fired power plants, and monoculture tree
plantations. Not only do these projects fail to
reduce carbon emissions, they accelerate the
privatisation and corporate take-over of the
natural world, at the expense of local
communities and Indigenous Peoples.

Proposals on the table in Poznan are heading in the same direction.

In the current negotiations, industrialised
countries continue to act on the basis of
self-interest, using all their negotiating
tactics to avoid their obligations to reduce
carbon emissions, to finance adaptation and
mitigation and transfer technology to the South.
In their pursuit of growth at any cost, many
Southern governments at the talks are trading
away the rights of their peoples and resources.
We remind them that a climate agreement is not a
trade agreement.

The main protagonists for climate stability -
Indigenous Peoples, women, peasant and family
farmers, fisherfolk, forest dependent
communities, youth, and marginalised and affected
communities in the global South and North, are
systematically excluded. Despite repeated
demands, Indigenous Peoples are not recognised as
an official party to the negotiations. Neither
are women’s voices and gender considerations
recognised and included in the process.
At the same time, private investors are circling
the talks like vultures, swooping in on every
opportunity for creating new profits. Business
and corporate lobbyists expanded their influence
and monopolized conference space at Poznan. At
least 1500 industry lobbyists were present either
as NGOs or as members of government delegations.

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme could create the
climate regime’s largest ever loophole, giving
Northern polluters yet another opportunity to buy
their way out of emissions reductions. With no
mention of biodiversity or Indigenous Peoples’
rights, this scheme might give a huge incentive
for countries to sell off their forests, expel
Indigenous and peasant communities, and transform
forests into tree plantations under
corporate-control. Plantations are not forests.
Privatisation and dispossession through REDD or
any other mechanisms must be stopped.
The World Bank is attempting to carve a niche in
the international climate change regime. This is
unacceptable as the Bank continues to fund
polluting industries and drive deforestation by
promoting industrial logging and agrofuels. The
Bank’s recently launched Climate Investment Funds
goes against government initiatives at the UN and
promotes dirty industries such as coal, while
forcing developing countries into the
fundamentally unequal aid framework of donor and
recipient. The World Bank Forest Carbon
Partnership Facility aiming to finance REDD
through a forest carbon mechanism serves the
interest of private companies and opens the path
for commodification of forests.

These developments are to be expected. Market
ideology has totally infiltrated the climate
talks, and the UNFCCC negotiations are now like
trade fairs hawking investment opportunities.

THE REAL SOLUTIONS
Solutions to the climate crisis will not come
from industrialised countries and big business.
Effective and enduring solutions will come from
those who have protected the environment -
Indigenous Peoples, women, peasant and family
farmers, fisherfolk, forest dependent
communities, youth and marginalised and affected
communities in the global South and North. These
include:

o Achieving low carbon economies, without
resorting to offsetting and false solutions such
as nuclear energy and “clean coal”, while
protecting the rights of those affected by the
transition, especially workers.
o Keeping fossil fuels in the ground.
o Implementing people’s food and energy sovereignty.
o Guaranteeing community control of natural resources.
o Re-localisation of production and
consumption, prioritising local markets
o Full recognition of Indigenous Peoples,
peasant and local community rights,
o Democratically controlled clean renewable energy.
o Rights based resource conservation that
enforces indigenous land rights and promotes
peoples sovereignty and public ownership over
energy, forests, seeds, land and water
o Ending deforestation and its underlying causes.
o Ending excessive consumption by elites in the North and in the South.
o Massive investment in public transport
o Ensuring gender justice by recognising
existing gender injustices and involving women in
decision making.
o Cancelling illegitimate debts claimed by
northern governments and IFIs. The illegitimacy
of these debts is underscored by the much greater
historical, social and ecological debts owed to
people of the South.

We stand at the crossroads. We call for a radical
change in direction to put climate justice and
people’s rights at the centre of these
negotiations.

In the lead-up to the 2009 COP 15 at Copenhagen
and beyond, the Climate Justice Now! alliance
will continue to monitor governments and to
mobilise social forces from the south and the
north to achieve climate justice.