COP 17 - Occupy Durban!

[url=http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2011/11/alba-nations-prepare-to-fight-... nations prepare to fight for humanity at Durban climate summit[/url]

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Representatives from the Latin American and Caribbean governments that comprise the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) met in Bolivia on November 17-18 to coordinate their battle plan ahead of the international climate change summit scheduled to start in Durban later this month.

ALBA – which includes [b]Antigua and Barbuda[/b], [b]Bolivia[/b], [b]Cuba[/b], [b]Dominica[/b], [b]Ecuador[/b], [b]Nicaragua[/b], [b]Saint Vincent and the Grenadines[/b] and [b]Venezuela[/b] – was at the forefront of scuttling attempts at the 2009 Copenhagen summit by rich nations to impose their anti-environmental plans that would set the world on a course towards catastrophic climate change.

[b]This year’s summit will focus on attempts to reach agreement on the commitments for the second period of the Kyoto Protocol, set to begin in 2013.[/b]

Rejecting the idea of “voluntary emissions reductions” being proposed by rich nations, which would destroy the Kyoto Protocol and see catastrophic global temperatures rises of more than 5°C, [b]ALBA is proposing the “continuation, preservation and strengthening of the Kyoto Protocol” as the only legally binding international framework in place today.[/b]

The conclusions reached at Durban, reads the summit’s final declaration, must be “ambitious, balanced and based on scientific recommendations and evidence, on equity and the rule of law.”

This would require compliance with the principles of the United Nations (UN) convention on climate change, “particularly, the principles of [b]equality[/b] and of [b]common but differentiated responsibilities[/b].” Developed nations, the primarily culprits for the current climate crisis, must be the ones to take on the greatest share of the burden in order to reverse current trends.

According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, [b]this would require, as a minimum, rich nations implementing carbon emissions reductions of 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050 if temperature rises are to be kept at 2°C.[/b]

Canada is now at 20% [b]above[/b] 1990 GHG emissions levels. The Harper government has officially renounced the very conservative Kyoto targets.

[url=http://www.wdm.org.uk/climate-justice/end-game-durban-how-developed-coun... end game in Durban? How developed countries bullied and bribed to try to kill Kyoto[/url]

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Bullying and bribery are tried and tested techniques often employed by powerful countries in international trade negotiations, where short term economic interests tend to be the order of the day. It is disturbing to see that these same motivations and tactics have now been brought into the climate change negotiations, even though governments are supposed to be working collectively to bring the planet back from the brink of disaster.

Bullying tactics include overt threats, to remove financial aid flows for example, but can also be more subtle and hidden. In general, experienced intergovernmental negotiators, especially those adept at deploying the nuances of the English language, tend to be skilled in using and abusing procedural rules and linguistic niceties to advance their national priorities. But if necessary, some are clearly prepared to resort to outright deception to achieve their goals, as this report shows.

Tactics include the use of exclusive ‘green room’ type negotiations, more typically deployed in cut throat trade negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO). They often take place outside the parameters of the formal negotiations, with carefully selected groups of countries likely to reach agreement and create momentum behind particular proposals. Negotiations can be conducted in the corridors, in ad hoc meetings that not every country knows about, in alternative country ‘groupings’ or simply in alternative forums, also known as ‘forum shopping’. Informal meetings also tend to be conducted in English, often without translation, putting those who do not speak English.

[url=http://unfccc4.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/cop17/templ/ovw_live.php?id_kon... on video[/url] - Live and On Demand

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Canada has received a public scolding for its climate-change policy from several prominent South Africans, including anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The group urges Canada to once again play a constructive role in global affairs, as it did in the 1980s when it imposed sanctions on the apartheid regime....

"Canada, you were once considered a leader on global issues like human rights and environmental protection. Today, you're home to polluting tar sands oil, speeding the dangerous effects of climate change," says the letter, signed by Tutu, a half-dozen South African activists and African environmental groups.

[b]"For us in Africa, climate change is a life and death issue. By dramatically increasing Canada's global warming pollution, tar sands mining and drilling makes the problem worse, and exposes million of Africans to more devastating drought and famine today and in the years to come."[/b]

The group took out a full-page Canadian newspaper ad Wednesday with its message condemning the federal government. It is also supported by Canadian environmental groups, including Environmental Defence, Equiterre and Greenpeace Canada.

An image of the Maple Leaf, divided in two by a dotted line, is featured prominently in the ad. One half resembles the red leaf on the Canadian flag, while the other side shows a blackened leaf, dripping with oil.

[url=http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/desmond-tutu-other-... Press[/url]

Climate Justice Now
Press release, 10 December, Durban, S. Africa

[url=http://www.climate-justice-now.org/2011-cop17-succumbs-to-climate-aparth... Succumbs to Climate Apartheid[/url]

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Decisions resulting from the UN COP17 climate summit in Durban constitute a crime against humanity, according to Climate Justice Now! a broad coalition of social movements and civil society. Here in South Africa, where the world was inspired by the liberation struggle of the country's black majority, the richest nations have cynically created a new regime of climate apartheid

"Delaying real action until 2020 is a crime of global proportions," said Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of [url=http://www.foei.org/en/media/archive/2011/climate-disastrous-durban-pack... of the Earth International[/url]. "An increase in global temperatures of 4 degrees Celsius, permitted under this plan, is a death sentence for Africa, Small Island States, and the poor and vulnerable worldwide. This summit has amplified climate apartheid, whereby the richest 1% of the world have decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice the 99%."

According to Pablo Solón, former lead negotiator for the Plurinational State of Bolivia, "It is false to say that a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol has been adopted in Durban. The actual decision has merely been postponed to the next COP, with no commitments for emission reductions from rich countries. This means that the Kyoto Protocol will be on life support until it is replaced by a new agreement that will be even weaker."

The world's polluters have blocked real action and have once again chosen to bail out investors and banks by expanding the now-crashing carbon markets - which like all financial market activities these days, appear to mainly enrich a select few.

"What some see as inaction is in fact a demonstration of the palpable failure of our current economic system to address economic, social or environmental crises," said Janet Redman, of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. "Banks that caused the financial crisis are now making bonanza profits speculating on our planet's future. The financial sector, driven into a corner, is seeking a way out by developing ever newer commodities to prop up a failing system."

Despite talk of a "roadmap" offered up by the EU, the failure in Durban shows that this is a cul-de-sac, a road to nowhere. Spokespeople for Climate Justice Now! call on the world community to remember that a real climate program, based on planetary needs identified by scientists as well as by a mandate of popular movements, emerged at the World People's Summit on Climate Change and Mother Earth in Bolivia in 2010. [b]The Cochabamba People's Agreement, brought before the UN but erased from the negotiating text, offers a just and effective way forward that is desperately needed.[/b]

Derrick O'Keefe wrote:

Ironically Peter Kent, years ago when he was a respected CBC TV journalist, had narrated and helped produce a groundbreaking documentary on global warming way back in 1984. 

From 1984 to 2011 -- that's 27 lost years. Twenty-seven years of failure to do what must be done. In 1984, Kent's documentary inquired about a potential ban on fossil fuels, or a 300 per cent tax on carbon dioxide emissions.

But nothing like this type of serious, drastic action ever happened. And that's because the past three decades of the climate crisis have coincided with three decades of neo-liberal politics and economics. The market came before society; money came before science, the environment, reason and even morality.

The result of the 2011 Durban climate talks is that the big polluters have given themselves a few more years to fiddle while the world burns. They spin this by telling us that at Durban they agreed to a "roadmap" to a future agreement.

[b]But the map of the road agreed to at Durban leads only one place for humanity -- off the cliff.[/b]...

I'm tempted to suggest that the 1984 Peter Kent would tell the present-day Peter Kent to go to hell. But maybe Kent's just been a vacuous opportunist all along and only the words on the teleprompter have changed. And, secondly, this is much, much bigger than Mr. Kent and the rest of the sock-puppets and salesmen for the tar sands and the rest of Big Oil. 

This is now about political power. Forget speaking truth to power. We are going to need to take power, and transform power. It's an almost unbelievable challenge in front of us, especially the younger generations.

Those of us who grew up in the neo-liberal years were told again and again that politics was the art of the possible, but now we face a situation where we must do the impossible. 

Walter Benjamin once wrote: "Perhaps revolutions are not the train ride, but the human race grabbing for the emergency brake." Pulling that emergency brake today will require a global movement like we have never seen before.

[b]We are going to need a revolution. An energy revolution.  A social revolution. And a revolution in international relations -- waging war on climate change, instead of war on countries with the misfortunate of sitting on top of oil and other coveted resources.[/b]

[url=http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/derrick/2011/12/after-durban-we-must-pul...

Social democrats, of course, disagree profoundly with this analysis.