> Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004
>
> Global Justice Ecology Project's
> http://globaljusticeecologyproject.org Anne
> Petermann was in Durban,
> South Africa for the meeting that called for this
> global grassroots
> movement against climate change.
>
> Please Circulate Widely
>
> To sign on to the Climate Justice Now! statement
> please send an email
> to info@f...
>
> CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW!
> A CALL FOR PEOPLES' ACTION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
>
> Representatives from organizations and peoples'
> movements from around
> the globe came together in Durban, South Africa
> October 4-7, 2004 to
> discuss realistic avenues for addressing climate
> change. The group
> emerged from the meeting with this call for a global
> grassroots
> movement against climate change.
>
> Twelve years ago governments took serious note of
> and agreed to
> address the issue of global warming. They signed
> and ratified the
> Convention on Climate Change. Five years later,
> they agreed on the
> Kyoto Protocol, which was to establish concrete
> commitments to reduce
> fossil fuel emissions from Northern countries. This
> Protocol has yet
> to come into effect .
>
> The emission reductions that the Kyoto Protocol
> established for
> industrialized countries were only 5.2% below 1990
> levels-which most
> scientists agree is completely inadequate to
> effectively address
> global warming. Even these inadequate targets are
> being evaded
> through schemes such as carbon trading including the
> establishment of
> carbon "sinks" like monoculture tree
> plantations-mainly in the Global
> South. These schemes are being embraced by the very
> entities that
> are destroying the Earth. Meanwhile destruction of
> true carbon
> reservoirs like native forests continues unabated,
> leading to yet
> more releases of greenhouse gases.
>
> For this reason, the Durban Group calls on
> grassroots activists and
> organizations around the world to stand up for real
> action on climate
> change.
>
> Communities disproportionately impacted by climate
> change and the
> false "solutions" put forward by the Kyoto Protocol
> (including carbon
> sink projects and continued fossil fuel exploration,
> extraction and
> burning) include small island states, whose very
> existence is
> threatened, as well as indigenous peoples, the poor
> and the
> marginalized, particularly women, children and the
> elderly around the
> world.
>
> The refusal of governments and international
> financial institutions
> like the World Bank to force corporations to phase
> out use of fossil
> fuels, and which in fact encourage accelerated use
> of increasingly
> limited fossil fuel stocks, is causing more and more
> military
> conflicts around the world, magnifying social and
> environmental
> injustice.
>
> Just as peoples' movements are rising up around the
> world against the
> privatization of water and biodiversity, so must we
> rise up against
> the privatization of the air, which is being
> promoted through the
> establishment of a massive "carbon market."
>
> If we are to avert a climate crisis, drastic
> reductions in fossil
> fuel investment and use are inescapable, as is the
> protection of
> remaining native forests. The current flawed
> approach of
> international negotiations must be met by the active
> participation of
> a global movement of Northern and Southern peoples
> to take the
> climate back into their hands.
>
> We therefore call on activists, organizations and
> communities to sign
> on to The Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading
> (below) that emerged
> from the Durban meeting and join this growing global
> movement.
>

The Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading

>
> As representatives of people's movements and
> independent
> organisations, we reject the claim that carbon
> trading will halt the
> climate crisis. This crisis has been caused more
> than anything else
> by the mining of fossil fuels and the release of
> their carbon to the
> oceans, air, soil and living things. This excessive
> burning of fossil
> fuels is now jeopardising Earth's ability to
> maintain a liveable
> climate.
>
> Governments, export credit agencies, corporations
> and international
> financial institutions continue to support and
> finance fossil fuel
> exploration, extraction and other activities that
> worsen global
> warming, such as forest degradation and destruction
> on a massive
> scale, while dedicating only token sums to renewable
> energy. It is
> particularly disturbing that the World Bank has
> recently defied the
> recommendation of its own Extractive Industries
> Review which calls
> for the phasing out of World Bank financing for
> coal, oil and gas
> extraction.
>
> We denounce the further delays in ending fossil fuel
> extraction that
> are being caused by corporate, government and United
> Nations'
> attempts to construct a "carbon market", including a
> market trading
> in "carbon sinks".
>
> History has seen attempts to commodify land, food,
> labour, forests,
> water, genes and ideas. Carbon trading follows in
> the footsteps of
> this history and turns the earth's carbon-cycling
> capacity into
> property to be bought or sold in a global market.
> Through this
> process of creating a new commodity - carbon - the
> Earth's ability
> and capacity to support a climate conducive to life
> and human
> societies is now passing into the same corporate
> hands that are
> destroying the climate.
>
> People around the world need to be made aware of
> this commodification
> and privatization and actively intervene to ensure
> the protection of
> the Earth's climate.
>
> Carbon trading will not contribute to achieving this
> protection of
> the Earth's climate. It is a false solution which
> entrenches and
> magnifies social inequalities in many ways:
>
> * The carbon market creates transferable rights to
> dump carbon in the
> air, oceans, soil and vegetation far in excess of
> the capacity of
> these systems to hold it. Billions of dollars worth
> of these rights
> are to be awarded free of charge to the biggest
> corporate emitters of
> greenhouse gases in the electric power, iron and
> steel, cement, pulp
> and paper, and other sectors in industrialised
> nations who have
> caused the climate crisis and already exploit these
> systems the most.
> Costs of future reductions in fossil fuel use are
> likely to fall
> disproportionately on the public sector,
> communities, indigenous
> peoples and individual taxpayers.
>
> * The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism
> (CDM), as well as
> many private sector trading schemes, encourage
> industrialised
> countries and their corporations to finance or
> create cheap carbon
> dumps such as large-scale tree plantations in the
> South as a
> lucrative alternative to reducing emissions in the
> North. Other CDM
> projects, such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC)
> -reduction schemes,
> focus on end-of pipe technologies and thus do
> nothing to reduce the
> impact of fossil fuel industries' impacts on local
> communities. In
> addition, these projects dwarf the tiny volume of
> renewable energy
> projects which constitute the CDM's sustainable
> development
> window-dressing.
>
> * Impacts from fossil-fuel industries and other
> greenhouse-gas
> producing industries such as displacement,
> pollution, or climate
> change, are already disproportionately felt by small
> island states,
> coastal peoples, indigenous peoples, local
> communities, fisherfolk,
> women, youth, poor people, elderly and marginalized
> communities. CDM
> projects intensify these impacts in several ways.
> First, they
> sanction continued exploration for, and extraction,
> refining and
> burning of fossil fuels. Second, by providing
> finance for private
> sector projects such as industrial tree plantations,
> they appropriate
> land, water and air already supporting the lives and
> livelihoods of
> local communities for new carbon dumps for Northern
> industries.
>
> * The refusal to phase out the use of coal, oil and
> gas, which is
> further entrenched by carbon trading, is also
> causing more and more
> military conflicts around the world, magnifying
> social and
> environmental injustice. This in turn diverts vast
> resources to
> military budgets which could otherwise be utilized
> to support
> economies based on renewable energies and energy
> efficiency.
>
> In addition to these injustices, the internal
> weaknesses and
> contradictions of carbon trading are in fact likely
> to make global
> warming worse rather than "mitigate" it. CDM
> projects, for instance,
> cannot be verified to be "neutralizing" any given
> quantity of fossil
> fuel extraction and burning. Their claim to be able
> to do so is
> increasingly dangerous because it creates the
> illusion that
> consumption and production patterns, particularly in
> the North, can
> be maintained without harming the climate.
>
> In addition, because of the verification problem, as
> well as a lack
> of credible regulation, no one in the CDM market is
> likely to be sure
> what they are buying. Without a viable commodity to
> trade, the CDM
> market and similar private sector trading schemes
> are a total waste
> of time when the world has a critical climate crisis
> to address.
>
> In an absurd contradiction the World Bank
> facilitates these false,
> market-based approaches to climate change through
> its Prototype
> Carbon Fund, the BioCarbon Fund and the Community
> Development Carbon
> Fund at the same time it is promoting, on a far
> greater scale, the
> continued exploration for, and extraction and
> burning of fossil fuels
> - many of which are to ensure increased emissions of
> the North.
>
> In conclusion, 'giving carbon a price' will not
> prove to be any more
> effective, democratic, or conducive to human
> welfare, than giving
> genes, forests, biodiversity or clean rivers a
> price.
>
> We reaffirm that drastic reductions in emissions
> from fossil fuel use
> are a pre-requisite if we are to avert the climate
> crisis. We affirm
> our responsibility to coming generations to seek
> real solutions that
> are viable and truly sustainable and that do not
> sacrifice
> marginalized communities.
>
> We therefore commit ourselves to help build a global
> grassroots
> movement for climate justice, mobilize communities
> around the world
> and pledge our solidarity with people opposing
> carbon trading on the
> ground.
>
> Signed 10 October 2004
> Glenmore Centre, Durban, South Africa
>
> DURBAN MEETING SIGNATORIES
>
> Indigenous Environmental Network
> Carbon Trade Watch
> FERN
> FASE-ES, Brasil
> Global Justice Ecology Project, USA
> National Forum of Forest People And Forest workers
> (NFFPFW), India
> Patrick Bond, Professor, University of KwaZulu Natal
> School of
> Development Studies, South Africa
> SinksWatch, UK
> Siosiomagg, Samoa
> Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, USA
>
> See http://www.sinkswatch.org for up-to-date list of
> Durban meeting signatories
>
> SUPPORTING SIGNATORIES
>
> See http://www.sinkswatch.org for up-to-date list of
> supporting signatories
>
> To sign on to the statement please send an email to
> info@f...
>