Final Declaration of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Cochabamba, Bolivia
Today, our Mother Earth is wounded and the future of humanity is in danger.
If global warming increases by more than 2 degrees Celsius, a situation that the “Copenhagen Accord” could lead to, there is a 50% probability that the damages caused to our Mother Earth will be completely irreversible. Between 20% and 30% of species would be in danger of disappearing. Large extensions of forest would be affected, droughts and floods would affect different regions of the planet, deserts would expand, and the melting of the polar ice caps and the glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas would worsen. Many island states would disappear, and Africa would suffer an increase in temperature of more than 3 degrees Celsius. Likewise, the production of food would diminish in the world, causing catastrophic impact on the survival of inhabitants from vast regions in the planet, and the number of people in the world suffering from hunger would increase dramatically, a figure that already exceeds 1.02 billion people.
The corporations and governments of the so-called “developed” countries, in complicity with a segment of the scientific community, have led us to discuss climate change as a problem limited to the rise in temperature without questioning the cause, which is the capitalist system.
We confront the terminal crisis of a civilizing model that is patriarchal and based on the submission and destruction of human beings and nature that accelerated since the industrial revolution.
The capitalist system has imposed on us a logic of competition, progress and limitless growth. This regime of production and consumption seeks profit without limits, separating human beings from nature and imposing a logic of domination upon nature, transforming everything into commodities: water, earth, the human genome, ancestral cultures, biodiversity, justice, ethics, the rights of peoples, and life itself.
Under capitalism, Mother Earth is converted into a source of raw materials, and human beings into consumers and a means of production, into people that are seen as valuable only for what they own, and not for what they are.
Capitalism requires a powerful military industry for its processes of accumulation and imposition of control over territories and natural resources, suppressing the resistance of the peoples. It is an imperialist system of colonization of the planet.
Humanity confronts a great dilemma: to continue on the path of capitalism, depredation, and death, or to choose the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.
It is imperative that we forge a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings. And in order for there to be balance with nature, there must first be equity among human beings. We propose to the peoples of the world the recovery, revalorization, and strengthening of the knowledge, wisdom, and ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples, which are affirmed in the thought and practices of “Living Well,” recognizing Mother Earth as a living being with which we have an indivisible, interdependent, complementary and spiritual relationship. To face climate change, we must recognize Mother Earth as the source of life and forge a new system based on the principles of:
* harmony and balance among all and with all things;
* complementarity, solidarity, and equality;
* collective well-being and the satisfaction of the basic necessities of all;
* people in harmony with nature;
* recognition of human beings for what they are, not what they own;
* elimination of all forms of colonialism, imperialism and interventionism;
* peace among the peoples and with Mother Earth;
The model we support is not a model of limitless and destructive development. All countries need to produce the goods and services necessary to satisfy the fundamental needs of their populations, but by no means can they continue to follow the path of development that has led the richest countries to have an ecological footprint five times bigger than what the planet is able to support.
Currently, the regenerative capacity of the planet has been already exceeded by more than 30 percent. If this pace of over-exploitation of our Mother Earth continues, we will need two planets by the year 2030. In an interdependent system in which human beings are only one component, it is not possible to recognize rights only to the human part without provoking an imbalance in the system as a whole. To guarantee human rights and to restore harmony with nature, it is necessary to effectively recognize and apply the rights of Mother Earth. For this purpose, we propose the attached project for the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, in which it’s recorded that:
* The right to live and to exist;
* The right to be respected;
* The right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue it’s vital cycles and processes free of human alteration;
* The right to maintain their identity and integrity as differentiated beings, self-regulated and interrelated;
* The right to water as the source of life;
* The right to clean air;
* The right to comprehensive health;
* The right to be free of contamination and pollution, free of toxic and radioactive waste;
* The right to be free of alterations or modifications of it’s genetic structure in a manner that threatens it’s integrity or vital and healthy functioning;
* The right to prompt and full restoration for violations to the rights acknowledged in this Declaration caused by human activities.
The “shared vision” seeks to stabilize the concentrations of greenhouse gases to make effective the Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which states that “the stabilization of greenhouse gases concentrations in the atmosphere to a level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic inferences for the climate system.” Our vision is based on the principle of historical common but differentiated responsibilities, to demand the developed countries to commit with quantifiable goals of emission reduction that will allow to return the concentrations of greenhouse gases to 300 ppm, therefore the increase in the average world temperature to a maximum of one degree Celsius.
Emphasizing the need for urgent action to achieve this vision, and with the support of peoples, movements and countries, developed countries should commit to ambitious targets for reducing emissions that permit the achievement of short-term objectives, while maintaining our vision in favor of balance in the Earth’s climate system, in agreement with the ultimate objective of the Convention.
The “shared vision for long-term cooperative action” in climate change negotiations should not be reduced to defining the limit on temperature increases and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but must also incorporate in a balanced and integral manner measures regarding capacity building, production and consumption patterns, and other essential factors such as the acknowledging of the Rights of Mother Earth to establish harmony with nature.
Developed countries, as the main cause of climate change, in assuming their historical responsibility, must recognize and honor their climate debt in all of its dimensions as the basis for a just, effective, and scientific solution to climate change. In this context, we demand that developed countries:
* Restore to developing countries the atmospheric space that is occupied by their greenhouse gas emissions. This implies the decolonization of the atmosphere through the reduction and absorption of their emissions;
* Assume the costs and technology transfer needs of developing countries arising from the loss of development opportunities due to living in a restricted atmospheric space;
* Assume responsibility for the hundreds of millions of people that will be forced to migrate due to the climate change caused by these countries, and eliminate their restrictive immigration policies, offering migrants a decent life with full human rights guarantees in their countries;
* Assume adaptation debt related to the impacts of climate change on developing countries by providing the means to prevent, minimize, and deal with damages arising from their excessive emissions;
* Honor these debts as part of a broader debt to Mother Earth by adopting and implementing the United Nations Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.
The focus must not be only on financial compensation, but also on restorative justice, understood as the restitution of integrity to our Mother Earth and all its beings.
We deplore attempts by countries to annul the Kyoto Protocol, which is the sole legally binding instrument specific to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by developed countries.
We inform the world that, despite their obligation to reduce emissions, developed countries have increased their emissions by 11.2% in the period from 1990 to 2007.
During that same period, due to unbridled consumption, the United States of America has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 16.8%, reaching an average of 20 to 23 tons of CO2 per-person. This represents 9 times more than that of the average inhabitant of the “Third World,” and 20 times more than that of the average inhabitant of Sub-Saharan Africa.
We categorically reject the illegitimate “Copenhagen Accord” that allows developed countries to offer insufficient reductions in greenhouse gases based in voluntary and individual commitments, violating the environmental integrity of Mother Earth and leading us toward an increase in global temperatures of around 4°C.
The next Conference on Climate Change to be held at the end of 2010 in Mexico should approve an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period from 2013 to 2017 under which developed countries must agree to significant domestic emissions reductions of at least 50% based on 1990 levels, excluding carbon markets or other offset mechanisms that mask the failure of actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
We require first of all the establishment of a goal for the group of developed countries to achieve the assignment of individual commitments for each developed country under the framework of complementary efforts among each one, maintaining in this way Kyoto Protocol as the route to emissions reductions.
The United States, as the only Annex 1 country on Earth that did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, has a significant responsibility toward all peoples of the world to ratify this document and commit itself to respecting and complying with emissions reduction targets on a scale appropriate to the total size of its economy.
We the peoples have the equal right to be protected from the adverse effects of climate change and reject the notion of adaptation to climate change as understood as a resignation to impacts provoked by the historical emissions of developed countries, which themselves must adapt their modes of life and consumption in the face of this global emergency. We see it as imperative to confront the adverse effects of climate change, and consider adaptation to be a process rather than an imposition, as well as a tool that can serve to help offset those effects, demonstrating that it is possible to achieve harmony with nature under a different model for living.
It is necessary to construct an Adaptation Fund exclusively for addressing climate change as part of a financial mechanism that is managed in a sovereign, transparent, and equitable manner for all States. This Fund should assess the impacts and costs of climate change in developing countries and needs deriving from these impacts, and monitor support on the part of developed countries. It should also include a mechanism for compensation for current and future damages, loss of opportunities due to extreme and gradual climactic events, and additional costs that could present themselves if our planet surpasses ecological thresholds, such as those impacts that present obstacles to “Living Well.”
The “Copenhagen Accord” imposed on developing countries by a few States, beyond simply offering insufficient resources, attempts as well to divide and create confrontation between peoples and to extort developing countries by placing conditions on access to adaptation and mitigation resources. We also assert as unacceptable the attempt in processes of international negotiation to classify developing countries for their vulnerability to climate change, generating disputes, inequalities and segregation among them.
The immense challenge humanity faces of stopping global warming and cooling the planet can only be achieved through a profound shift in agricultural practices toward the sustainable model of production used by indigenous and rural farming peoples, as well as other ancestral models and practices that contribute to solving the problem of agriculture and food sovereignty. This is understood as the right of peoples to control their own seeds, lands, water, and food production, thereby guaranteeing, through forms of production that are in harmony with Mother Earth and appropriate to local cultural contexts, access to sufficient, varied and nutritious foods in complementarity with Mother Earth and deepening the autonomous (participatory, communal and shared) production of every nation and people.
Climate change is now producing profound impacts on agriculture and the ways of life of indigenous peoples and farmers throughout the world, and these impacts will worsen in the future.
Agribusiness, through its social, economic, and cultural model of global capitalist production and its logic of producing food for the market and not to fulfill the right to proper nutrition, is one of the principal causes of climate change. Its technological, commercial, and political approach only serves to deepen the climate change crisis and increase hunger in the world. For this reason, we reject Free Trade Agreements and Association Agreements and all forms of the application of Intellectual Property Rights to life, current technological packages (agrochemicals, genetic modification) and those that offer false solutions (biofuels, geo-engineering, nanotechnology, etc.) that only exacerbate the current crisis.
We similarly denounce the way in which the capitalist model imposes mega-infrastructure projects and invades territories with extractive projects, water privatization, and militarized territories, expelling indigenous peoples from their lands, inhibiting food sovereignty and deepening socio-environmental crisis.
We demand recognition of the right of all peoples, living beings, and Mother Earth to have access to water, and we support the proposal of the Government of Bolivia to recognize water as a Fundamental Human Right.
The definition of forests used in the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which includes plantations, is unacceptable. Monoculture plantations are not forests. Therefore, we require a definition for negotiation purposes that recognizes the native forests, jungles and the diverse ecosystems on Earth.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be fully recognized, implemented and integrated in climate change negotiations. The best strategy and action to avoid deforestation and degradation and protect native forests and jungles is to recognize and guarantee collective rights to lands and territories, especially considering that most of the forests are located within the territories of indigenous peoples and nations and other traditional communities.
We condemn market mechanisms such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and its versions + and + +, which are violating the sovereignty of peoples and their right to prior free and informed consent as well as the sovereignty of national States, the customs of Peoples, and the Rights of Nature.
Polluting countries have an obligation to carry out direct transfers of the economic and technological resources needed to pay for the restoration and maintenance of forests in favor of the peoples and indigenous ancestral organic structures. Compensation must be direct and in addition to the sources of funding promised by developed countries outside of the carbon market, and never serve as carbon offsets. We demand that countries stop actions on local forests based on market mechanisms and propose non-existent and conditional results. We call on governments to create a global program to restore native forests and jungles, managed and administered by the peoples, implementing forest seeds, fruit trees, and native flora. Governments should eliminate forest concessions and support the conservation of petroleum deposits in the ground and urgently stop the exploitation of hydrocarbons in forestlands.
We call upon States to recognize, respect and guarantee the effective implementation of international human rights standards and the rights of indigenous peoples, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples under ILO Convention 169, among other relevant instruments in the negotiations, policies and measures used to meet the challenges posed by climate change. In particular, we call upon States to give legal recognition to claims over territories, lands and natural resources to enable and strengthen our traditional ways of life and contribute effectively to solving climate change.
We demand the full and effective implementation of the right to consultation, participation and prior, free and informed consent of indigenous peoples in all negotiation processes, and in the design and implementation of measures related to climate change.
Environmental degradation and climate change are currently reaching critical levels, and one of the main consequences of this is domestic and international migration. According to projections, there were already about 25 million climate migrants by 1995. Current estimates are around 50 million, and projections suggest that between 200 million and 1 billion people will become displaced by situations resulting from climate change by the year 2050.
Developed countries should assume responsibility for climate migrants, welcoming them into their territories and recognizing their fundamental rights through the signing of international conventions that provide for the definition of climate migrant and require all States to abide by abide by determinations.
Establish an International Tribunal of Conscience to denounce, make visible, document, judge and punish violations of the rights of migrants, refugees and displaced persons within countries of origin, transit and destination, clearly identifying the responsibilities of States, companies and other agents.
Current funding directed toward developing countries for climate change and the proposal of the Copenhagen Accord are insignificant. In addition to Official Development Assistance and public sources, developed countries must commit to a new annual funding of at least 6% of GDP to tackle climate change in developing countries. This is viable considering that a similar amount is spent on national defense, and that 5 times more have been put forth to rescue failing banks and speculators, which raises serious questions about global priorities and political will. This funding should be direct and free of conditions, and should not interfere with the national sovereignty or self-determination of the most affected communities and groups.
In view of the inefficiency of the current mechanism, a new funding mechanism should be established at the 2010 Climate Change Conference in Mexico, functioning under the authority of the Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and held accountable to it, with significant representation of developing countries, to ensure compliance with the funding commitments of Annex 1 countries.
It has been stated that developed countries significantly increased their emissions in the period from 1990 to 2007, despite having stated that the reduction would be substantially supported by market mechanisms.
The carbon market has become a lucrative business, commodifying our Mother Earth. It is therefore not an alternative for tackle climate change, as it loots and ravages the land, water, and even life itself.
The recent financial crisis has demonstrated that the market is incapable of regulating the financial system, which is fragile and uncertain due to speculation and the emergence of intermediary brokers. Therefore, it would be totally irresponsible to leave in their hands the care and protection of human existence and of our Mother Earth.
We consider inadmissible that current negotiations propose the creation of new mechanisms that extend and promote the carbon market, for existing mechanisms have not resolved the problem of climate change nor led to real and direct actions to reduce greenhouse gases. It is necessary to demand fulfillment of the commitments assumed by developed countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change regarding development and technology transfer, and to reject the “technology showcase” proposed by developed countries that only markets technology. It is essential to establish guidelines in order to create a multilateral and multidisciplinary mechanism for participatory control, management, and evaluation of the exchange of technologies. These technologies must be useful, clean and socially sound. Likewise, it is fundamental to establish a fund for the financing and inventory of technologies that are appropriate and free of intellectual property rights. Patents, in particular, should move from the hands of private monopolies to the public domain in order to promote accessibility and low costs.
Knowledge is universal, and should for no reason be the object of private property or private use, nor should its application in the form of technology. Developed countries have a responsibility to share their technology with developing countries, to build research centers in developing countries for the creation of technologies and innovations, and defend and promote their development and application for “living well.” The world must recover and re-learn ancestral principles and approaches from native peoples to stop the destruction of the planet, as well as promote ancestral practices, knowledge and spirituality to recuperate the capacity for “living well” in harmony with Mother Earth.
Considering the lack of political will on the part of developed countries to effectively comply with commitments and obligations assumed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, and given the lack of a legal international organism to guard against and sanction climate and environmental crimes that violate the Rights of Mother Earth and humanity, we demand the creation of an International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal that has the legal capacity to prevent, judge and penalize States, industries and people that by commission or omission contaminate and provoke climate change.
Supporting States that present claims at the International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal against developed countries that fail to comply with commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol including commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.
We urge peoples to propose and promote deep reform within the United Nations, so that all member States comply with the decisions of the International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal.
The future of humanity is in danger, and we cannot allow a group of leaders from developed countries to decide for all countries as they tried unsuccessfully to do at the Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen. This decision concerns us all. Thus, it is essential to carry out a global referendum or popular consultation on climate change in which all are consulted regarding the following issues; the level of emission reductions on the part of developed countries and transnational corporations, financing to be offered by developed countries, the creation of an International Climate Justice Tribunal, the need for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and the need to change the current capitalist system. The process of a global referendum or popular consultation will depend on process of preparation that ensures the successful development of the same.
In order to coordinate our international action and implement the results of this “Accord of the Peoples,” we call for the building of a Global People’s Movement for Mother Earth, which should be based on the principles of complementarity and respect for the diversity of origin and visions among its members, constituting a broad and democratic space for coordination and joint worldwide actions.
To this end, we adopt the attached global plan of action so that in Mexico, the developed countries listed in Annex 1 respect the existing legal framework and reduce their greenhouse gases emissions by 50%, and that the different proposals contained in this Agreement are adopted.
Finally, we agree to undertake a Second World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in 2011 as part of this process of building the Global People’s Movement for Mother Earth and reacting to the outcomes of the Climate Change Conference to be held at the end of this year in Cancun, Mexico.
Combating climate change: lessons from the world’s indigenous peoples
Evo Morales
When I arrived at the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in late last year, the first thing that struck me were environmental activists braving the freezing weather to voice their disappointment at being locked out of the largest ever international meeting on climate change. Inside the conference, I realized that Bolivia was in a position similar to that of the protesters outside. We, the representatives of the majority of the world's peoples, were effectively being left in the cold while a tiny group dominated by a few rich governments met in private to produce an unacceptable compromise (similar to the approach J. Bradford Delong supported in his April 22 Times Op-Ed article). When asked to add our signature to the badly named "accord," my government would not compromise its dignity and refused to sign.
As an indigenous leader from Bolivia, I know what exclusion looks like. Before 1952, my people were not allowed to even enter the main squares of Bolivia's cities, and there were almost no indigenous politicians in government until the late 1990s. In 2006, I entered the presidential palace in the main square of La Paz as the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Our government, under the slogan "Bolivia Changes," is committed to ending the colonialism, racism and exclusion that many of our people lived under for many centuries.
This is why Bolivia will not accept an agreement reached between the world's biggest polluters that is based on the exclusion of the very countries, communities and peoples who will suffer most from the consequences of climate change. In fact, some scientists tell us that the Copenhagen Accord could lead to temperature increases that would threaten much of humanity. This is why I said in Copenhagen that if governments could not come to an agreement because of self-interest or ideology, it is time for the people to decide.
We put that call into action this week by hosting a World People's Conference on Climate Change in Bolivia, in the heart of the Andes mountains. We first expected about 10,000 people to attend, but in the end more than 31,000 people were present from more than 140 countries. Forty eight governments were represented by heads of state, ministers or other officials. Everyone came to work, in particular to produce concrete documents and proposals on 17 different themes related to the single most important issue of our lifetime.
United by deep concern and a shared hope, this diverse group of peoples asked the questions that have been largely absent in international meetings: What are the structural causes of climate change? If the human race is to survive, how must it re-think its relationship with Mother Earth? How can we as human beings collectively end irrational industrialization and consumption to cease provoking irreparable harm to our environment?
In seeking to address these important questions, the human race can benefit from the wisdom of the world's indigenous peoples, who understand that we must live in harmony with nature. The peoples of the Andes believe in the concept of "living well" instead of wanting to "live better" by consuming more regardless of the cost to our neighbors and our environment. It is with these ancient teachings in mind that, exactly one year ago, the United Nations General Assembly accepted Bolivia's proposal to celebrate International Mother Earth Day on April 22, which coincides with the final day of our conference.
We now propose to go one step further and begin collectively drafting a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. This will establish a legal framework for protecting our increasingly threatened natural environment and raising the global consciousness about Mother Earth, on which we all depend for life.
This was one of many proposals discussed in Cochabamba this week. During the intense and wide-ranging debates at the People's Conference, we never expected to immediately agree on a global solution, but we do have the ambition of putting forward concrete proposals that represent a fundamentally democratic, inclusive and equitable approach to addressing climate change. We invite you to be a part of this urgent, ongoing dialogue, which remains open to all peoples and all governments that co-exist on this unique and fragile planet.
Evo Morales is president of the Plurinational Republic of Bolivia.
Republished from LA Times
When I arrived at the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in late last year, the first thing that struck me were environmental activists braving the freezing weather to voice their disappointment at being locked out of the largest ever international meeting on climate change. Inside the conference, I realized that Bolivia was in a position similar to that of the protesters outside. We, the representatives of the majority of the world's peoples, were effectively being left in the cold while a tiny group dominated by a few rich governments met in private to produce an unacceptable compromise (similar to the approach J. Bradford Delong supported in his April 22 Times Op-Ed article). When asked to add our signature to the badly named "accord," my government would not compromise its dignity and refused to sign.
As an indigenous leader from Bolivia, I know what exclusion looks like. Before 1952, my people were not allowed to even enter the main squares of Bolivia's cities, and there were almost no indigenous politicians in government until the late 1990s. In 2006, I entered the presidential palace in the main square of La Paz as the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Our government, under the slogan "Bolivia Changes," is committed to ending the colonialism, racism and exclusion that many of our people lived under for many centuries.
This is why Bolivia will not accept an agreement reached between the world's biggest polluters that is based on the exclusion of the very countries, communities and peoples who will suffer most from the consequences of climate change. In fact, some scientists tell us that the Copenhagen Accord could lead to temperature increases that would threaten much of humanity. This is why I said in Copenhagen that if governments could not come to an agreement because of self-interest or ideology, it is time for the people to decide.
We put that call into action this week by hosting a World People's Conference on Climate Change in Bolivia, in the heart of the Andes mountains. We first expected about 10,000 people to attend, but in the end more than 31,000 people were present from more than 140 countries. Forty eight governments were represented by heads of state, ministers or other officials. Everyone came to work, in particular to produce concrete documents and proposals on 17 different themes related to the single most important issue of our lifetime.
United by deep concern and a shared hope, this diverse group of peoples asked the questions that have been largely absent in international meetings: What are the structural causes of climate change? If the human race is to survive, how must it re-think its relationship with Mother Earth? How can we as human beings collectively end irrational industrialization and consumption to cease provoking irreparable harm to our environment?
In seeking to address these important questions, the human race can benefit from the wisdom of the world's indigenous peoples, who understand that we must live in harmony with nature. The peoples of the Andes believe in the concept of "living well" instead of wanting to "live better" by consuming more regardless of the cost to our neighbors and our environment. It is with these ancient teachings in mind that, exactly one year ago, the United Nations General Assembly accepted Bolivia's proposal to celebrate International Mother Earth Day on April 22, which coincides with the final day of our conference.
We now propose to go one step further and begin collectively drafting a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. This will establish a legal framework for protecting our increasingly threatened natural environment and raising the global consciousness about Mother Earth, on which we all depend for life.
This was one of many proposals discussed in Cochabamba this week. During the intense and wide-ranging debates at the People's Conference, we never expected to immediately agree on a global solution, but we do have the ambition of putting forward concrete proposals that represent a fundamentally democratic, inclusive and equitable approach to addressing climate change. We invite you to be a part of this urgent, ongoing dialogue, which remains open to all peoples and all governments that co-exist on this unique and fragile planet.
Evo Morales is president of the Plurinational Republic of Bolivia.
Republished from LA Times
Climate battle moves to Bolivia
Martin Khor
Last week over 30,000 people converged in the Bolivian town of Cochabamba in the heart of the Andes mountains for an unusual summit on climate change – it involved thousands of grassroots leaders as well as some political leaders and government officials.
It was a stark contrast to the stuffy conference rooms and diplomatic language of the formal climate negotiations. Indeed the 4-day People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was meant to both challenge and to contribute to the United Nations’ official climate talks.
The Cochabamba gathering was convened by Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, as a response to what he saw was the unfair way in which the Copenhagen climate conference was organised.
“When I arrived in Copenhagen, I was struck by environmental activists braving the freezing weather to voice their disappointment at being locked out of the meeting,” said Morales, an indigenous people’s leader who came to power some years ago on the wave of a popular movement.
“Inside the conference, I realized that Bolivia was in a position similar to that of the protesters outside. We, the representatives of the majority of the world’s peoples, were effectively being left in the cold while a tiny group dominated by a few rich governments met in private to produce an unacceptable compromise…which we refused to sign.
“Bolivia will not accept an agreement reached between the world’s biggest polluters that is based on the exclusion of the very countries, communities and peoples who will suffer most from the consequences of climate change…If governments could not come to an agreement because of self-interest or ideology, it is time for the people to decide.”
The Conference was organised to give grassroots groups, and especially indigenous people, the chance to be in the spotlight and air their views on how to tackle the climate crisis. Bolivia pledged to bring the results of the meeting into the UN’s negotiating halls.
Working groups on 17 topics discussed a variety of issues, and a summary of their conclusions was put into a 6-page Agreement of the People.
Since the crowd of participants was so big, a closing ceremony was held in a stadium, and leaders of social movements and environmental groups shared the limelight with Morales, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other political leaders from the region.
The People’s Agreement called on developed countries to cut their greenhouse gases by 50% by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels). It also wanted the average global temperature rise to be limited to 1 degree celsius and greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere to be brought to below 300 ppm.
These are ambitious targets which the participants argued are needed because of how serious the situation is. In contrast, the Copenhagen Accord goal is a limit of 2 degrees. At this level, says the People’s Agreement, there is a 50% chance of irreversible damage to the Earth, with many parts of the world becoming inhabitable.
The Agreement also called for the establishment of an International Court of Climate and Environmental Justice to prosecute states, companies and people who are damaging the climate, and a global referendum on how the world should tackle the climate crisis.
The Conference also set a target for developed countries to contribute 6% of their GNP to enable developing countries to take climate actions.
Technology should also be made available at low cost to developing countries, which should thus be be allowed to exclude patents on climate-related technologies.
The Agreement gives prominence to the Rights of Mother Earth and the need for humanity to live in harmony with nature.
A prominent issue was water, reflected in the Agreement’s demand “to recognize the right of all peoples, living beings and Mother Earth to access and enjoy water” and that the right to water should be recognized as a fundamental human right.
This emphasis on water is not surprising for two reasons. Firstly, the glaciers in the Andes are disappearing as a result of climate change, and this is having a severe effect on water supplies and agriculture in Bolivia and neighbouring countries.
And secondly, it was in Cochamamba that the Bolivian “water wars” took place a decade ago, when thousands of people protested against the privatisation of the country’s water system to a foreign company. They were afraid that this would lead to higher prices of and reduced access to water.
In the forefront of the protest were the indigenous people who comprise a majority of the population, and their leader Evo Morales, and this movement for the public control over water helped sweep him to power.
According to a BBC report last week, climate change has led to irregular water flows in the Andes mountains of Bolivia, and the streams have become torrents or dwindle to just trickles.
It quotes Max, an elderly Aymara Indian as saying: “We are very worried because we have no water. Half the people of this community have already left. Those who remain are struggling with the lack of water.
“The weather has drastically changed and it is now two or three times hotter than it was. We cannot water our crops and the sun and the heat are very strong. Our crops are dry now, our animals are dying; we want to cry.”
And a community leader, Alivio Aruquipa, who is taking the community’s case to international fora, added: “For the past two decades, we, the people from the Andean regions have been suffering because of the greenhouse emissions from the developed countries. If they don’t stop our glaciers will disappear soon.”
This is the background to why Bolivia wants a world climate tribunal to be set up, so that cases such as this can be taken up and those causing the problems will be made responsible for restoring the environment and compensating the victims.
“What we want to achieve is justice,” said Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations and the main organiser of last week’s conference.
“When we say climate justice tribunal, we are speaking about how to sanction actions that seriously affect the environment and have consequences for populations, for nations that may even disappear beneath the ocean,” he told the BBC.
“You might be on one side of the world, but what you do is affecting somebody else in another continent very far away…There might be, there will be, millions of people who are affected, and may even die, because of those actions.
“The situation we are facing deserves a new judicial system. Cochabamba is the beginning of the discussion. The beginning of a very big fight.”
Martin Khor is executive director of the South Centre and former director of Third World Network.
Republished from Climate Justice Now!
Last week over 30,000 people converged in the Bolivian town of Cochabamba in the heart of the Andes mountains for an unusual summit on climate change – it involved thousands of grassroots leaders as well as some political leaders and government officials.
It was a stark contrast to the stuffy conference rooms and diplomatic language of the formal climate negotiations. Indeed the 4-day People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was meant to both challenge and to contribute to the United Nations’ official climate talks.
The Cochabamba gathering was convened by Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, as a response to what he saw was the unfair way in which the Copenhagen climate conference was organised.
“When I arrived in Copenhagen, I was struck by environmental activists braving the freezing weather to voice their disappointment at being locked out of the meeting,” said Morales, an indigenous people’s leader who came to power some years ago on the wave of a popular movement.
“Inside the conference, I realized that Bolivia was in a position similar to that of the protesters outside. We, the representatives of the majority of the world’s peoples, were effectively being left in the cold while a tiny group dominated by a few rich governments met in private to produce an unacceptable compromise…which we refused to sign.
“Bolivia will not accept an agreement reached between the world’s biggest polluters that is based on the exclusion of the very countries, communities and peoples who will suffer most from the consequences of climate change…If governments could not come to an agreement because of self-interest or ideology, it is time for the people to decide.”
The Conference was organised to give grassroots groups, and especially indigenous people, the chance to be in the spotlight and air their views on how to tackle the climate crisis. Bolivia pledged to bring the results of the meeting into the UN’s negotiating halls.
Working groups on 17 topics discussed a variety of issues, and a summary of their conclusions was put into a 6-page Agreement of the People.
Since the crowd of participants was so big, a closing ceremony was held in a stadium, and leaders of social movements and environmental groups shared the limelight with Morales, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other political leaders from the region.
The People’s Agreement called on developed countries to cut their greenhouse gases by 50% by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels). It also wanted the average global temperature rise to be limited to 1 degree celsius and greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere to be brought to below 300 ppm.
These are ambitious targets which the participants argued are needed because of how serious the situation is. In contrast, the Copenhagen Accord goal is a limit of 2 degrees. At this level, says the People’s Agreement, there is a 50% chance of irreversible damage to the Earth, with many parts of the world becoming inhabitable.
The Agreement also called for the establishment of an International Court of Climate and Environmental Justice to prosecute states, companies and people who are damaging the climate, and a global referendum on how the world should tackle the climate crisis.
The Conference also set a target for developed countries to contribute 6% of their GNP to enable developing countries to take climate actions.
Technology should also be made available at low cost to developing countries, which should thus be be allowed to exclude patents on climate-related technologies.
The Agreement gives prominence to the Rights of Mother Earth and the need for humanity to live in harmony with nature.
A prominent issue was water, reflected in the Agreement’s demand “to recognize the right of all peoples, living beings and Mother Earth to access and enjoy water” and that the right to water should be recognized as a fundamental human right.
This emphasis on water is not surprising for two reasons. Firstly, the glaciers in the Andes are disappearing as a result of climate change, and this is having a severe effect on water supplies and agriculture in Bolivia and neighbouring countries.
And secondly, it was in Cochamamba that the Bolivian “water wars” took place a decade ago, when thousands of people protested against the privatisation of the country’s water system to a foreign company. They were afraid that this would lead to higher prices of and reduced access to water.
In the forefront of the protest were the indigenous people who comprise a majority of the population, and their leader Evo Morales, and this movement for the public control over water helped sweep him to power.
According to a BBC report last week, climate change has led to irregular water flows in the Andes mountains of Bolivia, and the streams have become torrents or dwindle to just trickles.
It quotes Max, an elderly Aymara Indian as saying: “We are very worried because we have no water. Half the people of this community have already left. Those who remain are struggling with the lack of water.
“The weather has drastically changed and it is now two or three times hotter than it was. We cannot water our crops and the sun and the heat are very strong. Our crops are dry now, our animals are dying; we want to cry.”
And a community leader, Alivio Aruquipa, who is taking the community’s case to international fora, added: “For the past two decades, we, the people from the Andean regions have been suffering because of the greenhouse emissions from the developed countries. If they don’t stop our glaciers will disappear soon.”
This is the background to why Bolivia wants a world climate tribunal to be set up, so that cases such as this can be taken up and those causing the problems will be made responsible for restoring the environment and compensating the victims.
“What we want to achieve is justice,” said Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations and the main organiser of last week’s conference.
“When we say climate justice tribunal, we are speaking about how to sanction actions that seriously affect the environment and have consequences for populations, for nations that may even disappear beneath the ocean,” he told the BBC.
“You might be on one side of the world, but what you do is affecting somebody else in another continent very far away…There might be, there will be, millions of people who are affected, and may even die, because of those actions.
“The situation we are facing deserves a new judicial system. Cochabamba is the beginning of the discussion. The beginning of a very big fight.”
Martin Khor is executive director of the South Centre and former director of Third World Network.
Republished from Climate Justice Now!
Bolivia slams Japan mining firm for 'plundering' resources
AFP, La Paz — Bolivia's foreign minister accused a Japanese mining subsidiary Sunday of "plundering" natural resources in the South American country while exploiting lead and silver, amid a dispute between the firm and local farmers.
Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca told local media that San Cristobal, a company owned by Japanese trading giant Sumitomo, "doesn't pay a cent" for its consumption of some 600 liters (158 gallons) of water per second for its metal mining operations.
The company is "a multinational that steals our natural resources, plundering tonnes of minerals every day but does not pay" for its water usage, he told La Prensa newspaper.
Choquehuanca lamented that previous governments passed legislation favorable to foreign mining concerns, and said the administration of socialist President Evo Morales was working to change the laws.
San Cristobal's offices in the region of Lipez, 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of the capital La Paz, were seized Friday by locals.
According to its website, San Cristobal produces about 600,000 tonnes of lead and silver concentrates per year.
The minister's comments came two weeks after Tokyo business daily Nikkei reported that Japan was planning to offer economic aid to countries rich in rare metals that could be used in environmentally friendly cars -- beginning with Bolivia.
The newspaper said Japan was looking to offer tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) in loans as early as May to help build a 100-megawatt geothermal power plant in Bolivia.
Bolivia is believed to hold about half of the world's deposits of lithium, which is used in manufacturing lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars.
Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca told local media that San Cristobal, a company owned by Japanese trading giant Sumitomo, "doesn't pay a cent" for its consumption of some 600 liters (158 gallons) of water per second for its metal mining operations.
The company is "a multinational that steals our natural resources, plundering tonnes of minerals every day but does not pay" for its water usage, he told La Prensa newspaper.
Choquehuanca lamented that previous governments passed legislation favorable to foreign mining concerns, and said the administration of socialist President Evo Morales was working to change the laws.
San Cristobal's offices in the region of Lipez, 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of the capital La Paz, were seized Friday by locals.
According to its website, San Cristobal produces about 600,000 tonnes of lead and silver concentrates per year.
The minister's comments came two weeks after Tokyo business daily Nikkei reported that Japan was planning to offer economic aid to countries rich in rare metals that could be used in environmentally friendly cars -- beginning with Bolivia.
The newspaper said Japan was looking to offer tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) in loans as early as May to help build a 100-megawatt geothermal power plant in Bolivia.
Bolivia is believed to hold about half of the world's deposits of lithium, which is used in manufacturing lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars.
Climate Change: Voice of Civil Society Loud and Clear in Cochabamba, Bolivia
Daniela Estrada*
SANTIAGO, Apr 19, 2010 (Tierramérica) - The success of the climate change conference taking place in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba will depend on how unified civil society ultimately is in its efforts to influence the United Nations climate summit, in Mexico, say Latin American activists.
The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Apr. 19-22, convened by Bolivia's President Evo Morales, has brought together some 12,000 people from 130 countries, including international personalities, representatives from citizen groups and government officials.
The bulk of the debate will be led by civil society, which tends to oppose the market-based mechanisms proposed by most of the governments to fight climate change, and this is fuelling doubts about just how much impact the Bolivian forum will have on the official climate talks taking place within the United Nations.
Only presidents who are personally close to Morales are attending the Cochabamba conference, such as Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Other governments, like those of Brazil and Chile, will not participate. "I think it's a very important space for coming together, where it will be possible to discuss and come to agreement on our positions and strategies, but that depends on the organisations that participate," Colombian Lydia Fernanda Forero, member of the council of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, told Tierramérica.
The Alliance, an umbrella of grassroots organisations and networks from Canada to Chile, will have a greater presence in Cochabamba than it did at Klimaforum 2009, the civil society summit held in December in parallel to the 15th Conference of Parties (COP 15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"Thanks to (President) Morales we have a rainbow of social and political entities behind this issue that we couldn't have even dreamed of four months ago," including student and labour groups, said Eduardo Giesen, the Latin America coordinator of Friends of the Earth International's climate justice programme.
For Alejandro Yianello, of Argentina's Piuké Ecologist Association, "it's an advance that there are other actors discussing the issue " besides those associated with COP 15. He told Tierramérica that he applauds the Cochabamba conference's shift of the focus towards "the rights of Mother Earth."
Massioli, of the Brazilian Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST - Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) and of Vía Campesina International, said in an interview with Tierramérica that the conference will not be a "trade fair" but rather "an important space for information, reflection, dialogue and coordination among peoples."
The conference's 17 working groups will deal with issues like the structural causes of global warming and the Bolivian proposal to create an international tribunal for climate justice and convene a climate referendum of the peoples of the world.
Also up for discussion is the situation of indigenous peoples and of "climate migrants," and possible solutions for financing the transfer of technologies necessary for communities to adapt to the effects of climate change.
"Morales's call synthesises what many social movements in Latin America have been proposing in a fragmented way," which poses a big challenge to the organisations, said Lucio Cuenca, director of the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts, in Chile.
Mexico, which will host the COP 16 in December - an effort to reverse the failure of the Copenhagen meet -, is represented in Cochabamba by delegates from at least seven environmental groups.
"Our general proposal is to say 'no' to the false solutions against climate change offered by nearly all governments, such as market mechanisms that do not have mitigating effects," Miguel Valencia, an organiser of Klimaforum 2009, told Tierramérica.
"Cochabamba can be a democratic space for developing organisational capacity to build accord within civil society," said Claudia Gómez, of the non-governmental Mexican Centre for Environmental Law.
But not everyone sees this forum as an opportunity to strengthen civil society's role in the climate change debate.
The non-governmental Wildlife (Vida Silvestre) Foundation, which last month in Argentina led the campaign to turn out the lights to fight climate change, will not participate in the conference "due to budget issues" and because "it is more a meeting for indigenous organisations," said foundation member María José Pachá. "It's not a UN meeting," she said.
Hernán Giardini, delegate from Greenpeace Argentina, is participating in the Bolivia meet, but told Tierramérica that he hopes it doesn't turn into an alternative process to that of the UN. It is the United Nations where decisions are made, he said.
In contrast, the director of the non-governmental Sustainable Chile Programme, Sara Larraín, believes the Cochabamba conference represents precisely the possibility of recuperating "international democratic governability," given the failure of the official talks.
"We believe the people's conference is a fundamental space because if a pole of subversion and response is not created, and if we don't take the floor from the governments, there is no possibility that the negotiations will advance," Larraín stated to Tierramérica.
"We are going with the expectation of the creation of a genuine social and popular movement that takes up the environmental questions - in this case the climate crisis - as a social and socio-political problem, and that it is constituted beyond the non-governmental environmental organisations," said Friends of the Earth's Giesen.
(*Emilio Godoy in Mexico City, Marcela Valente in Buenos Aires, Franz Chávez in La Paz, and Fabiana Frayssinet in Rio de Janeiro contributed reporting. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)
Republished from IPS News
SANTIAGO, Apr 19, 2010 (Tierramérica) - The success of the climate change conference taking place in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba will depend on how unified civil society ultimately is in its efforts to influence the United Nations climate summit, in Mexico, say Latin American activists.
The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Apr. 19-22, convened by Bolivia's President Evo Morales, has brought together some 12,000 people from 130 countries, including international personalities, representatives from citizen groups and government officials.
The bulk of the debate will be led by civil society, which tends to oppose the market-based mechanisms proposed by most of the governments to fight climate change, and this is fuelling doubts about just how much impact the Bolivian forum will have on the official climate talks taking place within the United Nations.
Only presidents who are personally close to Morales are attending the Cochabamba conference, such as Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Other governments, like those of Brazil and Chile, will not participate. "I think it's a very important space for coming together, where it will be possible to discuss and come to agreement on our positions and strategies, but that depends on the organisations that participate," Colombian Lydia Fernanda Forero, member of the council of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, told Tierramérica.
The Alliance, an umbrella of grassroots organisations and networks from Canada to Chile, will have a greater presence in Cochabamba than it did at Klimaforum 2009, the civil society summit held in December in parallel to the 15th Conference of Parties (COP 15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"Thanks to (President) Morales we have a rainbow of social and political entities behind this issue that we couldn't have even dreamed of four months ago," including student and labour groups, said Eduardo Giesen, the Latin America coordinator of Friends of the Earth International's climate justice programme.
For Alejandro Yianello, of Argentina's Piuké Ecologist Association, "it's an advance that there are other actors discussing the issue " besides those associated with COP 15. He told Tierramérica that he applauds the Cochabamba conference's shift of the focus towards "the rights of Mother Earth."
Massioli, of the Brazilian Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST - Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) and of Vía Campesina International, said in an interview with Tierramérica that the conference will not be a "trade fair" but rather "an important space for information, reflection, dialogue and coordination among peoples."
The conference's 17 working groups will deal with issues like the structural causes of global warming and the Bolivian proposal to create an international tribunal for climate justice and convene a climate referendum of the peoples of the world.
Also up for discussion is the situation of indigenous peoples and of "climate migrants," and possible solutions for financing the transfer of technologies necessary for communities to adapt to the effects of climate change.
"Morales's call synthesises what many social movements in Latin America have been proposing in a fragmented way," which poses a big challenge to the organisations, said Lucio Cuenca, director of the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts, in Chile.
Mexico, which will host the COP 16 in December - an effort to reverse the failure of the Copenhagen meet -, is represented in Cochabamba by delegates from at least seven environmental groups.
"Our general proposal is to say 'no' to the false solutions against climate change offered by nearly all governments, such as market mechanisms that do not have mitigating effects," Miguel Valencia, an organiser of Klimaforum 2009, told Tierramérica.
"Cochabamba can be a democratic space for developing organisational capacity to build accord within civil society," said Claudia Gómez, of the non-governmental Mexican Centre for Environmental Law.
But not everyone sees this forum as an opportunity to strengthen civil society's role in the climate change debate.
The non-governmental Wildlife (Vida Silvestre) Foundation, which last month in Argentina led the campaign to turn out the lights to fight climate change, will not participate in the conference "due to budget issues" and because "it is more a meeting for indigenous organisations," said foundation member María José Pachá. "It's not a UN meeting," she said.
Hernán Giardini, delegate from Greenpeace Argentina, is participating in the Bolivia meet, but told Tierramérica that he hopes it doesn't turn into an alternative process to that of the UN. It is the United Nations where decisions are made, he said.
In contrast, the director of the non-governmental Sustainable Chile Programme, Sara Larraín, believes the Cochabamba conference represents precisely the possibility of recuperating "international democratic governability," given the failure of the official talks.
"We believe the people's conference is a fundamental space because if a pole of subversion and response is not created, and if we don't take the floor from the governments, there is no possibility that the negotiations will advance," Larraín stated to Tierramérica.
"We are going with the expectation of the creation of a genuine social and popular movement that takes up the environmental questions - in this case the climate crisis - as a social and socio-political problem, and that it is constituted beyond the non-governmental environmental organisations," said Friends of the Earth's Giesen.
(*Emilio Godoy in Mexico City, Marcela Valente in Buenos Aires, Franz Chávez in La Paz, and Fabiana Frayssinet in Rio de Janeiro contributed reporting. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)
Republished from IPS News
Protesters Set Fire to Mining Offices in Bolivia
Latin America Herald Tribune, La Paz – A group of Bolivian peasants in the southeastern province of Potosi occupied and set fire to offices of the San Cristobal mining firm, a unit of Japan’s Sumitomo, near the border with Chile.
Friday’s protest was staged over the alleged failure by the Potosi government to live up to some promises it had made to the peasants, the state-run ABI news agency and Erbol radio reported.
San Cristobal said in a statement that the blaze did not cause any injuries but that the peasants had overturned containers filled with mineral ore being taken for export to foreign markets via Chile, adding that the protesters’ actions represented “big losses” for the firm.
The mining company said it hopes a solution to the conflict will be found in the near future.
The protesters are demanding an electricity project, a tax on the water supplied to San Cristobal and the installation of communication antennas. They also want the headquarters of the state-owned EBRE evaporitic resources company to be located in the Uyuni Salt Flats, also in Potosi, as opposed to La Paz.
The conflict in the region flared up at the beginning of the week, when the peasants blocked roads and the rail line for export to Chile, demanding to speak with outgoing Potosi Gov. Mario Virreira.The demonstrators said they want to present a list of demands to Bolivian President Evo Morales.
San Cristobal operates a huge mine producing silver, lead and zinc near Bolivia’s border with Chile.
Bolivia’s Lithium Challenge
Emily Achtenberg
Proclaiming its lithium deposits to be a permanent reserve of the state, the Bolivian government last month authorized a new state company to undertake “the full chain of lithium production,” including “exploration, development, industrialization, and marketing.” At issue is the future of Bolivia’s vast Uyuni salt flats, the world’s largest untapped lithium reserve, holding at least 5.4 million tons—almost half the world’s known supply. Also at stake is a potentially significant source of wealth and an alternative development model that, if successful, could bring substantial benefits to Bolivia’s impoverished population.
Lithium and the Global Economy
Lithium batteries are commonly used today to operate computers, cell phones, and other portable electronic devices. Demand is expected to increase dramatically as electric cars are mass-produced and consume a growing share of the market. Major auto companies, including Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, GM, and Ford, plan to introduce electric and/or improved hybrid models in the next two years. President Obama has pledged to put 1 million electric and hybrid cars on U.S. roads by 2015, with the recent stimulus package providing billions for lithium battery and electric car technology. By 2020, when worldwide demand for electric cars is projected to reach 10% of the market —some 6 million cars—at least 42 different models are expected to be available.
Bolivia has yet to participate in the global lithium economy. Today most of the world’s lithium carbonate (the main component used in batteries) comes from smaller reserves in Chile and Argentina, where a few giant firms dominate the market. A Chilean fertilizer and mining conglomerate known as SQM was founded as a public-private company, nationalized by former Chilean president Salvador Allende in the 1970s and later privatized under the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1986. It is now owned by Pinochet’s ex-son-in-law together with a Canadian company. Another company, SCL/Chemetall Foote, a subsidiary of U.S. Rockwood Holdings, operates along with SQM in Chile’s Atacama Salt Flats—on land lost by Bolivia to Chile in the 1879 War of the Pacific, fought over the rights to nitrate deposits. The U.S. company FMC Lithium—formerly the American Lithium Company, whose sweetheart deal to exploit Uyuni was blocked by campensino salt gatherers and farmers in 1990—operates in Argentina.
These companies export raw lithium carbonate, supplying 80% of the global market. With few producers in the market, the price of lithium carbonate has increased almost ten-fold in the past five years. While existing producers are ramping up their investments, new players are also getting into the act as car and electronic companies around the world compete for control of lithium supplies. Toyota recently announced a partnership with Australia’s Orocobre to explore other salt flats in Argentina, with cheap financing from the Japanese government. Reportedly, the Argentine government will receive only 8% of the profits, plus income taxes. A South Korean conglomerate (Posco) is buying into lithium extraction projects in Chile and northern Mexico, where new reserves have just been discovered.
Bolivia’s Alternative Development Model
In Bolivia, where President Evo Morales has called lithium the “hope of humanity,” as well as the key to Bolivia’s future economic prosperity, the government is taking a different approach. According to Bolivia’s new constitution, the country’s natural resources belong to the Bolivian people and must be administered in their collective interest by the state. Instead of exporting raw lithium, the government wants it to be processed, refined, and industrialized, with battery plants and even car factories, on Bolivian soil. The goal is to capture the value added by industrialization for Bolivians, in the form of jobs and economic and social benefits, instead of simply enriching transnational corporations.
The government’s multi-phase plan is ambitious. A $5.7 million pilot plant, to assess the quality of Uyuni’s lithium deposits and demonstrate the feasibility of extraction, began construction in October 2008, though it is behind schedule. The pilot plant will be upgraded to an industrial-size factory complex capable of producing an estimated 30,000 tons of lithium carbonate annually (close to Chile’s production level), perhaps by 2014. The cost through this phase, including related infrastructure development, is estimated at $800 million.
By 2018, the government hopes to produce metallic lithium, batteries, and a range of value-added products. According to some estimates, Bolivia’s salt flats contain enough lithium, over time, to make batteries for 4.8 billion electric cars.
“The state will never lose sovereignty over lithium,” Morales recently told The New Yorker. This nationalist stance is deeply rooted in Bolivia’s history, following 500 years of plunder and exploitation of the country’s mineral wealth (principally silver and tin) by foreign companies and governments, at the expense of Bolivia’s mostly indigenous population. Much of this pillage took place in Potosí, the same region where the Uyuni salt flats are located. More recently, popular uprisings over water privatization and the proposed export by foreign oil companies of Bolivia’s natural gas to the United States led to the ouster of two presidents and paved the way for Morales’s election in 2005.
The government has not ruled out the participation of multinational firms in Bolivia’s lithium industry and, in fact, has recognized the need for private investors in the battery-production phase. But it is seeking “partners, not bosses.” In addition to a commitment to help Bolivia industrialize, the government wants to retain at least 60% of the profits from
any partnership arrangement.
While critics charge that Bolivia’s tough terms are chasing away private capital, several foreign companies are actively pursuing lithium opportunities in Uyuni. These include Bolloré, a French conglomerate that teamed up with Italian car manufacturer Pininfarina, Japan’s Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, and two South Korean companies. Bolloré’s financial director told the Associated Press last year, “If Evo Morales wants a car plant, we can help him. Why not?”
To date, none of the investors’ offers have satisfied the government’s criteria. So Bolivia will undertake the first two phases of lithium development on its own, with a combination of state financing and foreign bank loans, which have been offered by Brazil, China, and Japan. Other financing may be available from transnational auto companies, in the form of “forward contracts” tied to prospective sales. Brazil has reportedly agreed to buy the potassium chloride (used for fertilizer), which is a byproduct of the lithium extraction process and will generate additional revenues for development.
The potential French, Japanese, and South Korean investors are providing free scientific and technological advice to Bolivia through a multinational advisory committee. The government now says it may wait several years before partnering with a private firm, taking the time it needs to ensure that a favorable deal can be secured. The bet is that Bolivia’s negotiating position will be strengthened once the value of Uyuni’s reserves—and the state’s capacity to exploit them—is established.
As a precedent, the government points to its recent successful renegotiation of contracts with foreign oil and gas companies, of which all but one have agreed to the state’s purchase of majority ownership and a substantial tax increase. The resulting $2 billion annual gain in state revenues (thanks in part to a timely hydrocarbons price boom) since Morales took office, and the accumulation of $8 billion in foreign reserves, has earned Bolivia high marks even from the International Monetary Fund. Foreign oil companies (now operating as minority partners) expanded their investment in Bolivia by 65% between 2008 and 2009. Despite the drop in gas prices, significant additional private and public investment is projected for the coming year .
To be sure, Bolivia faces many external and internal challenges in its effort to develop a full-fledged lithium industry. Both the market and the technology for lithium-powered electric cars are uncertain. Experts disagree about how much lithium is recoverable from different sites, how long Argentina’s and Chile’s proven reserves will last, and how soon—if ever—there will be a mass market for electric cars. The current form of a lithium car battery is heavy, combustible, expensive, and unable to hold a charge for more than 40 miles. Improved versions are a decade away from practical application. Bolivia’s long-range perspective could put it ahead of the curve—or on the wrong trajectory altogether, if a superior battery technology for electric cars replaces lithium.
Uyuni’s lithium reserves are relatively impure, unconcentrated, and are subject to seasonal flooding, which slows the evaporation process. This will make extraction more complex and costly. In contrast, Chile’s salt flats are said to contain the best quality lithium deposits in the world, with high concentrations, in a dry climate at lower altitude. Reportedly, Bolivian scientists have developed a unique formula for producing high-quality lithium carbonate, which should help to reduce costs.
Furthermore, Uyuni is remote and inaccessible, while Chile’s salt flats are served by modern roads, leading to nearby seaports (that once belonged to Bolivia). The impoverished Uyuni region’s overall lack of infrastructure is a fundamental obstacle that the Bolivian government has recognized, and with a $500 million commitment, it has taken an important first step to develop roads, electricity and water, gas pipelines, communications, and other basic systems.
Environmental and social impacts of lithium extraction on the Uyuni region present another formidable challenge. Relative to other forms of mining, the evaporation process used for lithium extraction appears to be considerably less contaminating. However, the region’s farming economy and sensitive desert ecosystem highly depend on water resources, which could be severely affected by a large-scale extraction project. Lithium processing also produces sulfur dioxide, which can cause lung problems.
The Bolivian government also faces the political challenge of developing the capacity to effectively and efficiently manage a complicated new industry, including its probable future relationship with multinational partners. A recent scandal involving the head of the state hydrocarbons company, a close confidant of Morales, underscores the urgency of dealing with corruption, which the government acknowledges as a high priority.
Bolivia is confronting the complex issue of how to satisfy competing national, departmental, and indigenous community interests in allocating the potential benefits of lithium development. Following the threat of a general strike and roadblocks in Potosí, the government was forced in March to revoke its decree establishing the new state lithium company. Negotiations are proceeding with social and civic organizations that are demanding a set-aside of profits for the region, seats on the governing board, and the possible relocation of the company’s headquarters to Uyuni.
Whether Morales’s vision of alternative development can be realized in a way that will help Bolivia transcend the “resource curse” of exclusive dependency on an extractive economy remains to be seen. Jim Shultz, executive director of the Democracy Center—whose in-depth report on lithium in Bolivia will be available in mid-April—sums up the situation this way:
“What Bolivia is trying to do with its lithium is extremely important. It is seeking to end 500 years of theft and bargain giveaways of the nation's natural resources. What it is trying to do with lithium is also hard. Bolivia has to aim at a global market that is still undefined and may end up being much less than what it hopes. It also needs to undertake a breathtaking ramping up of its infrastructure, technical capacity, and management capacity, as well as tend to serious environmental and social risks to the region where the lithium lies. Bolivia is trying to take a region where hot water runs only an hour a day and turn it into an industrial center that can compete with Japan and the U.S. It won't be easy."
Emily Achtenberg is an urban planner and a NACLA Research Associate.
Republished from NACLA
Proclaiming its lithium deposits to be a permanent reserve of the state, the Bolivian government last month authorized a new state company to undertake “the full chain of lithium production,” including “exploration, development, industrialization, and marketing.” At issue is the future of Bolivia’s vast Uyuni salt flats, the world’s largest untapped lithium reserve, holding at least 5.4 million tons—almost half the world’s known supply. Also at stake is a potentially significant source of wealth and an alternative development model that, if successful, could bring substantial benefits to Bolivia’s impoverished population.
Lithium and the Global Economy
Lithium batteries are commonly used today to operate computers, cell phones, and other portable electronic devices. Demand is expected to increase dramatically as electric cars are mass-produced and consume a growing share of the market. Major auto companies, including Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, GM, and Ford, plan to introduce electric and/or improved hybrid models in the next two years. President Obama has pledged to put 1 million electric and hybrid cars on U.S. roads by 2015, with the recent stimulus package providing billions for lithium battery and electric car technology. By 2020, when worldwide demand for electric cars is projected to reach 10% of the market —some 6 million cars—at least 42 different models are expected to be available.
Bolivia has yet to participate in the global lithium economy. Today most of the world’s lithium carbonate (the main component used in batteries) comes from smaller reserves in Chile and Argentina, where a few giant firms dominate the market. A Chilean fertilizer and mining conglomerate known as SQM was founded as a public-private company, nationalized by former Chilean president Salvador Allende in the 1970s and later privatized under the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1986. It is now owned by Pinochet’s ex-son-in-law together with a Canadian company. Another company, SCL/Chemetall Foote, a subsidiary of U.S. Rockwood Holdings, operates along with SQM in Chile’s Atacama Salt Flats—on land lost by Bolivia to Chile in the 1879 War of the Pacific, fought over the rights to nitrate deposits. The U.S. company FMC Lithium—formerly the American Lithium Company, whose sweetheart deal to exploit Uyuni was blocked by campensino salt gatherers and farmers in 1990—operates in Argentina.
These companies export raw lithium carbonate, supplying 80% of the global market. With few producers in the market, the price of lithium carbonate has increased almost ten-fold in the past five years. While existing producers are ramping up their investments, new players are also getting into the act as car and electronic companies around the world compete for control of lithium supplies. Toyota recently announced a partnership with Australia’s Orocobre to explore other salt flats in Argentina, with cheap financing from the Japanese government. Reportedly, the Argentine government will receive only 8% of the profits, plus income taxes. A South Korean conglomerate (Posco) is buying into lithium extraction projects in Chile and northern Mexico, where new reserves have just been discovered.
Bolivia’s Alternative Development Model
In Bolivia, where President Evo Morales has called lithium the “hope of humanity,” as well as the key to Bolivia’s future economic prosperity, the government is taking a different approach. According to Bolivia’s new constitution, the country’s natural resources belong to the Bolivian people and must be administered in their collective interest by the state. Instead of exporting raw lithium, the government wants it to be processed, refined, and industrialized, with battery plants and even car factories, on Bolivian soil. The goal is to capture the value added by industrialization for Bolivians, in the form of jobs and economic and social benefits, instead of simply enriching transnational corporations.
The government’s multi-phase plan is ambitious. A $5.7 million pilot plant, to assess the quality of Uyuni’s lithium deposits and demonstrate the feasibility of extraction, began construction in October 2008, though it is behind schedule. The pilot plant will be upgraded to an industrial-size factory complex capable of producing an estimated 30,000 tons of lithium carbonate annually (close to Chile’s production level), perhaps by 2014. The cost through this phase, including related infrastructure development, is estimated at $800 million.
By 2018, the government hopes to produce metallic lithium, batteries, and a range of value-added products. According to some estimates, Bolivia’s salt flats contain enough lithium, over time, to make batteries for 4.8 billion electric cars.
“The state will never lose sovereignty over lithium,” Morales recently told The New Yorker. This nationalist stance is deeply rooted in Bolivia’s history, following 500 years of plunder and exploitation of the country’s mineral wealth (principally silver and tin) by foreign companies and governments, at the expense of Bolivia’s mostly indigenous population. Much of this pillage took place in Potosí, the same region where the Uyuni salt flats are located. More recently, popular uprisings over water privatization and the proposed export by foreign oil companies of Bolivia’s natural gas to the United States led to the ouster of two presidents and paved the way for Morales’s election in 2005.
The government has not ruled out the participation of multinational firms in Bolivia’s lithium industry and, in fact, has recognized the need for private investors in the battery-production phase. But it is seeking “partners, not bosses.” In addition to a commitment to help Bolivia industrialize, the government wants to retain at least 60% of the profits from
any partnership arrangement.
While critics charge that Bolivia’s tough terms are chasing away private capital, several foreign companies are actively pursuing lithium opportunities in Uyuni. These include Bolloré, a French conglomerate that teamed up with Italian car manufacturer Pininfarina, Japan’s Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, and two South Korean companies. Bolloré’s financial director told the Associated Press last year, “If Evo Morales wants a car plant, we can help him. Why not?”
To date, none of the investors’ offers have satisfied the government’s criteria. So Bolivia will undertake the first two phases of lithium development on its own, with a combination of state financing and foreign bank loans, which have been offered by Brazil, China, and Japan. Other financing may be available from transnational auto companies, in the form of “forward contracts” tied to prospective sales. Brazil has reportedly agreed to buy the potassium chloride (used for fertilizer), which is a byproduct of the lithium extraction process and will generate additional revenues for development.
The potential French, Japanese, and South Korean investors are providing free scientific and technological advice to Bolivia through a multinational advisory committee. The government now says it may wait several years before partnering with a private firm, taking the time it needs to ensure that a favorable deal can be secured. The bet is that Bolivia’s negotiating position will be strengthened once the value of Uyuni’s reserves—and the state’s capacity to exploit them—is established.
As a precedent, the government points to its recent successful renegotiation of contracts with foreign oil and gas companies, of which all but one have agreed to the state’s purchase of majority ownership and a substantial tax increase. The resulting $2 billion annual gain in state revenues (thanks in part to a timely hydrocarbons price boom) since Morales took office, and the accumulation of $8 billion in foreign reserves, has earned Bolivia high marks even from the International Monetary Fund. Foreign oil companies (now operating as minority partners) expanded their investment in Bolivia by 65% between 2008 and 2009. Despite the drop in gas prices, significant additional private and public investment is projected for the coming year .
To be sure, Bolivia faces many external and internal challenges in its effort to develop a full-fledged lithium industry. Both the market and the technology for lithium-powered electric cars are uncertain. Experts disagree about how much lithium is recoverable from different sites, how long Argentina’s and Chile’s proven reserves will last, and how soon—if ever—there will be a mass market for electric cars. The current form of a lithium car battery is heavy, combustible, expensive, and unable to hold a charge for more than 40 miles. Improved versions are a decade away from practical application. Bolivia’s long-range perspective could put it ahead of the curve—or on the wrong trajectory altogether, if a superior battery technology for electric cars replaces lithium.
Uyuni’s lithium reserves are relatively impure, unconcentrated, and are subject to seasonal flooding, which slows the evaporation process. This will make extraction more complex and costly. In contrast, Chile’s salt flats are said to contain the best quality lithium deposits in the world, with high concentrations, in a dry climate at lower altitude. Reportedly, Bolivian scientists have developed a unique formula for producing high-quality lithium carbonate, which should help to reduce costs.
Furthermore, Uyuni is remote and inaccessible, while Chile’s salt flats are served by modern roads, leading to nearby seaports (that once belonged to Bolivia). The impoverished Uyuni region’s overall lack of infrastructure is a fundamental obstacle that the Bolivian government has recognized, and with a $500 million commitment, it has taken an important first step to develop roads, electricity and water, gas pipelines, communications, and other basic systems.
Environmental and social impacts of lithium extraction on the Uyuni region present another formidable challenge. Relative to other forms of mining, the evaporation process used for lithium extraction appears to be considerably less contaminating. However, the region’s farming economy and sensitive desert ecosystem highly depend on water resources, which could be severely affected by a large-scale extraction project. Lithium processing also produces sulfur dioxide, which can cause lung problems.
The Bolivian government also faces the political challenge of developing the capacity to effectively and efficiently manage a complicated new industry, including its probable future relationship with multinational partners. A recent scandal involving the head of the state hydrocarbons company, a close confidant of Morales, underscores the urgency of dealing with corruption, which the government acknowledges as a high priority.
Bolivia is confronting the complex issue of how to satisfy competing national, departmental, and indigenous community interests in allocating the potential benefits of lithium development. Following the threat of a general strike and roadblocks in Potosí, the government was forced in March to revoke its decree establishing the new state lithium company. Negotiations are proceeding with social and civic organizations that are demanding a set-aside of profits for the region, seats on the governing board, and the possible relocation of the company’s headquarters to Uyuni.
Whether Morales’s vision of alternative development can be realized in a way that will help Bolivia transcend the “resource curse” of exclusive dependency on an extractive economy remains to be seen. Jim Shultz, executive director of the Democracy Center—whose in-depth report on lithium in Bolivia will be available in mid-April—sums up the situation this way:
“What Bolivia is trying to do with its lithium is extremely important. It is seeking to end 500 years of theft and bargain giveaways of the nation's natural resources. What it is trying to do with lithium is also hard. Bolivia has to aim at a global market that is still undefined and may end up being much less than what it hopes. It also needs to undertake a breathtaking ramping up of its infrastructure, technical capacity, and management capacity, as well as tend to serious environmental and social risks to the region where the lithium lies. Bolivia is trying to take a region where hot water runs only an hour a day and turn it into an industrial center that can compete with Japan and the U.S. It won't be easy."
Emily Achtenberg is an urban planner and a NACLA Research Associate.
Republished from NACLA
News bulletin from World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth: The world comes to Cochabamba..
When President Morales of Bolivia launched his invitation to the world to come to Bolivia to develop a Peoples’ Agenda for Climate Change, we never imagined the overwhelming response it would generate. With less than a week to go before the conference, here are some of the astonishing statistics related to the conference:
- At least 15,000 people are expected to attend from 126 countries
- Around 70 governments are expected to attend to listen to the voices of civil society, including Presidents of Ecuador, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Venezuela, the Vice-President of Comoros Islands, government ministers, delegates and parliamentarians from Europe, Asia and Africa.
- The following international organisations will also be sending representatives: UNICEF, FAO, UNESCO, UNFPA, WTO, OICA, OPS, FIDA
- 180 self-organized events have been registered by different networks on every aspect of climate change policy
- More than 50 scientists, social movement leaders, researchers, academics and artists have agreed to speak on 14 panels including NASA scientist Jim Hansen, Bill McKibben, environmental journalist and leader of 350.org, Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, best-selling author Naomi Klein, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, Miguel D’Escoto, former President of UN General Assembly, Lumumba Di-Aping, former lead negotiator for the G77 along with leaders from leading environmental organizations and communities at the front line of climate change.
- More than 300 press have registered including major news networks and newspapers such as BBC, Radio France International, Guardian in the UK, Telesur, l Jazeera, and Democracy Now
It is clear that the conference and its objective of putting forward a just and effective response to climate change have touched a chord worldwide. It shows more than ever, after the failure of Copenhagen, that the hope that we can address the climate crisis lies with the people of the world.
Cochabamba comes to the World – cmpcclive.org
The world is not only coming to Cochabamba, we are determined to bring Cochabamba to the world. As the conference opens on 20 April, we will launch a new interactive website that will allow anyone in the world with an internet connection the possibility to watch debates live, send in comments, join virtual meetings, listen to radio coverage, watch daily shows by Democracy Now, and follow the stories and analysis by many of the conference participants. Stay tuned for more information in the next couple of days on http://pwccc.wordpress.com
Bonn opens doors for Cochabamba
During UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Bonn, 9-11 April 2010, the G77 plus China successfully resisted attempts by the US to make the disastrous Copenhagen Accord the basis for future negotiations.
Most significantly, negotiations in Bonn opened the door for Cochabamba to have a direct impact as it was agreed that the new UNFCCC negotiation text will take into consideration proposals that are presented before 26 April 2010.
Help us get the word out
If everyone attending the summit invested a little time in communicating their participation and the importance of the conference, we could become a much bigger news story and make a greater political impact. Here are some ways you can help:
- Write an article on your own website, to newspapers, your networks and allies on why you are attending the Peoples’ Climate Conference
- Contact mainstream and grassroots media in your country offering interviews and analysis
- Look to place an opinion/comment piece by your organisation or by a high profile ally in a major news outlet
- Become a fan of the conference on Facebook
- Tweet about the conference using the hashtag #cochabamba and #cmpcc Stay in touch with latest news at http://twitter.com/boliviaun This is the best way to get breaking news from the conference.
- Organise an international action or event in solidarity with Bolivia. For more information, visit http://pwccc.wordpress.com/category/intl-actions-events If you would like to organise a live interactive meeting between Bolivia and any large meetings you are holding simultaneously with the Peoples’ Climate Conference, email alfredo@mayfirst.org
Difficulties: Visas, registration, accommodation
The scale of worldwide response has caused difficulties for the conference organisers, especially as this conference has barely a fraction of the resources compared with the UN conference in Copenhagen. We apologise if this has caused inconvenience to you. Extra resources have been put into these areas in the last days before the conference to expedite all your requests. Please email:
- registro@cmpcc.org for all enquiries about registration
- visas@cmpcc.org if you need a letter of invitation to travel (please see http://pwccc.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/visa
- hotel@cmpcc.org if you are unable to find accommodation
Peoples’ Climate Summit in the News
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/19/bolivia-conference-on-climate-change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/13/bolivia-climate-summit
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-mckibben/bless-bolivia-for-re-char_b_521509.html
http://www.progressive.org/huff041210.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/04/earth_spirits_twin_visions_on.html
Bolivia: Upcoming climate change summit could be decisive
Teo Ballve, April 15, 2010
An upcoming grassroots summit on climate change in Bolivia could mark a pivotal event in the fight against global warming.
Bolivian President Evo Morales was a leading voice of dissent at the global climate talks in Copenhagen last year. He accused wealthier countries of shutting out poor nations from negotiations and of offering only token, nonbinding reforms. Poor countries and small island nations deemed the accord a death sentence.
As Morales left the Danish capital, he promised to organize a bolder and more democratic initiative to address the climate crisis.
“We have an obligation to save [all of] humanity and not just half of humanity,” said Morales. He warned that if we don’t do more to curb global warming, “many islands will disappear and Africa will suffer a holocaust.”
In response, Bolivia is hosting the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth from April 19-22 in the city of Cochabamba. Around 15,000 people from across the globe are expected to attend, including some heads of state and delegations from about 100 governments, along with representatives from scientific bodies, nongovernmental organizations and indigenous groups.
“Unlike Copenhagen, there will be no secret discussions behind closed doors,” said Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations. Solon hopes that flexing some global grassroots muscle in Cochabamba will help generate alternative, actionable proposals and political momentum for the next round of climate talks slated for November in Mexico.
Working groups destined for Cochabamba have already begun discussions on a series of topics.
One of the bolder ideas is the creation of a global climate justice tribunal that could serve as an enforcement mechanism. And conference participants are already working on a “Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights” meant to parallel the U.N.’s landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.
The grassroots summit will also pay special attention to the links between climate change and increased scarcity of fresh water. Bolivia is home to nearly a quarter of the world’s tropical glaciers. In recent years, these glaciers have lost 40 percent of their mass, leading to growing strains on local water supplies.
On April 10, the White House retaliated against Bolivia — the poorest country in South America — by suspending millions of dollars in climate aid, the Bolivian government said.
It’s shameful that the smallest, poorest and least powerful of the world are the ones leading the fight for a sustainable global future.
If the tide begins to turn, we’ll have them to thank. And if it doesn’t, the globe will be swamped — thanks to us.
Teo Ballve is a freelance journalist and editor specializing in Latin American affairs. He can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.
Republished from The Progressive"Morales Is a Guide in a Long Period of Change"
Franz Chávez interviews Aymara shaman PASCUAL PACAGUAYA
LA PAZ, Apr 14, 2010 (IPS) - The resurgence of the thinking of Aymara "amautas" or shamans about nature, the collective welfare of society and the defence of life is now a political project in Bolivia led by left-wing President Evo Morales.
In the view of Pascual Pachaguaya, a 54-year-old amauta, Morales' unprecedented victories - he took nearly 54 percent of the vote when first elected in December 2005, and was reelected with over 64 percent in December 2009 - marked the start of a lengthy period of change called "Pachakuti".
Pachaguaya, whose skin is weather-beaten from the unforgiving sun of the Andean highlands, wears a broad smile and chews coca leaves as he talks to IPS in his small house in the city of El Alto, a vast working-class suburb that overlooks La Paz.
He is one of the spiritual guides of the 51-year-old president, an Aymara Indian who is a former leader of the country's coca farmers.
The amauta belongs to a group of survivors of several centuries of persecution and even selective killings of Aymara priests and shamans.
The interview takes places at a table covered with a woven Andean cloth where the wise man scatters coca leaves to read the future. On the walls are pictures of the Kalasasaya temple in the ancient pre-Incan city of Tiwanaku near the shores of Lake Titicaca, 70 km southeast of La Paz.
On Jan. 21, the day before Morales began his second term, Pachaguaya led a traditional indigenous spiritual ceremony at the ruins of Tiwanaku, where the president was once again proclaimed Apu Mallku or "supreme leader" of the Aymara.
The amauta says he is a "representative" of Pachamama or "mother earth", and was chosen after being hit by lightning, which left a mark on his shoulder, and witnessing, on another occasion, an explosion followed by intense flames - two events he describes as the "cosmic force" and the source of his wisdom.
Q: How did the Jan. 21 ceremony arise, and what meaning does it have in the Andean indigenous people's worldview?
A: Pachamama entrusted me to bring new things (ceremonial rites) out of Taypi Kala (the original name of Tiwanaku that means "the stone at the centre of the world"), because although they look like old, dead ruins, the roots of our culture are alive there.
The cycles of life are described in the sacred writings on the Puerta del Sol (Gate of the Sun), and we hold a ritual for people from the Andes highlands and the Amazon jungle, because no one should be excluded because of their race or skin colour. Everything is harmony, and no one can be isolated.
We gave our brother Evo positive energy for him to govern and have good relations with humanity.
Q: According to the Aymara culture, when does the cycle of change begin?
A: Ï participated in the return of the Bennett Monolith from La Paz to Tiwanaku in 2002, a time when the climate was in agony, the fields were plagued by drought and there was famine because the potatoes that grew were small and even the livestock was dying.
[According to a widespread belief in this South American country where indigenous people make up a majority of the population, the unearthing in 1932 and transfer to La Paz in 1933 of the 7.3-metre high 20-ton Bennett Monolith (seen as representing Pachamama) triggered a series of ominous events, like the 1932-1935 war with Paraguay.]
Under drizzling rain, we took the monolith back to Tiwanaku, and since then, food production has grown and we have been eating potatoes that are so big only one fits in your two hands.
Q: Who personified the defence of nature, and where do these ideas come from?
A: The Mallku (Felipe Quispe, an Aymara indigenous leader) appeared and said: "Why don't we govern ourselves? The 'k'aras' (white elites) dismantled our country, sold our mines, our water and our oil and natural gas; the only thing they didn't do was sell us," he said.
We made offerings to the earth, and it appears to be listening to us. We think the (Feb. 19, 2002) storm over La Paz was the response to humanity, and that moment is when the doors opened up for us.
Q: How long will this cycle last, according to Aymara belief?
A: This cycle will be a long one, of well-being, and we calculate that by the third generation we will be doing well. We were born as a "wara wara" (star) and we light up the world.
In 2008, in the town of Charazani [260 km west of La Paz] we took part in a spiritual circle of the planet's wise elders. They came from Asia, Europe and the rest of Latin America, and they joined in this movement that arose from our ancestors in Tiwanaku, a centre of energy and ancestral wisdom.
Brother Evo has faced death five times, which means he would not have led the government, but Pacha (the earth) helped us and gave him strength to fight the enemy. With that help, we are going to free all of humanity.
Q: And will the k'aras be allowed to take part in that culture?
A: We are not their enemies; we want peace, tranquillity and the freedom to live in unity; we are just opposed to looting and theft [of natural resources by lighter-skinned elites in indigenous territory] because they are crimes.
If they generate work, their activities are welcome, but we must focus on major projects to pull people out of poverty, and to bring about the change we must free ourselves of the impurities of politics.
The people must generate their own change, which is not Evo - he is just a guide.
Republished from IPS News
LA PAZ, Apr 14, 2010 (IPS) - The resurgence of the thinking of Aymara "amautas" or shamans about nature, the collective welfare of society and the defence of life is now a political project in Bolivia led by left-wing President Evo Morales.
In the view of Pascual Pachaguaya, a 54-year-old amauta, Morales' unprecedented victories - he took nearly 54 percent of the vote when first elected in December 2005, and was reelected with over 64 percent in December 2009 - marked the start of a lengthy period of change called "Pachakuti".
Pachaguaya, whose skin is weather-beaten from the unforgiving sun of the Andean highlands, wears a broad smile and chews coca leaves as he talks to IPS in his small house in the city of El Alto, a vast working-class suburb that overlooks La Paz.
He is one of the spiritual guides of the 51-year-old president, an Aymara Indian who is a former leader of the country's coca farmers.
The amauta belongs to a group of survivors of several centuries of persecution and even selective killings of Aymara priests and shamans.
The interview takes places at a table covered with a woven Andean cloth where the wise man scatters coca leaves to read the future. On the walls are pictures of the Kalasasaya temple in the ancient pre-Incan city of Tiwanaku near the shores of Lake Titicaca, 70 km southeast of La Paz.
On Jan. 21, the day before Morales began his second term, Pachaguaya led a traditional indigenous spiritual ceremony at the ruins of Tiwanaku, where the president was once again proclaimed Apu Mallku or "supreme leader" of the Aymara.
The amauta says he is a "representative" of Pachamama or "mother earth", and was chosen after being hit by lightning, which left a mark on his shoulder, and witnessing, on another occasion, an explosion followed by intense flames - two events he describes as the "cosmic force" and the source of his wisdom.
Q: How did the Jan. 21 ceremony arise, and what meaning does it have in the Andean indigenous people's worldview?
A: Pachamama entrusted me to bring new things (ceremonial rites) out of Taypi Kala (the original name of Tiwanaku that means "the stone at the centre of the world"), because although they look like old, dead ruins, the roots of our culture are alive there.
The cycles of life are described in the sacred writings on the Puerta del Sol (Gate of the Sun), and we hold a ritual for people from the Andes highlands and the Amazon jungle, because no one should be excluded because of their race or skin colour. Everything is harmony, and no one can be isolated.
We gave our brother Evo positive energy for him to govern and have good relations with humanity.
Q: According to the Aymara culture, when does the cycle of change begin?
A: Ï participated in the return of the Bennett Monolith from La Paz to Tiwanaku in 2002, a time when the climate was in agony, the fields were plagued by drought and there was famine because the potatoes that grew were small and even the livestock was dying.
[According to a widespread belief in this South American country where indigenous people make up a majority of the population, the unearthing in 1932 and transfer to La Paz in 1933 of the 7.3-metre high 20-ton Bennett Monolith (seen as representing Pachamama) triggered a series of ominous events, like the 1932-1935 war with Paraguay.]
Under drizzling rain, we took the monolith back to Tiwanaku, and since then, food production has grown and we have been eating potatoes that are so big only one fits in your two hands.
Q: Who personified the defence of nature, and where do these ideas come from?
A: The Mallku (Felipe Quispe, an Aymara indigenous leader) appeared and said: "Why don't we govern ourselves? The 'k'aras' (white elites) dismantled our country, sold our mines, our water and our oil and natural gas; the only thing they didn't do was sell us," he said.
We made offerings to the earth, and it appears to be listening to us. We think the (Feb. 19, 2002) storm over La Paz was the response to humanity, and that moment is when the doors opened up for us.
Q: How long will this cycle last, according to Aymara belief?
A: This cycle will be a long one, of well-being, and we calculate that by the third generation we will be doing well. We were born as a "wara wara" (star) and we light up the world.
In 2008, in the town of Charazani [260 km west of La Paz] we took part in a spiritual circle of the planet's wise elders. They came from Asia, Europe and the rest of Latin America, and they joined in this movement that arose from our ancestors in Tiwanaku, a centre of energy and ancestral wisdom.
Brother Evo has faced death five times, which means he would not have led the government, but Pacha (the earth) helped us and gave him strength to fight the enemy. With that help, we are going to free all of humanity.
Q: And will the k'aras be allowed to take part in that culture?
A: We are not their enemies; we want peace, tranquillity and the freedom to live in unity; we are just opposed to looting and theft [of natural resources by lighter-skinned elites in indigenous territory] because they are crimes.
If they generate work, their activities are welcome, but we must focus on major projects to pull people out of poverty, and to bring about the change we must free ourselves of the impurities of politics.
The people must generate their own change, which is not Evo - he is just a guide.
Republished from IPS News
Bolivia Steps Up | An Interview with Climate Negotiator Angelica Navarro
Joseph Huff-Hannon, April 12, 2010
On one of the last days of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, the 16th of December, I found myself with thousands of others outside of the well-guarded perimeter of the Bella Center, where UN delegates and heads of State where slouching towards a negotiating failure of historic proportions.
Earlier in the day news started filtering out that the G-77 bloc of developing countries, which had entered the conference with one of the toughest negotiating postures, abruptly dropped most of its steep demands and was effectively sold down the river by Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, after a suspiciously timed meeting with President Sarkozy of France. This was hardly the only sign that things were going downhill. In the afternoon as sympathetic UN delegates, journalists and civil society representatives inside the Bella Center were blocked from leaving the premises to meet with environmental activists outside, large police tanks started moving in on the huge crowd assembled outside. A stern voice on a loudspeaker announced, "In the name of the Queen, and the laws of Denmark, this is an unlawful demonstration, if you do not leave you will all be arrested," before proceeding to arrest people en masse.
“In truth I felt more comfortable with civil society than inside, our perception is that there was more common sense,” Angelica Navarro, Bolivia’s pugnacious climate negotiator at Copenhagen, tells me. “It was a completely hermetic experience; governments every now and then would go out and give a little to civil society. But if we’re going to move forward, the real problems of real people need to get in to the negotiations.”
More than anybody else in the lead up to Copenhagen, Angelica Navarro helped to elucidate the concept of climate debt—the idea that rich countries, by virtue of causing most of the historic climate change inducing emissions, owe a debt to the developing world. This debt is especially acute given that climate scientists predict the worst effects of climate change—drought, coastal flooding, the spread of airborne diseases like malaria—will ravage the developing world in disproportionate ways.
While that concept was largely sacrificed at the altar of realpolitik in Copenhagen, where the U.S., China, and other heavy emitters hashed out a closed door non-binding “agreement,” Angelica’s work is far from over. Currently serving as Bolivia’s ambassador to Switzerland, Angelica will be one of the four Bolivian government representatives (alongside President Evo Morales, and UN Ambassador Pablo Solón Romero) speaking at an April climate summit in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which is framing itself as the “anti-Copenhagen.” Organizers expect more than 10,000 people to attend, including government representatives from more than 50 countries. The aim of the “Peoples' World Conference on Climate Change” is to advance an agenda led by civil society organizations, analyze the structural causes of climate change, and develop specific proposals and actions for addressing it. The conference ends, auspiciously, on April 22, which marks the UN’s International Mother Earth Day.
I reached Angelica Navarro by phone for a long discussion about post-Copenhagen doldrums, hopes and expectations for the Cochabamba summit, and why a small country like Bolivia is taking on such an outsized role in the international arena on the issue of climate.
Joseph Huff-Hannon: You spent all of 2009 negotiating Bolivia’s position at a number of climate meetings around the world in the lead up to Copenhagen. After all of that work, how did you feel coming away from the Copenhagen summit? What was your interpretation of the outcome?
Angelica Navarro: I have to say that I took a holiday after Copenhagen, many of us did. I think the disappointment came from the lack of real solutions to real problems. We were all expecting more. Not only didn’t we address the problem, if you look at the numbers in the accord, what is actually in the accord will allow an increase in emissions. What we are allowing in the Copenhagen accord, not a treaty, an accord, is actually an increase in global temperatures of up to 4 degrees. Islands will keep disappearing; droughts will worsen.
So we were disappointed in the process but also in the content. I’m not a banker or an economist, but I really felt that developed countries were negotiating a trade or economic accord, and those of us on the other end were negotiating an environmental accord. So what was the meeting even about? If the biggest failure of the market is climate change, how are we going to stop climate change by setting up a kind of carbon sub-prime market through carbon trading?
We were supposed to talk about climate change and discuss real solutions, but it seems like we were worlds apart.
Joseph Huff-Hannon: How will the setting and the format of the Cochabamba summit in April differ from what we saw in Copenhagen?
Angelica Navarro: By no means is the Cochabamba meeting replacing the UN system. It’s an effort at dialogue, at opening up to each other. Why did Copenhagen fail? One of the failures was not speaking to real people enough, to civil society, and most of the time the best ideas and solutions are coming out of civil society. In Cochabamba we are going to bring those two worlds together, not like in Copenhagen where civil society was on the periphery of the discussion.
And I think if we can get this dialogue more entrenched in the UN process, it will benefit everybody. The most exciting thing about it for me personally is that civil society is not outside in the trenches, but that we as government are listening to civil society, not the other way around. I don’t think anything of this sort has been tried before.
Joseph Huff-Hannon: Why has Bolivia taken on such an outsized role in the global stage on the issue of climate change?
Angelica Navarro: Well, mostly because these are not theoretical concerns for us. In Bolivia our glaciers are melting. Tuni Condoriri, one of the glaciers that supplies water to La Paz (the capital), has decreased by 40-45% in the last twenty years. We are talking about a shortage or water for one to two million people.
In the South, countries like Bolivia that don’t produce much CO2, we’re on the receiving end. We’re the ones seeing the negative effects of what others have produced, their economies, their way of life, and they don’t see that our countries are bearing the cost.
You can say we’re innovating, not only in climate change, but also in international politics. Why haven’t other governments done this before; consulted their own citizens in such a broad way? We’re used to consulting in our culture. The way we do things, our surprise is how come this hasn’t been done before.
Joseph Huff-Hannon: For Americans traveling to Cochabamba, be they from civil society or representatives of government, what should they expect?
Angelica Navarro: I hope that people come with an open mind, ready to dialogue, to speak but also to listen. Particularly to listen to the diversity of alternatives that are coming from around the world. A lot of the alternatives don’t cost millions; it’s just that international political will needs to be there so that they can be implemented in those countries that don’t have the capacity, or sometimes the finances.
Also they should try to share with us the experiences in our country. We’re very interested to hear not only the political part—what is happening with your government—but also what is happening at the local level. How are the grassroots in the U.S. responding to the situation? What are their challenges? What solutions have they found?
Of course maybe what they can expect is a lot of questions about US leadership, or lack thereof. On the international level what we are afraid of, or don’t want to see, is the US continuing to put the lowest common denominator out on the table, in terms of reductions. When the U.S. does that, other governments will always be happy to follow along.
So we are very interested in hearing how civil society can help push the U.S. to make these negotiations a higher priority. What can we deliver for the planet? Are we really doing our job now? In Bolivia I think we’re trying, trying to produce that kind of leadership.
To learn more about the April Climate Summit in Cochabamba, visit: http://pwccc.wordpress.com/
Joseph Huff-Hannon is an independent writer and producer, a 2008 finalist in the Livingston Award for Young Journalists, and a recipient of a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. See more of his work at josephhuffhannon.com.
7,500 due for alternate climate conference in Bolivia
AFP, LA PAZ — The alternative "people's conference" on climate change called by socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales is expecting 7,500 delegates from more than 100 countries, officials said Monday.
Among those set to attend the gathering in Cochabamba April 20-22 include Presidents Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, according to Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca.
Named the People's World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights, the gathering is intended to "give a voice to the people" on climate change after the perceived failure of the United Nations-sponsored Copenhagen summit on the same issue, organizers say.
In addition to government leaders, those attending will include delegates from social movements and nongovernmental organizations.
Organizers say they expect in attendance anti-globalization activists Naomi Klein of Canada and Jose Bove of France, and James Hansen, a US researcher who was among the first to warn about climate change. Also invited to the event was James Cameron, the Canadian-born director of the blockbuster film "Avatar."
Government delegations who attendance has been confirmed are from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Dominica, Antigua and Barbudas as well as St Vincent and the Grenadines, officials say.
The conference will seek to refine proposals by Morales in Copenhagen including the creation of a world tribunal for climate issue and a global referendum on environmental choices.
Chavez and Morales were among the harshest critics of the December 2009 Copenhagen conference, arguing that developing countries were largely ignored in the UN climate debate that set an objective for limiting global warming.
Bolivia's Environment Minister Juan Pablo Ramos said the Cochabamba conference may be "a major mobilization to fundamentally influence the next climate summit in Mexico in December."
Other delegates said the conference may be constructive.
"The notion of more input from civil society is welcome," said Luis Alfonso de Alba, who will be Mexico's delegate to the Bolivia conference. "I believe that the meeting can produce positive results."
Brice Lalonde, the French delegate to the climate conference, added that "we have to talk with everyone."
Among those set to attend the gathering in Cochabamba April 20-22 include Presidents Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, according to Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca.
Named the People's World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights, the gathering is intended to "give a voice to the people" on climate change after the perceived failure of the United Nations-sponsored Copenhagen summit on the same issue, organizers say.
In addition to government leaders, those attending will include delegates from social movements and nongovernmental organizations.
Organizers say they expect in attendance anti-globalization activists Naomi Klein of Canada and Jose Bove of France, and James Hansen, a US researcher who was among the first to warn about climate change. Also invited to the event was James Cameron, the Canadian-born director of the blockbuster film "Avatar."
Government delegations who attendance has been confirmed are from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Dominica, Antigua and Barbudas as well as St Vincent and the Grenadines, officials say.
The conference will seek to refine proposals by Morales in Copenhagen including the creation of a world tribunal for climate issue and a global referendum on environmental choices.
Chavez and Morales were among the harshest critics of the December 2009 Copenhagen conference, arguing that developing countries were largely ignored in the UN climate debate that set an objective for limiting global warming.
Bolivia's Environment Minister Juan Pablo Ramos said the Cochabamba conference may be "a major mobilization to fundamentally influence the next climate summit in Mexico in December."
Other delegates said the conference may be constructive.
"The notion of more input from civil society is welcome," said Luis Alfonso de Alba, who will be Mexico's delegate to the Bolivia conference. "I believe that the meeting can produce positive results."
Brice Lalonde, the French delegate to the climate conference, added that "we have to talk with everyone."
Bolivia launches World Peoples’ Climate Summit at UNFCCC talks in Bonn
Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s ambassador to the UN, at a press conference during UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn on 10 April condemned continued attempts by some developed countries to impose a deeply flawed Copenhagen Accord as the basis for future negotiations: “The only way to get negotiations back on track not just for Bolivia or other countries, but for all of life, biodiversity, our Mother Earth is to put civil society back into the process.”
Solon explained it was this belief that motivated Bolivia to host an historic World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth on 19-22 April 2010 to which more than 15,000 people and up to 70 governments are expected to attend.
“The central aim of any climate summit is not to save itself and accept any outcome, but to come to an agreement that will save humanity.” Solon said that the Copenhagen Accord sadly marked a “backwards step” so could never be acceptable as a basis for further negotiations. Solon pointed out that the European Union’s own analysis of the Copenhagen Accord admitted that it would lead to an increase of temperatures of up to four or five degrees.
“This is no kind of solution. Yet at these talks [in Bonn] we never hear developed nations admitting concern over this. Instead the US claims this is the best agreement we have had. Are we really willing to say that allowing temperatures to rise to four or five degrees is a good goal?”
Solon reiterated the demands of many developing nations by calling on industrialized nations to rebuild trust. “You cannot rebuild trust by legalizing the same methods that led to the failure in Copenhagen.” Solon called for talks to be returned to the full UNFCCC process, and to develop on what had been agreed in COP15.
Solon commenting on news that the US and Denmark were withdrawing aid from countries like Bolivia for their opposition to the Copenhagen Accord said, “This in their rights, but unfair and clearly an attempt to punish Bolivia. What kind of negotiation is it where you lose money if you disagree?” Solon said that Bolivia would not back down due to such threats. “We are a country with dignity and sovereignty and will maintain our position.”
For more information, please contact: Gadir Lavadenz – media@cmpcc.org or ring (+591 2) 2 113161 or (+591) 706 91367Nick Buxton – nicholasbuxton@gmail.com or ring +591 74056695
Webcast of press conference can be seen at http://unfccc2.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/100409_AWG/templ/play.php?id_kongresssession=2608&theme=unfccc
Republished from PWCCC website
Solon explained it was this belief that motivated Bolivia to host an historic World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth on 19-22 April 2010 to which more than 15,000 people and up to 70 governments are expected to attend.
“The central aim of any climate summit is not to save itself and accept any outcome, but to come to an agreement that will save humanity.” Solon said that the Copenhagen Accord sadly marked a “backwards step” so could never be acceptable as a basis for further negotiations. Solon pointed out that the European Union’s own analysis of the Copenhagen Accord admitted that it would lead to an increase of temperatures of up to four or five degrees.
“This is no kind of solution. Yet at these talks [in Bonn] we never hear developed nations admitting concern over this. Instead the US claims this is the best agreement we have had. Are we really willing to say that allowing temperatures to rise to four or five degrees is a good goal?”
Solon reiterated the demands of many developing nations by calling on industrialized nations to rebuild trust. “You cannot rebuild trust by legalizing the same methods that led to the failure in Copenhagen.” Solon called for talks to be returned to the full UNFCCC process, and to develop on what had been agreed in COP15.
Solon commenting on news that the US and Denmark were withdrawing aid from countries like Bolivia for their opposition to the Copenhagen Accord said, “This in their rights, but unfair and clearly an attempt to punish Bolivia. What kind of negotiation is it where you lose money if you disagree?” Solon said that Bolivia would not back down due to such threats. “We are a country with dignity and sovereignty and will maintain our position.”
For more information, please contact: Gadir Lavadenz – media@cmpcc.org or ring (+591 2) 2 113161 or (+591) 706 91367Nick Buxton – nicholasbuxton@gmail.com or ring +591 74056695
Webcast of press conference can be seen at http://unfccc2.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/100409_AWG/templ/play.php?id_kongresssession=2608&theme=unfccc
Republished from PWCCC website
Bolivia protests US suspension of climate aid
Associated Press
BONN, Germany — Bolivia has protested the suspension of U.S. climate aid as "a very bad practice," but says it won't change its policies on global warming.
Bolivian delegate Pablo Solon confirms that the U.S. reduced aid after it opposed the adoption of the Copenhagen Accord brokered at the U.N. climate summit last December in the Danish capital.
Speaking to reporters Saturday, Salon questioned the value of negotiation when financial pressure is applied to those who disagree.
The Washington Post reported Friday the U.S. is cutting $3 million to Bolivia and $2.5 million to Ecuador from its Global Climate Change initiative.
Bolivia is hosting its own three-day climate conference this month, saying the Copenhagen summit failed to produce a legally binding agreement.
BONN, Germany — Bolivia has protested the suspension of U.S. climate aid as "a very bad practice," but says it won't change its policies on global warming.
Bolivian delegate Pablo Solon confirms that the U.S. reduced aid after it opposed the adoption of the Copenhagen Accord brokered at the U.N. climate summit last December in the Danish capital.
Speaking to reporters Saturday, Salon questioned the value of negotiation when financial pressure is applied to those who disagree.
The Washington Post reported Friday the U.S. is cutting $3 million to Bolivia and $2.5 million to Ecuador from its Global Climate Change initiative.
Bolivia is hosting its own three-day climate conference this month, saying the Copenhagen summit failed to produce a legally binding agreement.
BOLIVIA: Bittersweet victory highlights obstacles for process of change
Federico Fuentes, Caracas
Although final figures will not be known until April 24, the results of Bolivia's April 4 regional elections have ratified the continued advance of the "democratic and cultural revolution" led by the country's first indigenous President Evo Morales.
However, it also highlights some of the shortcomings and obstacles the process of change faces.
Initial results from the election for governors, mayors and representatives to municipal councils and departmental assemblies have confirmed the Morales-led Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) as the sole political force with strong support across the nation.
It follows the historic 64% vote to reelect Morales and the two-thirds majority MAS obtained in the Plurinational Assembly last December.
MAS was formed in the mid-1990s by key Bolivian indigenous and peasant organisations in order to create their own political instrument. Many of these organisations are at the heart of the indigenous-led revolutionary movement that overthrew two presidents between 2000-05, before electing one of their own in December 2005.
The Morales government has implemented key demands of the indigenous and peasant organisations by nationalising gas reserves, allowing the people to participate in the rewrite of a new constitution that dramatic expands indigenous rights, and stimulating an increased sense of pride and dignity among the long-oppressed indigenous majority.
All this in the face of stiff right-wing opposition that, with its stronghold in the east, used its control over a majority of governorships to attack the Morales government -- climaxing with a failed coup attempt in September 2008.
Electoral advances
Of the nine governorships, current results show MAS winning in six, with a seventh too close to call. This is an increase from the three it won in 2005.
This means MAS has not only strengthened its hold on the west and centre (consolidating its hold on La Paz and Cochabamba after revoking previous opposition governors), but also further weakened the decomposing right-wing opposition in the east.
MAS looks set to capture the eastern department of Pando, and possibly Beni. The opposition has held onto the eastern departments of Santa Cruz and Tarija, but MAS's all-out campaigning in the east (home to much of Bolivia's natural resources and a sizeable white middle class) meant it penetrated deep into opposition heartland -- increasing its vote in the region.
MAS also won a strong presence in the departmental assemblies. These are the first elected regional bodies to have the power to legislate within the bounds of the regional autonomy outlined in the new constitution approved in January 2009.
MAS also increased the number of mayoralties it controls nationally to around 200-220 out of the 337 -- up from the 101 won in the 2004 poll.
Another feature of the elections was the introduction -- although limited -- of traditional indigenous customs for selecting representatives from Bolivia's 36 indigenous nations to departmental assemblies.
Using rights enshrined in the new constitution, indigenous nations selected between two to five representatives for each departmental assembly.
Five of the 11 municipalities that voted in favour of indigenous autonomy in local referendums last December elected their own mayors and councillors according to traditional customs in the lead up to regional elections.
The decisions were then ratified at the ballot box on April 4. The other six decided to elect candidates directly.
Bittersweet victory
Highlighting MAS's impressive numerical victory, Morales said that elections "are like soccer, the goals are what matter". Yet the result was a bittersweet one that throws into sharp relief some of the internal challenges the process of change faces.
MAS's national vote was 51% -- less than the 64% it obtained in December and well short of the 70% Morales spoke of in his speech to close MAS's campaign in La Paz.
The impressive showing in the east, the result of both a concerted campaign and some dubious alliances, was dampened by the loss in Tarija, which sits on 80% of Bolivia's gas.
Having won the vote in Tajira in December, MAS was certain it could defeat the incumbent governor, a fierce foe of Morales.
Alliances formed by MAS with local elites, such as the MAS candidate for Santa Cruz city, a business owner and ex-member of the right-wing Podemas party, and the recent recruitment of ex-militants of the fascist Santa Cruz Youth Union failed to net goals.
Instead, MAS paid a political and ideological cost for its alliances, losing in urban poor areas such as Plan Tres Mil in Santa Cruz. Rejection of such deals led people in these areas to vote for other candidates.
In Pando, a decision to stand candidates that did not belong to the MAS allowed it to win the governorship and 10 of the 15 mayoralties. However, it means MAS will now have to contend with "MAS mayors" that came from the old traditional parties.
Most significantly, the belief that Morales' overwhelming popularity could be automatically transferred to MAS candidates, many of whom were imposed from above, and the disregard for alliances with other progressive forces or social movements, led to something unthinkable only a few months ago: the emergence of a new opposition, the centre-left Movement of Those Without Fear (MSM).
Within months, MAS went from having a solid alliance with the MSM, headed by former La Paz mayor Juan Del Granado, to breaking all ties with the MSM and accusing them of being "neoliberal", "conspirators" and "corrupt".
The special attention paid by Morales to the campaign for the mayor of La Paz, and the ferocious attack on the MSM (viewed by many MAS supporters as unnecessary) was not enough to secure victory in the capital, a MAS stronghold.
The MSM also won a surprise victory against the MAS in the race for the mayor of Oruro, confirming the trend in urban areas of voting for non-MAS candidates.
The MSM stood MAS dissidents angered by the imposition of non-MAS members as MAS candidates. This policy allowed it to win mayoralties in mining areas with an indigenous majority in the north of Potosi and even Achacachi -- a heartland of Aymaran indigenous radicalism where Morales scored 98% in December.
Formerly considered a party restricted to the middle-class areas of La Paz, the MSM now has a presence in more than 100 municipalities.
Discontent among MAS-aligned social movements and supporters led to defeats in other areas where Morales has near unanimous support. A newly created party, led by a coca growers' union leader and former MAS senator Lino Villca, won in six municipalities in the coca growing regions and the altiplano (high plain area) of La Paz department.
The MAS won in the combative million-strong city of El Alto, but its vote dropped from more than 80% to below 40%.
The surprise was the relatively unknown outsider Soledad Chapeton, whose vote of 30% represented a rejection of the impositions by local union leaders.
Dangers
La Paz based journalist Pablo Stefanoni said the comments of a local woman on Radio Erbol, that the "vote on Sunday in La Paz is a warning sign to the process of change", summed up the feelings of many Bolivians.
An April 7 editorial in the pro-government daily Cambio said the results showed "the necessity to strengthen the process of structural change ... consolidate the direct participation of the organised people in the definition of affairs of the Plurinational State and in doing so eradicate improvisation, internal problems and the personal ambitions of some militants in the process of transformation underway".
On April 6, Morales commented on the MAS's defeat in areas that only months ago voted overwhelmingly for him. Morales blamed internal problems and the personal ambitions of some party leaders "that drag with them a colonial heritage due to which they believes their turn has come to stand for an executive position".
Dionisio Condori, a leader of the powerful United Union Confederation of Campesino Workers of Bolivia, said: "Our candidates where not taken into consideration because some leaders fell into the game of removing them and imposing others who were not known in the municipality."
But it is not just the problem of questionable figures from outside the MAS being imposed as candidates. The MAS is dominated by the specific interests of the different indigenous and peasant unions that make it up.
Its role in local governments has traditionally been characterised by resisting neoliberal governments and strengthening the position of their organisations.
However, today these same unions are part of the governing party and these practices have often been replaced by inefficiency and improvisation rather than promotion of new participatory forms of local governance.
The challenge of converting MAS from more than a sum of unions into a collective force for change that can nurture the growth of new cadres and participatory forms of local democracy is more pressing than ever.
The rise of a new opposition may open up space for something that has been sorely lacking: an open public debate on how to deepen the transformation of Bolivian society.
Through such a battle of ideas, as opposed to the type of denunciations and unconvincing slanging matches seen so far, the process will be able to solidify and extend its support base.
In this way, it can open itself up to new sectors and pave the way for the kind of broad alliances with all sectors genuinely committed to change that are vital to safeguarding and deepening the process.
Raul Prada, the vice-minister for strategic state planning, argued this requires drawing up a "critical balance sheet with the grassroots, with our organisations, with the movements, with the neighbourhood committees, a balance sheet of what has occurred … and to listen to criticism.
"We need to return to the practice of something we have not done for some time: self-criticism and carrying out a deep and objective reflection."
Although final figures will not be known until April 24, the results of Bolivia's April 4 regional elections have ratified the continued advance of the "democratic and cultural revolution" led by the country's first indigenous President Evo Morales.
However, it also highlights some of the shortcomings and obstacles the process of change faces.
Initial results from the election for governors, mayors and representatives to municipal councils and departmental assemblies have confirmed the Morales-led Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) as the sole political force with strong support across the nation.
It follows the historic 64% vote to reelect Morales and the two-thirds majority MAS obtained in the Plurinational Assembly last December.
MAS was formed in the mid-1990s by key Bolivian indigenous and peasant organisations in order to create their own political instrument. Many of these organisations are at the heart of the indigenous-led revolutionary movement that overthrew two presidents between 2000-05, before electing one of their own in December 2005.
The Morales government has implemented key demands of the indigenous and peasant organisations by nationalising gas reserves, allowing the people to participate in the rewrite of a new constitution that dramatic expands indigenous rights, and stimulating an increased sense of pride and dignity among the long-oppressed indigenous majority.
All this in the face of stiff right-wing opposition that, with its stronghold in the east, used its control over a majority of governorships to attack the Morales government -- climaxing with a failed coup attempt in September 2008.
Electoral advances
Of the nine governorships, current results show MAS winning in six, with a seventh too close to call. This is an increase from the three it won in 2005.
This means MAS has not only strengthened its hold on the west and centre (consolidating its hold on La Paz and Cochabamba after revoking previous opposition governors), but also further weakened the decomposing right-wing opposition in the east.
MAS looks set to capture the eastern department of Pando, and possibly Beni. The opposition has held onto the eastern departments of Santa Cruz and Tarija, but MAS's all-out campaigning in the east (home to much of Bolivia's natural resources and a sizeable white middle class) meant it penetrated deep into opposition heartland -- increasing its vote in the region.
MAS also won a strong presence in the departmental assemblies. These are the first elected regional bodies to have the power to legislate within the bounds of the regional autonomy outlined in the new constitution approved in January 2009.
MAS also increased the number of mayoralties it controls nationally to around 200-220 out of the 337 -- up from the 101 won in the 2004 poll.
Another feature of the elections was the introduction -- although limited -- of traditional indigenous customs for selecting representatives from Bolivia's 36 indigenous nations to departmental assemblies.
Using rights enshrined in the new constitution, indigenous nations selected between two to five representatives for each departmental assembly.
Five of the 11 municipalities that voted in favour of indigenous autonomy in local referendums last December elected their own mayors and councillors according to traditional customs in the lead up to regional elections.
The decisions were then ratified at the ballot box on April 4. The other six decided to elect candidates directly.
Bittersweet victory
Highlighting MAS's impressive numerical victory, Morales said that elections "are like soccer, the goals are what matter". Yet the result was a bittersweet one that throws into sharp relief some of the internal challenges the process of change faces.
MAS's national vote was 51% -- less than the 64% it obtained in December and well short of the 70% Morales spoke of in his speech to close MAS's campaign in La Paz.
The impressive showing in the east, the result of both a concerted campaign and some dubious alliances, was dampened by the loss in Tarija, which sits on 80% of Bolivia's gas.
Having won the vote in Tajira in December, MAS was certain it could defeat the incumbent governor, a fierce foe of Morales.
Alliances formed by MAS with local elites, such as the MAS candidate for Santa Cruz city, a business owner and ex-member of the right-wing Podemas party, and the recent recruitment of ex-militants of the fascist Santa Cruz Youth Union failed to net goals.
Instead, MAS paid a political and ideological cost for its alliances, losing in urban poor areas such as Plan Tres Mil in Santa Cruz. Rejection of such deals led people in these areas to vote for other candidates.
In Pando, a decision to stand candidates that did not belong to the MAS allowed it to win the governorship and 10 of the 15 mayoralties. However, it means MAS will now have to contend with "MAS mayors" that came from the old traditional parties.
Most significantly, the belief that Morales' overwhelming popularity could be automatically transferred to MAS candidates, many of whom were imposed from above, and the disregard for alliances with other progressive forces or social movements, led to something unthinkable only a few months ago: the emergence of a new opposition, the centre-left Movement of Those Without Fear (MSM).
Within months, MAS went from having a solid alliance with the MSM, headed by former La Paz mayor Juan Del Granado, to breaking all ties with the MSM and accusing them of being "neoliberal", "conspirators" and "corrupt".
The special attention paid by Morales to the campaign for the mayor of La Paz, and the ferocious attack on the MSM (viewed by many MAS supporters as unnecessary) was not enough to secure victory in the capital, a MAS stronghold.
The MSM also won a surprise victory against the MAS in the race for the mayor of Oruro, confirming the trend in urban areas of voting for non-MAS candidates.
The MSM stood MAS dissidents angered by the imposition of non-MAS members as MAS candidates. This policy allowed it to win mayoralties in mining areas with an indigenous majority in the north of Potosi and even Achacachi -- a heartland of Aymaran indigenous radicalism where Morales scored 98% in December.
Formerly considered a party restricted to the middle-class areas of La Paz, the MSM now has a presence in more than 100 municipalities.
Discontent among MAS-aligned social movements and supporters led to defeats in other areas where Morales has near unanimous support. A newly created party, led by a coca growers' union leader and former MAS senator Lino Villca, won in six municipalities in the coca growing regions and the altiplano (high plain area) of La Paz department.
The MAS won in the combative million-strong city of El Alto, but its vote dropped from more than 80% to below 40%.
The surprise was the relatively unknown outsider Soledad Chapeton, whose vote of 30% represented a rejection of the impositions by local union leaders.
Dangers
La Paz based journalist Pablo Stefanoni said the comments of a local woman on Radio Erbol, that the "vote on Sunday in La Paz is a warning sign to the process of change", summed up the feelings of many Bolivians.
An April 7 editorial in the pro-government daily Cambio said the results showed "the necessity to strengthen the process of structural change ... consolidate the direct participation of the organised people in the definition of affairs of the Plurinational State and in doing so eradicate improvisation, internal problems and the personal ambitions of some militants in the process of transformation underway".
On April 6, Morales commented on the MAS's defeat in areas that only months ago voted overwhelmingly for him. Morales blamed internal problems and the personal ambitions of some party leaders "that drag with them a colonial heritage due to which they believes their turn has come to stand for an executive position".
Dionisio Condori, a leader of the powerful United Union Confederation of Campesino Workers of Bolivia, said: "Our candidates where not taken into consideration because some leaders fell into the game of removing them and imposing others who were not known in the municipality."
But it is not just the problem of questionable figures from outside the MAS being imposed as candidates. The MAS is dominated by the specific interests of the different indigenous and peasant unions that make it up.
Its role in local governments has traditionally been characterised by resisting neoliberal governments and strengthening the position of their organisations.
However, today these same unions are part of the governing party and these practices have often been replaced by inefficiency and improvisation rather than promotion of new participatory forms of local governance.
The challenge of converting MAS from more than a sum of unions into a collective force for change that can nurture the growth of new cadres and participatory forms of local democracy is more pressing than ever.
The rise of a new opposition may open up space for something that has been sorely lacking: an open public debate on how to deepen the transformation of Bolivian society.
Through such a battle of ideas, as opposed to the type of denunciations and unconvincing slanging matches seen so far, the process will be able to solidify and extend its support base.
In this way, it can open itself up to new sectors and pave the way for the kind of broad alliances with all sectors genuinely committed to change that are vital to safeguarding and deepening the process.
Raul Prada, the vice-minister for strategic state planning, argued this requires drawing up a "critical balance sheet with the grassroots, with our organisations, with the movements, with the neighbourhood committees, a balance sheet of what has occurred … and to listen to criticism.
"We need to return to the practice of something we have not done for some time: self-criticism and carrying out a deep and objective reflection."
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