In wake of UN’s COP20 failure, ALBA summit backs
proposal to draft alternative plan
Richard Fidler, Life on the Left
Meeting in Havana
December 14, the 13th summit of ALBA leaders endorsed a Bolivian
proposal to host an international assembly of social movements in 2015 to
discuss and adopt a united strategy for fighting climate change.
The decision by the
Bolivarian Alliance for the peoples of Our America – Trade Treaty of the
Peoples (ALBA-TCP) coincided with release of the final agreement
adopted by the United Nations COP20 climate talks at Lima, Peru. The UN
agreement, reached by representatives of 195 countries after two extra days of
haggling, has been universally condemned by environmental activists for the
failure, once again, to take meaningful actions to prevent catastrophic climate
warming.
The “Lima Call for
Climate Action” fails to commit governments to firm plans on how they will
reduce emissions and provides no mechanism for international assessment and
enforcement of such plans. Activists warn that its proposed individual state
pledges, called “Intended National Determined Contributions” (INDCs), will be
too weak to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times – a
guarantee of increasingly severe heatwaves, rainfall, flooding and rising sea
levels. Major provisions of the agreement are summarized here.
The COP20 outcome
is “unacceptable for the people and Mother Earth and represents a roadmap to
global burning,” said Pablo Solón, former Bolivian ambassador and now director
of Focus on the Global South. For other reactions, see “Lima agreement
fails humanity and the earth.”
Addressing the ALBA
Summit in Havana, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales proposed that “faced with the
failure in Lima” the environment ministers of the ALBA member countries[1] should work to organize a “world
encounter of social movements” that would develop “a proposal to save life and
humanity.”
The Bolivian
proposal was adopted in number 29 of the 43 points in the final Summit
agreement. The date of the proposed world encounter has yet to be
determined.
Bolivia played a
prominent role in the UN’s Lima conference. In a major speech to the COP20
delegates — excerpts translated below — Morales, the country’s first indigenous
president, urged adoption of a new international climate agreement that would
reflect basic principles upheld by South America’s indigenous peoples. He
showed how adherence to each of these ethical standards entailed a rejection of
“predatory and insatiable capitalism” with its dynamic of “accumulating and
concentrating wealth in the hands of a few… generators of poverty and
marginalization.”
“Either we change
global capitalist society” said Morales, “or it will annihilate the world’s
peoples and nature itself.”
And he denounced
the “more than 30 years of pretence, futile negotiations with no result” of the
UN climate negotiations. Participation by the developing countries, he said,
seemed only to legitimate what had become “a simulacrum of dialogue,” a
“staging of environmentalism” characterized by “a great deal of hypocrisy,
racism and neocolonialism.”
In the climate
talks at Lima, Bolivia’s delegation argued for what it termed an alternative to
the carbon-market UN program known as REDD+ — “Reduction of Emissions for
Deforestation and Degradation of Forests” — which essentially allows polluters
to continue polluting if they buy “carbon credits” from developing countries.
What this program entails is explained in this Democracy Now
interview with Pablo Solón at the summit.
Prior to the
summit, a strong “call to action
to reject REDD+ and Extractive Industries, to confront capitalism and defend
life and territories” was issued by a large number of Latin American and other
environmental organizations.
Bolivia’s proposal
of a “joint mitigation and adaptation [JMA] approach for the integral and
sustainable management of forests” would create an international program of
“ex-ante financing, technological support and capacity building” to promote
“integral and sustainable managements of forests, ecosystems and environmental
functions taking into account the holistic views of indigenous peoples, local
communities and local resource users about environment and Mother Earth, and
the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls.”
However, the JMA
was proposed not as a substitute for the REDD program, but as a voluntary
alternative to it.
Bolivia also proposed,
apparently without success, an alternative method of measuring carbon
footprints that would reflect the differentiated responsibility of developed
and developing countries for climate change; support for communal projects to
strength food security and biodiversity; and the integration of measurable
indicators of poverty, sustainable development and ecosystem management into
global climate accords. These proposals, while popular in the workshops, were
ignored in the final agreement.
Simultaneous with
the COP20 summit was a People’s Summit on Climate Change that drew the
participation of thousands of environmental activists from around the world. A
mass “March of the Peoples” was held on December 10. It reportedly stretched
some three kilometers in length through the streets of Lima.
The People’s summit
issued a strong statement December
11 with a clear anti-capitalist content. Unfortunately, I have been unable so
far to locate an official English translation.
Here are major
excerpts from the address of Evo
Morales at the COP20 summit. He spoke not only as Bolivia’s
president but also in the name of the G77+China bloc, which was chaired by
Bolivia in 2014. My translation from the Spanish.
* * *
Environmental
Destruction is a Result of the Capitalist System
Climate change is
one of the most serious global challenges of our time. And we note that the
developing countries continue to be the countries that most suffer the adverse
effects of climate change and the growing frequency and intensity of extreme
natural disasters, although they are historically the countries that are least
responsible for climate change.
Climate change
threatens not only the development perspectives of the developing countries and
their attainment of sustainable development but also the very existence and
survival of the countries, societies and ecosystems of Mother Earth.
We declare that the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the essential
international and intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response
to climate change. That response must fully respect the principles, provisions
and final objective of the Convention, in particular the principles of
equality, equity and common but differentiated responsibilities….
And we highlight
the creation of the new UN climate change provisions on adaptation, financing
and technology, proposals from the G77+China with an holistic vision of climate
change that includes mitigation and adaptation in compliance with the law and
the development of the peoples….
Sisters and
brothers, I request your patience and tolerance now while I express the
profound vision and position of the Plurinational State of Bolivia regarding
the ethics and politics concerning climate change…. We can achieve a climate
agreement based on the protection of life and Mother Earth, and not on the
market, profit and capitalism.
In what is today
the territory of Peru there was many years ago a great civilization that
extended throughout the continent, a great indigenous civilization with much
learning, and which has left us with a great legacy. Today, with COP20 being
conducted in Lima, I ask that we orient our decisions by taking into account
the learning of our indigenous peoples of Abya Yala….
Let us create a
climate agreement using the philosophy and values of those peoples, a new
climate agreement based on an anticolonialist vision. We indigenous peoples of
the world meet and discuss things until we reach a consensus; we can spend days
and nights dialoguing and discussing, but our goal is to reach an agreement
among all of us.
We don’t
manipulate, we don’t cheat and we don’t confuse things. To reach agreement we
give ourselves the necessary time to talk and to listen. Everything is
transparent.
And our indigenous
grandparents have taught us that a just society has to be based on three
principles: “Ama Sua,” “Ama Llulla,” Ama Quella” — do not steal, do not lie,
and do not be lazy.
I ask that using
those principles and values of our ancestors we develop a new climate agreement
beginning with “Ama Sua”: We are not robbers; we must not steal what belongs to
others.
Recently the intergovernmental
UN panel of climate change experts in its latest report concluded that if we do
not want an increase in temperature by more than 2 degrees centigrade we cannot
emit more than one thousand gigatons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere
by the year 2050.
And if we don’t
want the temperature to increase by more than 1.5 degrees centigrade, that
quantity must be much less, approximately 630 gigatons of carbon dioxide.
The atmospheric
space that exists in the planet must be shared with all, respecting the
principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities.
But there are some
greedy countries that want to consume by themselves what remains of the
atmospheric space. Those countries have been stealing from us since colonial
times and they want to continue stealing. They are stealing our future, the
future of our children and grandchildren, and they are robbing us of the
possibility that we can develop in a sustainable way.
And if a developing
country, with the obligation to feed and provide a more dignified life to its
people, emits greenhouse gases, they begin to point accusing fingers at us.
Yes, they want to sanction and punish those who take a little to eat and feed
their people, but not to punish themselves, they who have stolen huge amounts
in order to grow rich and feather their own nests.
There is a very
large group of countries that have historically abused the atmosphere and who
are committing ecocide on Mother Earth.
But we also have to
say, in all honesty, that there are countries that are pursuing the same
commercialist and consumerist road, with patterns of consumption and production
based on predatory and insatiable capitalism, accumulating and concentrating
wealth in the hands of a few, with a fondness for opulence — generators of
poverty and marginalization….
Sisters and
brothers, we cannot have a climate agreement that condemns Mother Earth and
humanity to death in order to favor Capital, the enrichment of a few and
predatory consumerist growth. We are here to develop a climate agreement for
life, and not for business and capitalist commercialism.
Secondly, “we are
not liars,” Ama Llulla. We cannot continue negotiating a new climate agreement
in which countries lie to each other, in which they say they are going to do
something about climate change but in reality they do not want to do anything,
in which they say one thing but in reality they are thinking of doing something
else, or in which they do not say what they are thinking and what they are
doing.
Agreements that do
not ensure the environmental integrity of Mother Earth, the integrity of our
marvellous human community, are not ethical. Agreements that think only of
business and do not promote life are lying. We cannot let the powerful with
interests in Capital and not in life impose on us a new climate agreement that
condemns humanity and Mother Earth to death.
The third
principle, “we are not lazy,” Ama Quella. The developed countries do not want
to increase their emissions reduction goals, and still less do they want to
implement their commitments under the framework Convention in terms of
adaptation, provision of financing and technology, and development of
capacities.
Even worse, there
are some countries that are promoting a new climate agreement in which all
efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are voluntary, that is, that each
makes undertakings that are most convenient to them, disowning their historic
responsibility as developed countries and condemning humanity to increases in
temperature by more than 3 or even 4 degrees centigrade in the next 30 years.
If the developed
countries had fulfilled their emissions reduction undertakings and taken the
actions anticipated in the Convention, you can be sure that we would not be
hearing at this stage the “apocalyptic” forecasts about climate change. But
there are countries that are unwilling to face up to the obligation to carry
out domestic reductions in their countries that compromise their economic
development, and that are unwilling to support the developing countries and
deal with climate change.
There are countries
that instead of fulfilling their obligations under the convention do whatever
they can to ensure that it is the others that do what they had to do or will
have to do in the future. And that is why I ask them to comply with the rules
of the indigenous countries: Ama Sua, Ama Llulla, Ama Quella.
We do not steal
atmospheric space and the right to development that corresponds to other
countries, particularly the poor countries. We do not lie, and we do not cheat;
we fulfill the agreements to which we have subscribed. We are not lazy and we
make agreements with ambitious promises that require us to ensure the integrity
of our Mother Earth, and that incorporate all the elements of mitigation, adaptation,
financing, technology and capital development.
Sisters and
brothers of COP20, we sometimes debate in this class of conferences only the
effects, and not the origin, of global warming. We have had more than 30 years
of pretence, futile negotiations with no result….
Today we find
ourselves on the threshold of the destruction of Mother Earth, faced with the
disappearance of the human species. The developed countries of the North,
responsible for the destruction of nature, have brought us to a barren land to
legitimize their supposed commitment to humanity. We, the developing countries,
have served as a source of legitimation for a unilateral and sterile dialogue.
We have served as a
pretext for the powerful to continue doing the same thing, which has settled
into a simulacrum of dialogue and deliberation. There is in this entire staging
of environmentalism a great deal of hypocrisy, racism and neocolonialism.
Climate change has
become once again the safety valve to avoid discussing substantive questions
like the voracious model of capitalist development that is putting an end to
humanity…. We are losing time because the dialogue is not between equals; it is
an unsuccessful monologue….
We must now say to
you, nothing has changed in those 30 years….
On behalf of my
people, I can only say that we feel betrayed once again faced with this
simulacrum of international agreements that are never enough. Our peoples are
tired of all this deception, they are tired of suffering the increase in
temperature, the melting of our mountain snow caps, of the heavy rains, the
cruel flooding and the heartbreaking droughts, which each time make us poorer.
We have to get at
the fundamental roots of the problem of climate change. We don’t want more
protocols; we want more structural solutions, overcoming capitalism, saving the
peoples of the world…. What is the use of reducing gas and toxic emissions by 1
or 2 degrees if the next generation will end up baking in suffocating heat?
Basically the
problem is the supposedly civilizing model that is based on a greedy financial
architecture in which wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, producing
poverty for the majority of humanity.
I want to tell you,
sisters and brothers, that unless we change the centre of gravity of all the
financial, economic, political, ecological and social distortions confronting
our century and the planet, the search for a consensual agreement will be
nothing more than a chimera.
A second root of
the problem of climate change is the war politics of the great powers and the
huge budget devoted to it. With only a fifth of the money spent on the military
by the five major military powers of the world we would be able to resolve 50
percent of our environmental problems….
And the third root
of climate change has to do with the exaggerated industrialization,
disproportionate consumption and pillaging of resources that could alleviate
the major ills of humanity. The economic model upholding the financial
architecture and war politics has as its nucleus the politics of the free
market, that is, the voracious capitalist policy that pays no attention to
anything other than profit, luxury, and consumerism…. People are treated as
things, and Mother Earth as a commodity.
Proposals
to preserve the Life of Humanity and of Mother Earth
What are we doing
now? Governments and businesses of the major world powers responsible for the
climate catastrophe have shown they are unable to slow down this planetary
tragedy that is jeopardizing humanity and nature as a whole. Their power and
profits are fueled by the irreparable destruction of the environment….
Stopping climate
change cannot be left to those who profit from the destruction of nature. That
is why we the peoples must directly accept our own responsibility for the
continuation of life and society by taking control of governments, and using
that power to pressure and force government and businesses alike to take
drastic and immediate measures to stop us from falling into this abyss of
nature’s destruction.
To defend our life
and the existence of future generations it is absolutely necessary that the
world’s peoples, the hard-working society suffering daily the effects of
climate change, take control of states, politics, the economy and use it to
preserve humanity and the planet….
We have to put the
brakes to capitalist accumulation, the endless accumulation of commodities. We
need another civilization, another society, another mentality, other values,
another culture that prioritizes the satisfaction of human needs, not profit,
that believes in human beings and Mother Nature, not the “money god.”…
Either we change
global capitalist society or it annihilates the world’s peoples and nature
itself.
The environment is
a common heritage of all the peoples of the world, of the ancient peoples, of
the present peoples and the peoples who are to come….
The environment is
a common resource…. And that is why it must be administered by us as a
community. Nature itself is a community, since it benefits everyone and affects
everyone. Our ancient indigenous peoples knew this and that is why they lived
as a community. …
Sisters and
brothers, community is the only way to live in equilibrium with nature.
Community is salvation of the environment, of life, and accordingly of human
beings. Community is life, capitalism is death. Community is harmony with
Mother Earth and capitalism is destruction of Mother Earth.
Finally, it is
really important to consider how we are to create institutions to judge those
who pollute our planet, who injure our Mother Earth. Humanity needs to create
an International Tribunal of Climate Justice, so that justice may be done.
Sisters and
brothers, that in a nutshell is the experience that the indigenous peoples
provide for the good of all humanity.
Thank you very
much.
[Applause]
[1] ALBA comprises nine Latin American and Caribbean
countries: Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, St. Lucia, St. Vincent
and the Grenadines, Surinam and Venezuela. Haiti, Iran, Syria, Honduras and El
Salvador are observer states. The Summit admitted two new members to the
Alliance: Grenada and St. Kitts-Nevis.
No comments:
Post a Comment