By Judy Rebick, Rabble.ca, 10/19/10 – The global battle on climate change is heating up in the build up to Cancun including here in Canada. The statement below was written by a group of activists who met with Bolivian President Evo Morales at the end of September in New York City.
Statement from Climate Justice Activists
We the undersigned representatives of Social Movements and NGO’s, meeting at a side event with President Morales of Bolivia during the Millennium Development Goals Summit, New York City, September 23, 2010,
Affirm the need for urgent action in the lead-up to the Cancun climate negotiations, Nov. 27 to Dec. 10, both in Mexico and internationally,
We believe these negotiations are a pivotal moment for demanding action in advancing climate justice.
This past summer has seen severe wildfires in Russia, devastating floods in Pakistan, mudslides in China, droughts in the Sahel and Niger, and an 87-square-kilometre chunk of ice break off from Greenland — all consistent with the impacts of which climate scientists have long been warning.
With the future of humanity and the balance of Mother Earth at stake, we have a collective responsibility to hold our governments accountable, especially those in the global North which has disproportionately contributed to the crisis we face, to commit to urgent and meaningful action.
The Cancun negotiations are also crucial because key proposals from the Cochabamba People’s Agreement are included in the negotiating text. The proposals, the “Cochabamba Accord”, must be acted upon if humanity is to avert catastrophic and runaway climate change, and make the urgent transition to a low-carbon society in an equitable and fair manner.
The democratic, bottom-up process from which these proposals emerged at the World’s People Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights (April 2010) — a significant coming together of indigenous peoples, social movements and NGOs — deserves our support.
With these points in mind, we:
— Support Mexican civil-society in demanding the government of Mexico provide open space, without interference, for civil-society events and discussion.
— Welcome the diversity of events being planned by our comrades in Mexico including caravans, a November 30 demonstration in Mexico City, a trial people’s tribunal on climate justice, alternative spaces for workshops and events, and much more. We support a coordinated strategy to ensure effective mobilization to demand climate justice and express our support for the Cochabamba conference process and proposals.
— Encourage everyone who recognizes the need for system change, not climate change, and is compelled and uplifted by the spirit of the Cochabamba People’s Conference and proposals to express this by joining together and mobilizing in communities across the world before, during, and after the Cancun negotiations. The advancement of climate justice depends on the collective voices and actions of people across the world.
— Specifically, we urge support for coordinated events in the lead-up to Cancun, including the 10/10/10 Global Work party, the Oct. 12 Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, Oct. 12 Global Mobilization for Defense of Mother Earth and Indigenous Peoples and the organizing of People’s Assemblies on Climate Justice.
During the UN negotiations, we join the call originating from Via Campesina for ‘thousands of Cancuns’ on the Dec. 7 global day of action, with the organizing of events and actions in communities worldwide to add strength and visibility to the mobilizations that will be taking place in Mexico; and all other mobilizations supporting the principles of Climate Justice
— Continue, beyond Cancun and through 2011, to popularize the climate justice demands formulated at the Cochambamba’s People’s Summit, including through organizing work towards the proposed global referendum on climate change; and, finally, to encourage broad participation in the second World People’s Summit on Climate Change, slated to be convened in 2011.
Signed,
Council of Canadians
Indigenous Environmental Network
Nord-Sud XXI
Grassroots International
Toronto Bolivia Solidarity
Blue Planet Project
May First/People Link
Global Justice Ecology Project
Loretto Community
Alaska Inter-Tribal Council
National Family Farm Coalition, Member of Via Campesina North America
Derrick O’Keefe
Michael Dorsey
Roger Langen
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October 20, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Frans Verhagen, Ph.D.
Congratulations with this strong statement that emphasized system change and not climate change.
One important way to bring system change about is transforming the international monetary system which as glue binds the financial, economic and commercial systems together.
Together with a Civil society working group in New York City I developed a carbon-based international monetary system that would combat climate change and advance low-carbon and climate-resilient development. Here is the draft Declaration that we want to circulate in Cancun.
COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH A CARBON-BASED INTERNATIONAL MONETARY SYSTEM:
The Cancun declaration of the CoNGO Sustainable Development Committee’s Working Group on Monetary Transformation and the Climate Crisis.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Contact: Frans C. Verhagen, M.Div., M.I.A., Ph.D., sustainability sociologist, gaia1@rcn.com
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man, who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble”.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1890s
We, members of the working group of Monetary Transformation and the Climate Crisis of the aforementioned CoNGO Sustainable Development Committee at the UN Headquarters in New York City,
Agreeing with the principles and recommendations to the Cancun assembled governments as presented by our main CoNGO committee
Considering that too little attention is being paid to principles and values as presented in the Earth Charter and in Article 3 of the UNFCCC, particularly the value of climate justice
Pointing to the decreasing level of cooperation among nations in developing new
institutions that able to respond to the challenges of both the climate and economic crises
Believing that human-made international systems are not inevitable and that those do not work for the common good can be unmade
Further believing that global monetary governance is under-researched, under-appreciated as the world’s basic system that, as glue, binds monetary, financial, economic and commercial systems together and that a global effort is needed to assess its potential for transforming those systems
Recognizing that humanity has used many other substances besides gold and silver as monetary standards in its trading activities
Further recognizing that both the IMF 183 financial ministers in early October in Washington, D.C. and the G20 governments in November in Seoul were unable to solve the monetary conflicts about currencies and their associated financial imbalances
Believing that these and other monetary issues cannot be resolved without the reintroduction of a monetary standard upon which nations would peg their currencies making them convertible with the consequence that the costly global reserve system would be no longer needed
Further believing that such monetary standard is to be carbon-based in order to combat climate change and advance low carbon and climate-resilient development as was presented in the Tierra Fee & Dividend (TFD) climate/development governance system at the Yale/UNITAR conference on Global Environmental Governance (September 17-9, 2010) http://conference.unitar.org/yale/environment-sustainable-development and in great detail at the website of the International Institute for Monetary Transformation http://www.timun.net
Pointing out that the TFD global governance system is an innovative system that integrates separate proposals for a transformed international monetary system, the Fee & Dividend system as opposed to the cap-and-trade carbon reduction method and an active role of governments in our complex, globalized world
Further pointing out that Maurice Strong, Secretary-General of both the UN the Stockholm and Rio conferences on the environment, has stated that this “innovative proposal for a new international monetary system based on carbon…. seems to be very promising particularly in light of the stalemate in post-Kyoto prospects”
DECLARE
1. that the assembled governments recognize that without the adoption of a common value base as expressed in the Earth Charter or the Quaker Right Relationship framework or similar value-based planning frameworks with particular emphasis on the value of climate justice the climate negotiations will not progress to the level of agreements that matches the urgency of both crises;
2. that the assembled governments seriously consider basing the international monetary system on a standard, so that volatility in exchange rates can be reduced, the costly global reserve system can be removed and currency manipulation and speculation can be avoided;
3. that the assembled governments seriously consider basing the international monetary system on a carbon standard which would not only bring equity and sustainability, and therefore, stability to that basic system but would counter the increasingly dangerous climate threat by its emphasis on decreasing the carbon intensity of societies;
4. that the assembled governments seriously consider sponsoring a UN General Assembly Resolution that would establish a UN Commission of Experts on Monetary Transformation and Low Carbon, Climate-resilient Development, so that the potential of a carbon-based international monetary system, including the proposed TFD governance system, can be fully explored, clearly identified in a Monetary Plan of Climate Action that can be acted upon during the Rio 2012 Earth Summit.