This free event will provide alternative perspectives on the Copenhagen summit, reinforce the critical need for a UN climate process, and point to possible ways forward for the December 2010 meeting in Cancun.

DC Report Back – Featured Speakers:
• Martin Khor, Director of the South Centre
• Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Director of the Tebtebba Foundation and Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
• Maude Barlow, Chair of the Council of Canadians and Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the UN’s General Assembly
• Gopal Dayaneni, Movement Generation, head of delegation to Copenhagen for US grassroots leaders from urban, racial, economic and environmental justice groups
• Victor Menotti, Executive Director, International Forum on Globalization

Sponsored by the International Forum on Globalization, Institute for Policy Studies, Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth, Movement Generation, and ActionAid.

Contacts:
North American Indigenous Delegation Media Liaison    +45 5268 5594
Movement Generation Media Liaison  +45 2832 8422
(English, español, français, 普通話, portugûes)

COPENHAGEN – On the eve of President Obama’s arrival in Copenhagen to attend the fifteenth United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties, organizations representing communities affected by climate change from around the United States delivered a letter urging President Obama to put a stop to the United States acting as a major barrier to real solutions to climate change, and instead to actively advance the concerns of vulnerable and impacted communities in the Global South and at home in the United States. “Global South” is a term often used to describe the G77 + China, or developing countries, including India, Brazil, the Philippines, South Africa, Kenya, and the Small Island Nations.

They held a press conference and rally in front of the US Embassy in Copenhagen, accompanied by chants of “Climate Justice Now!”

The letter was submitted by a convening of United States grassroots climate justice groups, including members of the North American indigenous communities delegation, the Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project (MG), the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (EJCC), Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ) and the Right to the City Alliance (RTTC).

In the letter to President Obama, the climate justice groups assert, “Unfortunately, the proposals and negotiating positions of the United States government continue to be the single biggest barrier to progress in the Conference of the Parties process. Between side deals, weak targets, false solutions, a lack of transparency and a failure to commit to a legally binding agreement, the U.S. is gambling with the future of life on this planet.”

Wahleah Johns from the Black Mesa Water Coalition offered, “Indigenous peoples and grassroots communities are consistently left out of the climate negotiations, although we are the ones who bear the brunt of the burdens of ecological crisis. For instance, Peabody Coal uses 3.3 million gallons of water every day for mining coal on my reservation. The majority of the people that live out there on the Rez don’t have running water, or electricity, but we supply southern California, Nevada, and parts of Arizona with all of their energy needs. We expect President Obama to demand and support the rights of impacted communities to be at the forefront of just and equitable international negotiation processes.”

Speakers at the press conference and rally beforehand described the impacts of current ecological crises in their communities. Surrounded by colorful signs and banners, they also offered five actions that President Obama could take to address climate change at a scale and speed that would sufficiently match the scale and timeframe of the current ecological crisis.

For instance, Kandi Mossett (Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara), a young Indigenous woman from Fort Berthold, North Dakota, is fighting a so-called clean fuel refinery in her community, including low-wage, dirty jobs and increased debt. Mossett knows firsthand the differential and disastrous impacts of oil refineries – including so-called clean ones – on community health: she’s survived cancer. She continues, “I’m lucky enough to be here but a lot of our people aren’t here anymore. They’re buried under the ground, because of what our governments are doing to us. Given what we know about climate change, why would we continue on this course? We are all going to be wiped off the face of the planet if this continues to happen.”

The letter proposes that rapid and deep reductions in emissions at the source are critical to meeting meaningful targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and urges President Obama to immediately reduce the US consumption load, without offsets, by a minimum 49% deduction from 1990 levels by 2020.

Likewise, Henry Clarke, the Executive Director of the West County Toxics Coalition from Richmond, CA, said, “The North Richmond community is on the frontline of Chevron’s chemical assault. We have experienced a lifetime of chemical exposure, asthma, cancer and death. These are human rights violations.” The letter proposes that solutions must include a rights-based framework that adheres to other United Nations rights-based frameworks set out in declarations, covenants and conventions, regardless of whether or not they are ratified by the United States.

Another necessary action demanded by the grassroots climate justice groups included the “recognition and payment of the climate debt” to the Global South. They stipulated that these climate debt repayments would have to be administered through a transparent, funding source and not current multi-lateral development institutions, which they say have failed to provide sustainable development pathways for the Global South, including the World Bank.

Jose Bravo, of the Just Transition Alliance out of San Diego, CA, added that for communities from the global South in the North, sustainability and environmentalism was not a new thing. For Bravo, “Just transition is about shifting from polluting jobs to clean jobs, polluting industries to clean industries.”

Michele Roberts, from Advocates for Environmental and Human Rights out of New Orleans, Louisiana and Washington, DC, adds that communities from the South in the North – like those in the Gulf Coast region – are on the frontlines of ecological crisis, while the beneficiaries of unsustainable resource practices will feel it less. Likewise, a 2 degree Celsius rise in average global temperature is predicted to mean at least a 3.57 degree Celsius rise over continental Africa. Gopal Dayaneni explains, “Two hundred years of compounded industrial production has already committed us to severe and catastrophic consequences for the poorest people on the planet, including much of Africa, coastal Asia, indigenous people and small island states.”

The letter was delivered by Gopal Dayaneni from Oakland, CA and Roxana Aguilar from Los Angeles, CA.

Kalila Barnett, from Alternatives for Community and Environment, out of Boston, MA, closed with the following message to President Obama: “You campaigned on a platform for change and your belief that change doesn’t come from Washington, it comes to Washington.  Change is here, on the streets of Copenhagen, and all over the world. Climate Justice Now!”

Here are some highlights on the work of the delegation & my work here so far:

1) “No Decisions About Us Without Us!”

They are severely restricting access to the Bella Center for Civil Society as of today, and the restrictions on badges (and the requirement for secondary badges) means that many accredited delegations from impacted communities, north and south, are excluded from the process. There will be an action today and a press conference about the restricted access, and we are organizing folks under the message, “No Decisions About Us Without Us.”

2) RECLAIM POWER ACTION– Wednesday

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the MAJOR action, called RECLAIM POWER. Folks from outside will march to the Bella center (COP) and come up to, and possibly through, the gate to meet a civil society and country delegate walk-out of the talks to make a “Peoples’ Assembly”. At the front of the march to the Bella center will be southern peoples and other impacted peoples who are accredited and not allowed access. This is the Seattle-ing of Copenhagen.

Remember, if Parties of Conference walk out (that means country delegates) the whole thing comes to a halt, because it is a consensus process. We think we have several southern countries.

If we frame the collapse, we build our power moving forward. If we frame the collapse, we have a year to build up our base, and support the work of our allies who are engaged in all the processes. What we can move, or stop, in the COP is one way to measure our power. Here, you can’t talk about climate without talking about Climate Justice. For most, that means try to take away it’s meaning. But it has also shifted the debate significantly. Equity is central. Even mainstream NGOs are talking about debt. Stern was forced to say “climate debt” which is incredible, even if to deny it (you can not deny a frame without evoking it first).

Nothing good will come from this COP, so the question is who gets to frame the collapse. Do we get to frame it as Civil Society and Southern Countries say, “We won’t settle for Death.”  or will Northern countries blame the collapse on “China and the G77.” Or will the rich countries cobble together a bad deal that is a Political Agreement and not a legally binding treaty, and then say, “we did it,” when in fact they have done nothing but waste more time.

3) Danish Cops are Keeping the People’s Voices Out!

The Danish cops are coming down very hard on demonstrations. Last night it is reported that Naomi Klein was tear gassed.

4) Towards Strategic Alignment of Movements

We helped pull together a meeting of POC/EJ/RJ forces form the US yesterday that was one of the first to get unity. We are sending a letter to Obama (as a vehicle) to talk about both that we stand with the south, and that “what is bad for the south is bad for us too.”  (see media advisory)

I gave a talk with Naomi Klein the other day and the whole delegation will be getting together with her later this week.
Oh- and we have been quite successful in moving this idea that there is a “south of the north” and some of the new messaging for Reclaim Power and other things have included the idea of “the global south and climate impacted communities in the north.”

We also pulled together a meeting last night of Global South folks and grassroots groups from the North (all people of color) to a meeting that included some amazing folks. That was very well attended, and I think good. We’ve been finding ways of engaging, for sure.

5)  WEDNESDAY MORNING (6:30am COP time)

We have the big RECLAIM POWER action this morning, in which we will march with La Via Campesina, Jubilee South and Focus on the Global South onto the Bella Center, and then, possible, through the gate and meet up with folks walking out from the inside.

Access to the COP has been severely restricted by the UN, resulting in the vast majority of people, even accredited people like us, being locked out of the process.

Okay, we have to move, we are anchoring one section of the mobilization.

Featuring MG’s very own Gopal Dayaneni (formerly known as “Dr. Doom and Gloom)!

MG’s Gopal Dayaneni is leading the delegation, a vehicle to build strategic alignment with global south movements, and other grassroots movements..

The group will work closely with several groups, including the Indigenous Environmental Network and Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative. Delegates include: Gopal Dayaneni, MG; Alicia Garza, POWER (and MG Bay Area network, RTTC, GGJ); Mari Rose Taruc, APEN (MG Bay Area network, GGJ); Marisa Franco, RTTC; Kalila Barnett, ACE (and RTTC); Roxana Aguilar, SAJE (RTTC); Jill Johnston, SWU (GGJ); Diana Lopez, SWU (GGJ); José Bravo, Just Transition Alliance (GGJ); Cecil Corbin-Mark, WEACT (EJ Leadership Forum); Jacqui Patterson, Women of Color United; and Diana Pei-Wu, MSC.

What is COP 15?

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the new vehicle of global economic governance, for the simple reason that the only way to deal with ecological crisis (or at least pretend to) is to reorganize the global economy (or at least pretend to). This year marks the 15th Conference of Parties (COP 15) to the UNFCCC and most nations will be represented at the convening in Copenhagen, Denmark from December 7-18, 2009. As we approach the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 (which the US never ratified), Copenhagen and beyond become critical in determining the future of climate architecture.

The Moment:

A recent report by top climate scientists updating the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment issued in 2007 shows worse-than predicted consequences. They’ve announced that most parts of the Earth’s climate systems are changing faster and more severely than they had predicted. Recommendations by a panel of UN scientists include that “developed countries make cuts of between 25 percent and 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid a catastrophic rise in sea levels, harsher storms and droughts and climate disruptions.”  The news tells us that the US is proposing 17 percent cuts but this is based on 2005 levels and is really only a cut of about 3.5 percent from 1990 by 2020.

What the world really needs to successfully weather the transition is:

1. Targets that are real, binding, enforceable, verifiable and in line with the science, that reduce emissions at the source
2. A transparent, democratic funding mechanism to administer the ecological debt owed by the industrialized countries to the Global South for mitigation and adaptation (or… Industrialized nations spent the last 200 years creating the problem that other people are now suffering from. They must pay for the damage.)
3. The recognition and protection of the rights of all peoples’ in all aspects of climate policy.

Anything less will be disastrous for the planet and for her peoples.

Goals for the Delegation:

1. Exposure: Build the Climate Justice analysis of grassroots base-building organizations working on racial, economic and environmental justice in the US and expose them to global movements working on the intersections between ecological sustainability and justice.
2. Relationships: Connect folks with social movements, primarily from the South, for long-term alliance building, and amplify the presence of the “South in the North,” those communities hit first and hardest from climate disruption and who are suffering from racial, economic and social inequality in the US. We need to bust open the view of the US as a monolithic “rich country.”
3. Participate in justice-based activities (marches, events, etc.) that have leadership from Global South movements and justice-based movements in the North.
4. Support existing US-based, climate justice groups, including, EJCC, IEN and others.
5. Use this exposure opportunity to build towards the USSF in 2010, COP 16 in Mexico in 2010 and the WSF in 2011.

Follow the delegation on Movement Generation’s Facebook page, Twitter, and our blog!

Support for this delegation provided by Solidago Foundation, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, and individual donors.  If you know of foundations or individuals who may be interested in contributing to building the grassroots climate justice movement, please contact Mateo Nube at mateo@movementgeneration.org. To volunteer time, press contacts, or if you have questions about the delegation, contact Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan at michelle@movementgeneration.org.

“When someone drives around drunk and starts running over people and crashing into cars, you don’t re-fill their tank or give them ‘one for the road’.  The rich economies have been driving around drunk on oil and running over poor people; it is time to take away the keys, throw ‘em into rehab and make them pay for the damages.  Taking away the keys means not letting them drive false solutions. Rehab means cutting off access to fossil fuels- an immediate ramp-down of consumption. Paying for the damage means ecological debt- a transparent funds-based mechanism for cleanup, mitigation, and adaptation from rich economies to the poor. The only force powerful enough to pull-over the U.S. is a trans-local grassroots-led social movement allied with movements in the Global South.”

— Gopal Dayaneni, Movement Generation

[interview with Gopal Dayaneni begins at minute 24:13]

Making Contact – December 2, 2009
Trade Shifts: Reflections on the Seattle WTO Protests

Ten years ago this week, thousands of people shook the streets of Seattle in protest of the World Trade Organization. We revisit the voices from that week and find out how global economic forces have shifted since.

Gopal Dayaneni, MG Volunteer Program Committee Member, speaks on climate justice and the Copenhagen Conference on KPFA’s weekly environmental show, Terra Verde, on November 27, 2009.