Blog by Mari Rose Taruc, Asian Pacific Environmental Network & Grassroots Global Justice Delegation to Cancun (12/4/10)

Day 1, Cancun by Air

Spanning the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic & swooping from the black Gulf of Mexico, I land in Cancun Mexico at night. Exiting the plane, the first sign I get of the UN climate conference is a life-sized China-bashing poster: “80% of China’s electricity is generated by dirty coal… The world’s leaders need to free us from dirty coal and its poisons.” So why don’t we see posters of top global carbon emitters per capita—US & European nations? Racism, clearly. Needing more perspective, I struck up a conversation with the Mexican customs agent. What do you think of the climate conference? It’s bullshit, he says, lots of politics will fly but no action. I told him I’m here with a delegation of poor people, indigenous & people of color in the US fighting pollution and that we need to see solutions come out of the talks. We gave each other a high five. I walk out into the tropical sky, get picked up by the Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ) Alliance and pass hundreds of federal police holding machine guns on the way to the hotel.

Day 2, Cancun by Land

Today, I wake up to a roommate who spent the last week on a bus caravan organized by La Via Campesina (international peasant & small farmers movement. By land is actually how many social movements are getting to Cancun. 3 buses from Jalisco turned to 30 buses, multiplying along the way from the desert to Mexico City up the Mountain and to the ocean. I attended the opening ceremony of the La Via Campesina space (one of 4 main convergence spaces here in Cancun) called the “Global Forum for Life, Environmental & Social Justice”. I sat behind the Haiti delegation, listening to stories from international allies who participated in the caravans coming from all over Latin America, impacted communities in the US, India, Japan & Europe. It sounded sadly familiar—a week full of toxic tours: agribusiness destroying watersheds, uncontrolled oil refinery pollution by PEMEX, savage urbanization, mountaintop removal to extract gold, the death of a river. I’ve already seen so many communities in the US suffer environmental racism that it wrenches my heart to hear of the corporate destruction globalized. “Welcome to the nightmare, welcome to hope,” those communities said. So hope is what we’re working for in Cancun. And by the looks of tonight’s first meeting of the 60+ delegation of the US grassroots climate justice delegation composed of Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Indigenous Environmental Network and Youth for Climate Justice, we have a fighting chance…

December 15, 2007 2:46pm PST

Today was busy work inside our Flintholm House– a buzz of 20 organizers of color planning a hot event for this Thursday (look for it!). Phones ringing, 5 laptops editing a google doc, fast notes in red marker, communal cooking, mad texting. It was the opposite of light white snow flittering outside the window. Now that I have a moment to reflect, I recall being on 4 mics in the last 4 days.

#1 mic: Amplified the US grassroots & justice factor to funders, that our new engagement in these climate talks are critical for the movement that we need to grow beyond Copenhagen. (I was the 6th speaker of 7, right before the “Shock Doctrine” author Naomi Klein.)

#2 mic: At the “outside” KlimaForum, in front of a thousand international climate campaigners’ “People’s Assembly”, I opened saying I represented a US grassroots delegation of immigrants & communities of color, the “South within the North.” And closed by sharing our win over the Richmond Chevron oil refinery, getting them to chant, “dirty in, dirty out”.  I shared the mic w/my companero, Jose Bravo from the Just Transition Alliance. He opened by invoking our shared family history as farmworkers, connecting eyes with our allies from the powerful Via Campesina.

#3 bullhorn: Probably the best action (of the many) I’ve attended so far, I brought a message of solidarity to our sisters & brothers from indigenous communities in occupied Canada, fighting Tar Sands mining. What do poor Asian communities have to do with this opposition campaign on tar sands? We see in the lifeline of fossil fuels, from mining to refining to emissions, that environmental racism hits poor communities of color at each of these points. Our struggles are connected. APEN & allies are doing our part to hold the line at the Chevron refinery who’s trying to retool their facility to process heavier crude & tar sands. So when we’re successful, we help their campaigns. And when they stop tar sands extraction, that prevents Chevron from refining it in Richmond. I gifted 5 APEN shirts to our native allies, wishing them good luck & the powerful dragon energy we hope help win their campaigns.

#4 sheer voice: Inside the highly-guarded UNFCCC Bella Center, we pulled in close a circle of 30+ US grassroots climate justice organizers of color to strategize on how we were going to pose an alternative American voice in these climate talks. Expressing frustration over how our US negotiators are misrepresenting our EJ+ realities, I facilitated the session where all around, we said we were so much more aligned w/the sentiments of African sisters & brothers, Pacific small island nations, Latin American vision, and indigenous struggles. The momentum generated from this discussion is now driving a unifying effort between us. Stay tuned…

The early winter cold of Copenhagen turns my face into a popsicle, but all I had to do was join the “Flood for Climate Justice” march of a hundred thousand energetic people from around the world to feel warm. A 4 mile, 4+ hour mobilization is enough to keep anyone from freezing. Signs of hope/despair: “There is no planet B,” “Nature doesn’t compromise,” to “systems change, not climate change.”

While on the march, a UK Guardian TV reporter asked me if I was optimistic or skeptical of these climate negotiations. Both. Skeptical because there’s no denying that many of our elected officials are in bed with corporations [while I held up my transported Bay area protest sign “Chevron, Corporations OUT of Copenhagen Climate Talks”]. And optimistic because I can’t just let my babies, family & community die from climate disruption.

We have work to do. I’m already learning a lot just by allies briefing me from the first week of these climate negotiations. Something we don’t hear often in the US is “ecological debt” or what some refer to as “carbon colonization”. It’s that rich countries have colonized the atmosphere with their industrial carbon pollution for so long that it’s time they pay for the mess they’ve caused. And rightly so, as small island nations like Tuvalu are headed to go under water this century, or African nations whose severe droughts have caused massive displacement & wars, they have every right to demand the strictest emissions reductions possible to stabilize the planet. Another big debate is with REDD, which our allies oppose because it would not only displace indigenous forest-dependent peoples, but also start a huge fake forest program around the world. Some say it’s like a rich person could say they’re carbon neutral if they pay to plant a tree but still drive their gas guzzling car.

It makes me think about how deeply we here in Copenhagen really understand the weight & depth of our actions & even solutions. Right now, most of us agree that we need climate justice… but what does that really mean? In this next & last week of the climate talks, our grassroots delegations of frontline, impacted communities & countries need to be heard: from the seriousness of the problems in our communities now, to the solutions we really need to turn the ecological crisis around.

There are many exciting & important events ahead: US grassroots/EJ discussion about how we will apply pressure on Obama as he represents the US later this week, a strategy discussion between North-South base-building allies on how our movements need to step up, to the midweek convergence of “inside” & “outside” delegates into a people’s assembly for climate justice. More stories to come & flood out of our delegation.