Get an intensive overview on the state of our planet by joining MG’s retreats:
Retreat I – September 14-16
Retreat II – October 22-24

MG’s two three-day retreats take place at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Sonoma County (www.oaec.org). The first retreat focuses on literacy and analysis of local and global ecology. The second focuses on strategy and the implications for organizing in urban communities. The retreats are the flagship program of MG and are a truly transformative experience for participants.

Target participants for MG’s Strategic Retreats are:  Staff & member-leaders from base-building racial, economic and environmental justice organizations.  Accepted applicants commit to participating in both retreats.  Retreats run all-day for 3 consecutive days.

To request an application, send an email to: info@movementgeneration.org

For those of you paying attention – We have changed the dates of Retreat I.  They no longer will happen on Aug 27-29.  The September dates are the new, confirmed dates!

The deadline to apply is July 9, 2010.

Movement Generation’s 1st Annual Party!

November 5, 2010
6-10 pm
at Humanist Hall (390  27th St., Oakland, CA)

Here at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, I Just took in a panel on the ABC’s of Climate Negotiations featuring the negotiators present in Copenhagen representing Cuba and Bolivia, and an activist and policy expert from the Third World Network. They managed to lay things out clearly on what happened in Copenhagen, the US-led Copenhagen Accord, and their position on the negotiations now.

Some core points:

1. The key question (aside from decreasing emissions) in negotiations is how to divide up the atmospheric space left for emissions given that the US and other developed countries already used up most of the space that there was for greenhouse gas emissions. This then leads to the obvious follow-up question of whether or not the same countries that overused already should get the overwhelming share of what’s left. The obvious answer that most children would tell you is that no – that isn’t fair, or for that matter, just or equitable. Yet when a country like the US says it can’t or won’t cut emissions to the level it demands of others, that’s what happens.

2. Many countries in the Global South, and certainly the Bolivian government, believe that when developed countries like the US need to decrease their emissions that we should do it domestically, in US industries and the US economy, instead of creating carbon markets that let the US pollute away while paying someone else to decrease for them. This makes sense because history has shown that the projects that are supposed to “offset” emissions in the US or EU are often dubious, or might have happened anyway, or cause other problems for the people who live where they are happening (like with dams).

3. Regardless of the above points, the rich nations pushing the current arena of international negotiations are not seeking to get industrialized countries to decrease their own emissions by their fare share. Right now there are two competing options for a global framework to address climate change– a backroom deal the US is trying to move called the Copenhagen Accord, and the continuation of the international negotiations that have been happening according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997. You read that right. The US-backed “Copenhagen Accord” has no relationship to the ongoing global negotiations process. As Angelica Navarro, one of the UN climate negotiators from Bolivia told the story, “It (the Copenhagen Accord) was given to us and we were told we had an hour to decide if we would support it enough. How are we supposed to make a decision about the future of the earth in an hour?”

4. The Kyoto Protocol, adopted through the UNFCCC as the global plan to set targets and mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in 1997 has lots of well documented problems: a carbon market has allowed developed countries to avoid making real reductions to their emissions, a “clean development mechanism” which has spurred all kinds of destructive projects in the Global South, and the use of offsets which lead to continued pollution in communities of color in industrialized countries while paying projects elsewhere to cut their real or planned emissions. However, on the positive side Kyoto has: shared legal limits on emissions that are (at least prospectively) based on science; the concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities” meaning that those who have polluted the most should have a different burden than those who haven’t; exceptions for Global South countries with the intent of not restricting their development; and an enforcement mechanism if targets aren’t met.

5. The Copenhagen Accord, on the other hand, has: voluntary limits set by each country, no process to reconcile or pressure countries that offer less regardless of responsibility, no enforcement, continued carbon markets with offsets, etc., and an overall target set not by what science says in necessary, but only representing the total of what all the countries offer up. A study done by the EU estimated that if the Copenhagen Accord was approved with the existing commitments by countries it would optimistically only decrease emissions by 2%, probably locking us into a 3.9 degree Celsius temperature increase globally (this comes from a recent MIT study) – which would be a serious disaster.

The conclusion of the presenters was what you might expect; the countries represented are interested in following through with the official UN track of negotiations to get a better, more effective agreement. It remains to be seen how opposition to the Copenhagen Accord will fit in the package of demands that are coming from Southern social movements, but it certainly looks like it will figure strongly in the inside strategy of negotiators.

Ms. Navarro spoke directly to a US participant in the audience near the end of the panel. “We don’t believe that everything is lost. We have hope. But we have hope in you compañera. We have hope in the civil society. We have hope that together with the civil society of the South and the North, governments can make changes …We also believe that you all have part of the solution and we want to hear from you. What can we do so that the United States makes serious commitments? Not only in front of it’s own country, but in front of the world, those of us who are suffering because of this irrational irresponsible development, not only by the US, but all the developed countries.”

I haven’t touched on some of the other key issues like climate debt and REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) yet but they are coming soon. Pa’lante Siempre.

by Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan,

The Copenhagen round of the UNFCCC 15^th Conference of Parties has ended in failure  It is essential for the future of life on this planet that we achieve a global pact based on sound science and equity soon.  But given that the U.S. and its key allies were not willing to consider a fair and binding agreement, it is highly encouraging to see that social movements and many third world nations successfully united behind the slogan, “No deal is better than a catastrophic deal.”

Sadly, the US has been unwilling to put forth real solutions with the speed and scale needed. Instead, Hilary Clinton arrived on Thursday trying to extort an unfair deal by offering a vague package of $100 billion that would amount to a new climate colonialism. At the same time, a UNFCC analysis was leaked showing that the combined offerings of the US and other countries would amount to at least a 3 degree Celsius rise.  This would mean the eradication of whole island nations, dire drought for Africa, and massive displacement from increasing storms and flooding in South Asia.

The Obama Administration has offered cuts amounting to 4% from 1990 levels by 2020. To survive, the Island Nations, African Union, and other third world governments such as Bolivia joined with Indigenous People and others to call for industrialized nations to cut emissions by 49% from 1990 levels by 2020. They are demanding real solutions to the dire mitigation and adaptation issues they face.

Increasingly coordinated social movements and many 3^rd World governments held the line that no deal is better than a genocidal pact. Given this context, this is an important victory for the global south & impacted communities in the north on the path to winning:

- rapid, deep reductions in emissions;
- payment of climate debt;
- a rights-based approach to international and domestic climate change policy; and
- the inclusion of our communities in the processes.

On Thursday, December 17, US grassroots forces from impacted communities stepped up to challenge our government’s obstructive behavior.  Representatives of indigenous communities and other communities of color from the US and Canada delivered a letter to President Obama calling on him to act accountably and responsibly.

Today, Movement Generation stands proud to be building a powerful climate justice movement with

- Indigenous Peoples Movements
- Environmental Justice Communities and Coalitions
- Right to the City Alliance
- Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and
- Just Transition Alliance

We must build a powerful climate justice movement that can successfully pressure the US government to act accountably and responsibly.

The next round of negotiations will take place in Mexico City in late 2010.  Not just about climate, as Gopal Dayaneni says, “these negotiations are about everything, international trade; forests; food and agriculture; the rights of the indigenous and forest peoples; resource privatization; international finance (private and public); development rights; oceans; rivers; technology; intellectual property; migration, displacement and refugees; and biodiversity, to name a few. The reduction of emissions is only one part of the negotiations.”

One outcome could be that the ruling elites win an agreement that sets up a new global infrastructure for maintaining inequity amidst an increasingly militarized world where the rich control scarce food, water, land, and energy resources.  Or our social movements could use the next year to build our power to win a pact that helps us transition out of a capitalist system that is clearly broken and towards liberated communities that control our own land, water, and energy systems.

We must build this power starting in our own communities: talking with members, taking local action to frame the problem and the solutions. Along the way, the US Social Forum will be a critical space to align our movements and articulate an irresistible vision.

TAKE ACTION
As our delegation departs Copenhagen over the next few days, we call on you to stay connected to this historic effort to build a powerful climate justice movement led by frontline communities in the U.S.

- Look out for Report Backs & Strategy Sessions in January 2010
- Sign on to the Letter to President Obama
- Integrate Climate Justice into your basebuilding, leadership development, campaigns, and alliance building.
- Gear up to make Climate Justice a central frame of our movements at the US Social Forum through your workshops and other movement building work.

Social movements in the U.S. must seize 2010 to build our power towards winning System Change Not Climate Change. This is our moment to move millions to win a world driven by healing, cooperation, mutual aid, and a healthy relationship to the ecosystems we are a part of.

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!”

* CLIMATE TALKS UNDEMOCRATIC & ON VERGE OF FAILURE
* US/RICH COUNTRIES REFUSE SERIOUS REDUCTIONS & CLIMATE DEBT
* MASSIVE POLICE REPRESSION AGAINST NONVIOLENT CIVIL SOCIETY

WHEN: Friday December 18th 4:30-6:00PM
WHERE: Danish Consulate,1 California St, at Market St. (Embarcadero BART), San Francisco [view map]
Bring candles and friends.

“First they shut the public out of the climate negotiations, then they shut out 80% of NGOs who have been accredited to attend, and now they are jailing people who challenge the undemocratic nature of the climate negotiations, while the future of life on earth literally hangs in the balance.”
— Dorothy Guerro, Focus on the Global South, Climate Justice Now Network.

WHY?
UN CLIMATE TALKS ON VERGE OF FAILURE: Because the US and other wealth climate polluting nations refuse to significantly reduce climate pollution and to pay our ecological debt to climate-impacted developing world and because of the lack of democracy in the UN climate talks. On Tuesday, US climate negotiator Todd Stern said he foresees no change in President Obama’s offer to cut emissions by 17 percent of 2005 levels by2020. The proposal has been widely criticized because it amounts to just a four percent cut when adopting the 1990 emission standard used by the rest of the world. Scientists call for a 40% cut by 2020in order to prevent an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe. Meanwhile, developing countries including the US, UK and Denmark drafted and circulated a document to completely circumvent the UN from all further future negotiations.

* CIVIL SOCIETY NGO’S BANNED FROM UN: Accredited civil society groups including Friends of the Earth, Avaaz, Tck Tck Tck, and Via Campesina have been banned from the UN Climate Conference. ”The surgical removal of non governmental organizations underscores the lack of democracy inherent in these negotiations. The only way to avoid catastrophic climate change is fully supporting and including peoples movements like the very ones illegitimately removed from this process.,” said Professor Micheal Dorsey, a member of the Climate Justice Now! Network.

* DENMARK VIOLATES DEMOCRATIC & HUMAN RIGHTS, ATTACKS NONVIOLENT ACTIVISTS: Danish police have engaged in mass preemptive arrests, detentions, clubbed and pepper spayed nonviolent activists, raided organizing centers and suspended basic civil liberties and democratic rights. Dr. Tadzio Mueller of Berlin, an accredited NGO observer at the COP 15 and the spokesperson for Climate Justice Action, was arrested without provocation by plain clothed police shortly after a press conference announcing nonviolent demonstrations plans. He remains in jail awaiting trial.

SING A PETITION TO THE DANISH GOVERNMENT:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ Tadzio/petition.html

WHO: Mobilization for Climate Justice West: A coalition of thirty climate justice, environmental justice, community, peace and human rights organizations. http://west.actforclimatejustice.org

i am here in copenhagen. this morning – it is 7 am in CPH, 10 pm back home in Oakland … missing you all. it snowed yesterday, wet snow that did not accumulate much; snow is expected for the rest of this week and weekend. i’m on the first half of a cup of coffee so forgive the disjointed order of words and thoughts as they come through ..

i read a facebook posting on peace, justice and development by a friend who is referencing and juxtaposing Amartya Sen’s piece, “Development as freedom,” MLK, and the Dalai Lama.

we are preparing this morning to take to the streets in a massive non violent civil disobedience.

this is the largest conference / international event that they have hosted here in Denmark. ever.

100,000 people took to the streets on Saturday to demand climate agreements that were just, equitable, and of sufficient scale to meet the need of environmental crisis that we anticipate.

After the collapse of the WTO between Seattle and Hong Kong, in their dying throes, the WTO ministerial said that they hoped that the UNFCCC could figure out global economic governance.

A crew of us who went to protest the WTO in Hong Kong in 2005 dubbed WTO “World Take Over.”

So I guess .. in thinking about .. different meaning of development, economic security, peace; why are we here in a cold Nordic country, a dark morning, house buzzing with energy slowly in a crescendo …

The movements from the Global South with whom my crew this time around (movementgeneration.org) – whose experience here in CPH i have had the honor of observing, building and documenting – have the experience, desire and dream that development is not about simple economic measures. It is about the freedom and opportunity to make our own destinies, collectively.

One delegate from Via Campesina reminded us that our communities already have the knowledges and practices that will lead the way to sustainability.

Another reminded us that this is not just a struggle for economic, historical, cultural, social well-being of communities, but also a struggle for memory.

Eduardo Galeano, Laura Pulido, Robin Kelley, Gloria Anzaldua would say it is also a struggle of the imagination, of the dreams we have for ourselves and the future, the struggle for the places we call home.

So here we are, thousands of people from the Global South and the South in the North, protesting an undemocratic process – of the more than 22,000 delegates, observers and UN parties who registered and were accredited to be inside the COP15 negotiations in the Bella Centre, less than 1,000 – including official government delegations will be allowed inside today, less than 90 on the days of High Level Sessions Thursday and Friday.

More than 25,000 additional people were planning on attending the more Social Forum like atmosphere of the Klimaforum, the climate justice oriented civil society consrtucted space a few miles from the Bella Centre, from the official COP 15 negotiations.

Protesting an undemocratic process that is threatening, yet again, to curtail the ability of ourselves, our ancestors, our brothers and sisters, our future generations, not only to breathe clean air, to grow food on good earth and in healthy oceans rivers and creeks; to swim, clean and bather in water that sustains life, but also the abilities of our future generations to dream their own dreams, and imagine futures that are similar to a present that would be good enough to be celebrated instead of spurned for a “better” future dream.

so here’s to real democratic, public access for public negotiations that affect the entire global population, and disproportionately those who are being and have been excluded.

as the youth delegations (with the notable exception of the US “officially sponsored” youth delegation sponsored by the Big Environmental NGOs) have said, no decisions about us without us.

and here’s to our dreams.

xiangwangzhengyi!

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.

Members from several US Environmental Justice and Climate Justice grassroots organizations met today inside the Bella Center to discuss our visions for climate justice in the United States and around the world. I felt honored to sit in the room with people who have fought for environmental and climate justice since before colonization.

We agreed to call an end to the ecological tyranny of our government in the States and abroad. It is no coincidence that the same countries who historically exploit(ed) our people are also at the forefront of driving false carbon market solutions that further degrade our human rights, our land, and our spirits.

We honored those in the US suffering from diseases and disproportionate pollution. We agreed to fight together. We shall rise like a phoenix from the ashes and raise our voices against climate injustice. Tomorrow we will march with our brothers and sisters from Via Campsesina for Food Sovereignty. Fight for and end to the exploitation of our indigenous brothers and sisters in sovereign nations in Mexico, Central America, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and communities of color in the United States! Fight for Climate Justice Now! Rise Phoenix, Rise!