IT IS EASIER to adjust human created rules than it is to override the laws of nature. Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein borrowed a set of that piece of Julius Caesar wisdom when developing the Leap Manifesto, which launched last September. Caesar meant it in the context of adding an extra day every four years, keeping our calendars synced with the seasons. Klein uses it in the context of fighting climate change.
Klein, author of This Changes Everything, Avi Lewis, director of the documentary of the same name and their team brought the Leap Manifesto to an audience in Paris in conjunction with the UN climate negotiations (COP21).
“We have political and economic systems that seem wholly incapable of rising to the existential crisis of climate change. Yet rather than change those systems and adapt to that reality so we can safeguard life on earth, we have politicians and corporations who are trying to negotiate with the laws of nature,” Klein said.
Currently, negotiators representing countries from around the world, developing and developed, are attempting to hash out a deal that will prevent the earth from warming more than 2 degrees. That number was decided on at COP15 in Copenhagen, island nations like The Maldives fought for a 1.5 degree limit, which they need to prevent rising sea levels from engulfing their lands.
“It is in fact the politicians and CEOs locked up in Le Bourget, who are in fact living in a dream world,” Klein said. She is fighting for solutions to a multi, overlapping crisis. Rather than pitting environmental issues with the economy and social inequity, Klein says Canada, and the world, needs to create integrated solutions. “Integrated solutions that will radically bring down climate change while simultaneously building more just economies and democracies based on true equality.”
For decades, western society has been told it needs to choose between protecting the environment and the economy, said Klein. That is where the creation of the Leap Manifesto came from, released during the federal election to prompt candidates to take on concrete, science-based climate policies. She describes the manifesto as less than a political party but more than a petition.
Klein and co are proposing to turn February 29, 2016 (a leap day) into a global day for climate justice where communities around the world release their own manifestos tailored to their needs and adhering to the laws of nature.
“I refuse to leave our future in the hands of the world leaders cloistered in Le Bourget,” Klein said. (Le Bourget is the site of COP21). Many NGOs have similar messages, that the Paris summit is not the end-all-be-all of climate change mitigation. There needs to be plans and ambition that goes far beyond Paris.
“We know that at the end of this summit, we are not going to have anything that deserves to be described as success. But we cannot afford to give into despair at the end of this summit. We need a post-Paris plan, a people’s plan,” Klein said. SOURCE
Megan NourseMegan is A\J’s editorial manager, a lover of journalism, and graduate of the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment.
Global Leaders Fight for New 1.5 Degrees Warming Target at COP21 Climate Talks
A coalition of vulnerable countries is pushing the global community to adopt a new 1.5 degree global warming target at the ongoing climate talks in Paris.
The group of countries, known as the Climate Vulnerability Forum, argues current efforts to limit global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius is insufficient to protect many nations from the dangers of climate change. The group came to this conclusion, which was announced on the first day of the climate talks, after two years of expert review and diplomatic consultations. Read more.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told international dignitaries that “Canada is back,” Monday in his speech at the opening of the COP21 climate talks in Paris.
Trudeau told the crowd, “our government is making climate change a top priority and our actions will be based on five principals.”
Trudeau promised first to proceed with climate policy “based on the best scientific information and advice” adding, “second, we will support and implement policies that will contribute to the low-carbon economy and this will include carbon pricing.” Read more.
Even though the COP21 climate talks in Paris only began Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already made waves, thrusting Canada back onto the international stage amid excitement and applause.
Yet climate experts are quick to point out Trudeau has a lot of work to do to bridge the gaps between the talk and the walk when it comes to meaningful climate action.
The international climate negotiations ongoing in Paris will continue on until the end of next week and onlookers will have to wait to know what shape the final outcome will take. Read more.
As the COP21 climate talks get underway in Paris, Canada is enjoying a newfound place in the international spotlight.
Canada announced this week it will contribute $30 million to finance climate projects in the world’s least developed countries as part of a larger $2.65 billion pledge that will support the transition to low-carbon energy sources in developing nations.
This contribution is a significant overhaul of Canada’s previous $300 million pledge under the Conservative government. Read more.
Last week at a meeting of Commonwealth nations in Malta, Prime Minister Trudeau announced that his government would increase its Green Climate Fund commitment to $2.65 billion.
Here’s a quick rundown what that actually means. Read more.
Negotiators adopted a draft climate agreement Saturday that was cluttered with brackets and competing options, leaving ministers with the job of untangling key sticking points in what is envisioned to become a lasting, universal pact to fight global warming.
As the UN talks outside Paris reached their midway point, the draft agreement was sent on to environment and foreign ministers who will work on it next week.
“We would have wished to be further along than we are at this point, but the text being forwarded so far reflects our key priorities,” said Maldives delegate Thoriq Ibrahim, who chairs an alliance of small island nations on the front lines of climate change.
A host of disagreements remains, almost all related to defining the obligations and expectations of rich and poor countries, as well as those who don’t fit neatly into either category.
“This text marks the will of all to reach an agreement. We are not at the end of the route. Major political issues are yet to be resolved,” Laurence Tubiana, French climate envoy, told the meeting.
Though 184 countries have already submitted national plans to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, how to anchor those pledges in a legally binding deal remains to be worked out.
China’s chief negotiator Su Wei told reporters Saturday that “all the provisions, starting from the preamble to the final clauses, would be legally binding.”
That contrasts with the U.S. position, which is for some parts to be legally binding, but not countries’ pledges to limit the greenhouse gas emissions. Binding emissions cuts would likely require the Obama administration to send the deal to the Republican-controlled Congress, where it would likely be struck down.
After the news conference, Su indicated the issue was still up for negotiation.
“We have to further discuss … try to find some proper solution,” he said.
Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resource Defense Council, a New York-based environmental group, said the issue could be resolved by avoiding words like “shall” in key paragraphs about emissions targets.
Plenty of work left
“We’re made some progress here, although I have to tell you the text is virtually, it’s just a package of things on which people don’t yet agree, and the lack of agreement is signified by square brackets,” Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May told CBC News on Saturday. “So it’s heavily bracketed text, but they have made enough progress to pass it onto the conference of of the parties themselves.”
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says climate talks negotiators are happy to see Canadian delegates, but claims that wasn’t the case in previous summits under the former government. (CBC)
May also took a shot at the former Conservative government, saying that after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s speech at the summit last Monday, negotiators hugged her and said “thank goodness, Canada is back,” suggesting a lack of progress on Canada’s part in past climate talks.
The Paris accord is meant to be a turning point in the world’s efforts to fight climate change. Since they started in 1992, the UN talks have not been able to stop the rise in emissions, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, blamed for warming the planet.
Previous agreements only required rich countries to reduce their emissions. The new agreement would apply to all countries, but many developing nations are resisting language that would indicate a shift in responsibilities.
The U.S. and other developed countries have traditionally been the only ones expected to provide financing to help poor countries deal with rising seas and other impacts of climate change. They want the new agreement to expand the donor base to include the most advanced developing countries.
Major developing countries including India and China are pushing back, amid worries that wealthy countries are trying to dodge their responsibilities.
The developing bloc says the parts of world that industrialized first — the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand — have a historical responsibility to address climate change.
Aboriginal leaders say they don’t know where Northcliff Resources is getting the idea First Nations are more accepting of the Sisson Brook mine project.
The Department of Environment and Local Government announced on Thursday it had approved the open-pit mine after its environmental impact assessmenet.
Dominique Nouvet, who is a lawyer for six Maliseet bands, said none of her clients have agreed to support the project.
Her clients, including St. Mary’s First Nation, have been in consultations with the provincial government.
“The main reactions are dismay and anger over the approvals coming so suddenly and with basically no warning,” said Nouvet.
“None of the Maliseet Chiefs support the project.”
That was echoed in a press release from the Maliseet Nation late on Thursday night.
It stated the elected chiefs of the six Maliseet communities were “angered by the government of New Brunswick’s rushed approval of the Sisson Mine.”
“Our members will be heartbroken by this approval,” said Chief Candice Paul of St. Mary’s First Nation.
President and CEO of Northcliff Resources, Chris Zahovskis, said the project had received a significant amount of positive response from First Nations.
“We have tried to work with the government in good faith,” added Chief Gabriel Atwin of Kingsclear First Nation.
“This sudden approval leaves me wondering how serious the government is about addressing Maliseet concerns.
These comments stand in contrast to how the company’s top executive characterized the support the company had among First Nations.
Chris Zahovskis, the president and chief executive officer of Northcliff Resources, said “we’ve received, we feel, a significant amount of positive support” from First Nations.
‘Disappointing and frustrating’
Another group that took part in Sisson consultations said it’s recently been excluded from the talks.
The Sisson mine project includes a tailings pond and ore processing plant, covering 12.5 square kilometre of Crown land. (Northcliff Resources Ltd.)
“The Mi’gmag have not been invited to sit with the province or proponent to discuss this project for close to a year,” Chief George Ginnish of the Mi’gmag Chiefs wrote.
“To date, the process with the province has been disappointing and frustrating.”
The provincial government said it was satisfied with the review and consultation process.
“This has been a long time, this has been a lot of consultation going on,” said Environment Minister Brian Kenny.
“If you take a look at the recommendations, there’s a lot of protection for environment.”
The federal Environmental Impact Assessment is still ongoing, and must be approved before the tungsten-molybdenum mine can move forward. SOURCE
In the past, international climate change negotiations like those underway in Paris focused mostly on policy (and politics, of course). But the Paris talks kicked off with two announcements focused squarely on clean energy innovation:
Canada, along with 19 other nations, joined Mission Innovation — an initiative led by U.S. President Barack Obama aimed at doubling the amount of public funding for clean energy research. For Canada, that means an injection of $300 million into research and development.
In the private sector, Bill Gates and more than 20 other billionaires launched theBreakthrough Energy Coalition. The members have committed to investing some of their collective $350 billion of wealth in early-stage companies with the potential to deliver energy with near-zero carbon emissions. Why? The reason is simple, said Gates: “We need to move faster than the energy sector ever has.”
Innovation, and the research that drives it, is a critical component of the clean energy transition that needs to occur to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. But, as SunEdison founder Jigar Shah and other commentators have noted, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aggressively pursue deployment of clean energy solutions that already exist.
What would those be? According to a new report by Goldman Sachs, investors should focus on increasing deployment of four technologies: solar photovoltaics, onshore wind, LED lighting and electric vehicles. That verdict is supported by researchers at MIT, who looked at the clean energy deployment that nations are promising in their climate plans: global solar installations will grow fivefold, and wind will nearly triple by 2030. That deployment will not only cut pollution, but also drive further cost reductions to the tune of 50 per cent for solar photovoltaics and 25 per cent for wind. How’s that for a virtuous circle?
On the ground in Paris, my colleague Zoë Caron has been tracking all the latest developments, from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s opening remarks to a session hosted by the Canadian Labour Congress on ensuring a just transition for energy workers. And of course there was Mark Carney and Mike Bloomberg’s discussion of the financial risks of climate change.
Bringing it back to Canada, CBC’s The National ran a great feature story on “Canada’s Race to Clean Energy.” It’s worth watching as a scene-setter for the Paris talks and the role that clean energy can play in delivering climate action in Canada. (ICYMI, the Canadian Council on Renewable Electricity’s recent report Powering Climate Prosperity outlines the dominant role renewables will play in a low-carbon economy.)
I’ve now joined my colleague Zoë Caron on the ground in Paris, so follow us on Twitter (@merransmith and @ZoeCaron) for real-time updates from the global climate summit.
Climate refugees and displaced peoples bear the brunt of environmental violence
An average of 26.4 million people per year have been displaced from their homes due to environmental disasters. | Photo: Michael Nash, Director of Climate Refugees
By: Harsha Walia, reposted from Telesertv.net on Dec 5, 2015 “We live in constant fear of the adverse impacts of climate change. For a coral atoll nation, sea level rise and more severe weather events loom as a growing threat to our entire population. The threat is real and serious, and is of no difference to a slow and insidious form of terrorism against us.” - Prime Minister of Tuvalu Saufatu Sapo’aga at the United Nations
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, world leaders are closing their borders to refugees and cracking down on civil society participation in the upcoming climate negotiations. Over the past 15 years, the War on Terror has allowed for increased state powers while curbing fundamental rights, especially of racialized bodies marked as threats. Meanwhile, violence against the majority of humanity – including the devastation caused by climate change in places like Tuvalu – continues on with international impunity.
Millions of people are treated as expendable as the land, air and water that elites and their corporate friends are digging up and polluting.
Tuvalu is one of dozens of low-lying Pacific Islands threatened with total submersion as catastrophic warming causes ocean levels to rise drastically. Over one-fifth of Tuvaluans have already been forced to flee and the government of Tuvalu has been urging the U.N. to heed the impending disaster in Tuvalu. Despite having the world’s highest emission per capita, Tuvalu’s neighbor, Australia, has so far refused to accept Tuvaluans as climate refugees.
It is evident that Australia and other Western governments’ non-response to climate change is reproduced in their denial of the humanity of those who are a product of our unequal world; millions of people are treated as expendable as the land, air and water that elites and their corporate friends are digging up and polluting.
Two years ago, the strongest storm ever recorded at landfall hit the Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan left 6,000 people dead and 4 million people were forced from their homes. This month a coalition of survivors released an anniversary statement to the world:
“On the second anniversary of Yolanda, lighted candles may no longer be enough. We must organize an escalated action strengthening our broad networks to pressure our own inept governments and the world’s top 200 corporate giants amassing wealth from carbon pollution and social exploitation … Now is the time to end the climate crisis. Let the world know – our survival is non-negotiable.”
According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, an average of 26.4 million people per year have been displaced from their homes due to environmental disasters. This is the equivalent of one person displaced every second, and the likelihood of being displaced by a climate disaster is 60 percent higher today than it was four decades ago.
A proposal to support climate refugees has been dropped from the U.N. COP21 climate talks in Paris.
Even though international agencies and politicians routinely declare that climate and migration are two of the greatest crises on the planet today, a proposal to support climate refugees has been dropped from the U.N. COP21 climate talks in Paris. One of the key recommendations from the Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility is to fund adaptation strategies that support communities to remain, as well as strategies to safely migrate through a climate change displacement coordination facility. Proposed by low-lying countries in the Global South, the recommendation is opposed by Western countries, especially Australia, and has now been entirely scrapped from the latest draft agreement.
It lays bare that to those in power the survival of brown and black bodies is, in fact, negotiable. Furthermore, carbon markets continue to be one of the primary solutions proposed by government and corporate elites, even though they open up impoverished communities to land grabs and further displacement by polluters.
Displacement as Environmental Violence
Climate refugees are not alone in bearing the impacts of environmental degradation. Refugees and migrants fleeing war, political violence and economic instability often tell the stories of livelihoods devastated by changing weather patterns or industrial development projects that permanently alter local landscapes. The staggering scale of the Syrian refugee crisis, for example, is compounded by an eight-year drought resulting in 75 percent of farmers suffering total crop failure and over 1.5 million people being forced into urban areas.
In fact, much of the political and imperialist violence that has caused the world’s largest mass displacements in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq can be traced back to the world’s largest climate crime of the tar sands.
Disproportionately impacting downstream Indigenous communities such as the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Beaver Lake Cree Nation and Lubicon Cree Nation at the source, over half of Alberta’s tar sands go to the U.S. whose Department of Defense is the world’s leading single buyer and consumer of oil. Indeed, the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 explicitly designates tar sands production to serve the fuel needs of the US military. As author Naomi Klein explains it, “As Baghdad burns, destabilizing the entire region and sending oil prices soaring, Calgary booms.” This is precisely why a local and global anti-colonial orientation needs to be central to climate justice movements.
The level of cognitive dissonance you need to believe refugees are the big threat in a world of climate change, inequality, debt, etc.
In the East African country of Tanzania, mining for gold accounts for approximately 40 percent of the country’s exports. Just one mine, the North Mara gold mine owned by Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold, has displaced 10,000 families since 1997. Within one year, the Legal and Human Rights Center documented 19 murders of villagers opposing the mine by police and security forces. In another northern part of Tanzania, the Geita Gold Mine displaced 250 people from one village – almost all farming families who can no longer subsist on the land and have been living in a makeshift refugee camp for the past eight years. Industrial development such as mining, dams and power plants have severe consequences for the environment, as well as the human rights of those displaced due to loss of their lands and livelihoods. Researchers estimate that around the world 15 million people each year are forced to leave their homes due to industrial development projects, and that mining accounts for 10.3 percent of all development-induced displacements.
Furthermore, in a world of fortified borders, seeking refuge is underwritten by violence on the land. The militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, for example, has created a 650-mile scar on the land as well as at least 5,000 migrant deaths in the past two decades. In 2005, a provision in the Real ID Act gave the Secretary of Homeland Security unprecedented power to waive 36 laws that protected endangered species, farmland, rivers and sensitive ecosystems. Meanwhile, prisons and immigration detention centers are massive environmental and health hazards for those disproportionately poor black and brown bodies warehoused behind bars and drinking water tainted with arsenic, sleeping in sewage, and breathing air from dangerously close power plants and landfills.
Freedom to move, stay and return
Climate change is a product of our political, social and economic system – one that places all that is sacred onto the market for pillage and profit, a hierarchal order that values some people as all of humanity while others are cast outside of humanity and made to disappear in the seas, on the streets and behind cages. This is precisely why displaced peoples must be central to climate movements.
As author McKenzie Wark reminds us, “Those who seek refuge, who are rarely accorded a voice, are nevertheless the bodies that confront the injustice of the world.” SOURCE
Harsha Walia (@HarshaWalia) is a South Asian activist and writer based in Vancouver, unceded Indigenous Coast Salish Territories in Canada. She has been involved in community-based grassroots migrant justice, feminist, anti-racist, Indigenous solidarity, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements for 15 years. She is the author of Undoing Border Imperialism.
A global group of professionals, scientists and environmentalists – the Monsanto Tribunal – are preparing a trial for the GMO seed giant in The Hague. They say the crowdfunded action, determined to charge Monsanto with “ecocide,” is more than a symbolic move.
The Monsanto Tribunal’s goal is to research and evaluate all of the allegations made against Monsanto in connection to all the damages its products have caused to human health and the environment. It is scheduled to be held at The Hague from October 12 to 16 in 2016. The trial will wrap up on next year’s World Food Day.
One of the main goals the broad group of signees [ABOUT US] wants the tribunal to achieve is establishing “ecocide” as a crime. “Recognizing ecocide as a crime is the only way to guarantee the right of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to be protected,” The International Monsanto Tribunal says on its website.
The Tribunal will look into a range of charges, including what it says are Monsanto’s crimes against nature and humanity.
“The Tribunal will rely on the ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ adopted at the UN in 2011. It will also assess potential criminal liability on the basis of the Rome Statue that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether a reform of international criminal law is warranted to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense, so that natural persons could incur criminal liability.”
Several bodies and groups are supporting the initiative, including the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, as well as dozens more farming and environmental groups.
The decision to proceed with the tribunal was announced by the groups shortly before the Sustainable Pulse report was published, which was part of the COP21 UN Conference on Climate Change that runs until December 11 in Paris.
“The time is long overdue for a global citizens’ tribunal to put Monsanto on trial for crimes against humanity and the environment. We are in Paris this month to address the most serious threat that humans have ever faced in our 100-200,000 year evolution—global warming and climate disruption,” the president of the Organic Consumers Association, Ronnie Cummins, said at the press conference.
Monsanto's Ecocide-related tribunal to be held in The Hague, Netherlands, from 12th to 16th October 2016.
Meanwhile, president of IFOAM and member of the RI Steering Committee Andre Leu accused Monsanto of ignoring the human and environmental damage created by its products. Leu added that the transnational is able to maintain its devastating practices “by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, and by manipulating the press and media.”
“Monsanto’s history reads like a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet,” Leu stressed.
The American-based company has enjoyed a good reputation in the US media and is known for its strong ties on Capitol Hill.
The Monsanto Tribunal argues that the company is responsible for the depletion of soil and water resources, species extinction, and declining biodiversity, as well as the displacement of millions of small farmers worldwide.
Farmers in certain countries have been taking these developments very hard. In India, an alarming wave of suicides tied to Monsanto’s practices has been registered among farmers.
Instead of traditional crops, farmers have been forced to grow GM cotton, which is more expensive and requires additional maintenance. In the last 20 years, this trend has driven some 290,000 farmers to commit suicide due to bankruptcy, according to India’s national crimes bureau records.
Subjecting Monsanto to real legal consequences will be a challenge, though, as the corporation has never lost a case.
The company is notorious for routinely suing farmers, which has earned it the reputation of a legal bully in the eyes of critics. According to Food Democracy Now, the GMO corporation has filed 145 lawsuits since 1997, because farmers had reused their seeds in a manner inconsistent with Monsanto policies. This even includes cases where the farmers themselves had sued Monsanto for the inadvertent cross-pollination of their organic crops with GMO seeds.
One lawsuit representing 300,000 farmers was thrown out of court – for the mere reason that the farmers had already been sued by Monsanto. According to Food Democracy Now, the judge called the farmers’ case“unsubstantiated.”
Untold damage has also been caused to the ecosphere by the dying-off of 970 million Monarch butterflies since 1990. The herbicides Monsanto sells eradicate a range of the prolific pollinators’ natural food sources. The statistic was released by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in February.
People demonstrated in over 400 major cities across the world in May to tell the GMO giant they do not want its produce in their food. It was the third global March Against Monsanto (MAM). SOURCE
