Climate Action Network Canada responds to outcome of UN climate talks in Durban

Climate Action Network Canada
December 11, 2011

(Durban, South Africa) Following an extra day of negotiations, the UN climate change talks in Durban, South Africa have finished. Hannah McKinnon, Campaigns Director of Climate Action Network Canada has responded as follows:

“The most important thing to understand out of Durban is that countries have not yet succeeded in moving the world away from a dangerous trajectory towards well above two degrees of global warming. These UN climate talks are only as strong as the political will that drives them – or drags them. In Durban countries have kept the political space alive, but without a serious ramping up of ambition and action from developed countries, the deal we need will remain elusive and the climate will continue to move from crises to catastrophe.

The Kyoto Protocol has survived in large part because of the positive momentum created by an alliance of the European Union, small island states and the least developed countries. Countries have also agreed on the Green Climate Fund, but critical work still must be done to ensure it is not an empty shell.

The Canadian Government has been the poster child of inaction at these talks, and although they no longer have the global credibility to have a meaningful impact here, they have been constantly singled out as a laggard and even a pariah in these negotiations.

Now more than ever we must create a coalition of the willing in Canada between people, cities and provinces that understand the urgent need for action. The moral imperative for action will not wait for political leaders to finally show leadership – and so we must fill that space with inspiring and meaningful action from the ground up.”

COP17 Update

3:25am GMT update from Jeffrey Allen

World Development Movement wins the race to declare a verdict. Here are a few choice quotes from the press release that just landed:

"The World Development Movement has slammed the outcome of the UN climate talks in Durban as a ‘spectacular failure’ that will condemn the world’s poorest people to hunger, poverty and ultimately, death.

The world is now on course for devastating temperature rises as a result of the failure of developed countries to act. Instead of coming to Durban to take action, developed countries have stonewalled on the real issues and kicked decisions down the road.

Developed countries have failed to commit to action to curb their emissions, leaving the world to run headfirst towards catastrophic climate change.

The UK and the EU have failed to put their money where their mouths are, and have not committed the money needed to help developing countries cope with climate change. Only agreeing to produce yet another report on financing with no guarantees that anything will come of it, after years of reports, promises and negotiations...

This roadmap is set to undermine the principles of the UN climate talks - that developed countries bear responsibility for causing climate change and must act first. Treating rich industrialised countries and poor developing countries as if they were the same is not a just solution to climate change."


3:00am GMT update from Jeffrey Allen
One Climate
December 11, 2011

"Been downstairs during the break taking the initial pulse of civil society. Let's just say, they're not very happy with what's shaping up here, as the sun begins to rise over Durban.

If you're watching the proceedings, you're seeing high drama, people are patting themselves on the back, and the story of a "historic" agreement seems to be shaping up. But climate activists are talking about a hollow agreement.

Two of the main problems we're hearing are that:

• there's no reason to believe emission-cut targets will be increased at all;

• there's no reason to believe any significant funds will be committed to help poor countries cope with the impacts of climate change

According to prolific tweeter Murray Worthy of World Development Movement,

We're replacing the Kyoto Protocol with... hope

The bottom line: nothing has been agreed here that moves us off a 4-degree pathway, and as we all know, 4 degrees of warming is catastrophic for the world's vulnerable people and will result in irreversible consequences of climate change."

COP17 Live

Canada, the Grave Digger of Kyoto

Martin Lukacs

HuffPost

December 11, 2011

Few issues have united delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa. But if you walked the halls of the International Convention Centre and mentioned the name of "Canada," the response would be unanimous -- a collective groan and lament. The only time the country elicited anything else was during a silent protest on Wednesday by young Canadian activists, who stood and turned their backs to their environment minister as he addressed the assembled countries in plenary. They were hustled out by security, stripped of their accreditation and booted from the building. But the rousing applause they received well eclipsed the muted claps for the minister.

Canada's global reputation is in tatters, and the reasons why are plain to see. A country with a deep multilateral tradition has become a climate unilateralist like no other. It was the Canadian government that fired the opening salvo of the talks when news broke that they planned to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol -- the world's only legally binding climate treaty -- before Christmas. They promised to "play hardball" with impoverished, developing countries, and dismissed the demand for industrialized nations to take responsibility for two centuries of emissions as a "historical guilty card." "It poisoned the negotiations," says prominent Nigerian environmental activist Nnemmo Bassey. In a setting in which decisions are made by consensus of all countries, such moves were decisively damaging. 

The Climate Change Revolution Will Not Be Funded

By Jared Sacks
The Indypendent
December 9, 2011

This past week, world leaders, technocrats, and NGOs descended upon Durban for the 17th Conference of Parties (dubbed Conference of Polluters by its critics). After 17 years of meetings to address climate change, the lack of action from world leaders clearly shows that the biggest polluting nations not only lack the political will to address the issue, but also seem to be actively carrying out the anti-environmental agenda of the largest corporations on this planet.

The sizeable NGOs who have made their name fighting climate change are surely correct when they link the Obama and Harper governments, and indeed the entire COP process, to the likes of Royal Dutch Shell, Eskom and Koch Industries. Some great slogans have come out of this opposition to the conference. Earthlife Africa’s catchphrase on their t-shirts tells us to “never trust a COP” playing off of the duplicity and corruption of both the police and the COP process.

Videos: "Marx and Engels on Nature" and "Ecosocialism" (in French)

Global Justice School
Amsterdam
December 2011

View all the videos HERE.


Marx (and Engels) on nature: Part one from IIRE2 on Vimeo.

Nunavut youth accepts Canada’s “Colossal Fossil” award in Durban

"The embarrassing part was me being Canadian"

By Frank Tester
Special to Nunatsiaq News
December 9, 2011

Jordan Konek of the Nanisiniq Arviat history project accepts the "Colossal Fossil" award on behalf of Canada on Dec. 9 at the United Nations climate conference in Durban, South Africa. (PHOTO BY FRANK TESTER)

DURBAN, South Africa — Canada picked up an award Dec. 9 at the United Nations climate change conference in Durban: the “Colossal Fossil” award for its poor performance during the past two weeks.

Sponsored by the Climate Action Network, a global coalition of over 700 non-governmental organizations dealing with climate change, a “First Place Fossil” award went to New Zealand for its mixed messages on climate change action.

But the top award went to Canada, which had already picked up six “fossil of the day” awards in Durban.

Climate Change: Kyoto Protocol converted into a Zombie

Pablo Solon

WPCCCRME

December 9, 2011 

A few moments ago we found out the decisions that they have been cooking behind the scenes. In Durban they won’t approve a second period of commitments of the Kyoto Protocol. This will happen at the end of next year: in COP18.

In Durban they will only take note of the draft amendments and the “intention” of rich countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol will lose its heart. The promises of reductions by rich countries will be incredibly low until 2020 and will lead to a temperature increase of more than 4 degrees C. The Kyoto Protocol will turn into a Zombie without a global figure for reduction of emissions by industrialised countries, and will carry on walking until 2020 just so that carbon markets don’t disappear.

In 2020 “a new legal framework appliable to all” will enter into effect. “To all”,  means diluting the difference between developed and developing countries, between countries responsible for climate change and those who are victims. The US managed to eliminate any mention of a “binding” agreement. That means the “new legal framework” will be an empty gesture without any effect. The European Unions is permitting that the Kyoto Protocol is converted to a Zombie. This will become known as the lost decade of the fight against climate change. Genocide and ecocide will reach proportions that we have not yet seen. The Great Escape by the Rich has turned into the Great Swindle.

Pablo Solon is an international analyst and social activist. He was chief negotiator for climate change and United Nations Ambassador of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (2009-June 2011). http://pablosolon.wordpress.com/

If the Corporate-Political Nexus Cannot Deal with Climate Change, the People Will

By Glenn Ashton
SACSIS
December 6, 2011

There is deep scepticism as to whether the COP 17 meeting in Durban will achieve much at all. Why is it that such an urgent matter has taken so long to achieve so little at such great cost? Despite constant refrains from the global public, backed by scientific experts, there appears neither inclination nor momentum to solve this problem.

The biggest reason that resolution of this essentially straightforward problem is stalled is because the economic forces of private capital have usurped and over-ridden democratic political structures and power. In short, politics has been trumped by the capital markets.

This has been exacerbated by the polarised dynamic at play between the developed and developing world, which are gradually becoming better defined. On the one side, the developed world is broadly represented by political and business interests within the US and other western, industrialised nations; on the other are Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) and the G77 developing nations. The North/ South, developed/developing polarisation has made it extremely difficult to reach consensus around climate change.

Climate Change: Turning Our Backs on Canada

Bill McKibben, David Suzuki and others sign letter in support of the actions taken by the Canadian youth in Durban.

On Nov. 28, international climate-change negotiations began in Durban, South Africa, as the 17th annual Conference of Parties (COP17) got underway. This is the third in a series of blog posts from Amara Possian, who is the co-ordinator of the Canadian Youth Delegation to this conference. Today, Amara shares a letter signed in support of the actions taken by Canadian youth while Environment Minister Peter Kent addressed the United Nations conference on Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, six young Canadians stood up during Environment Minister Peter Kent’s plenary address to the United Nations climate negotiations. The six Canadian youth stood silently and turned their back on Kent for several minutes, wearing shirts that read “People before Polluters” and “Turn your back on Canada,” before being escorted out by UN security.

We, the undersigned from across Canada and the world, support these youth for their bold refusal to let the Canadian government negotiate away their future.

On this issue, Canada is becoming a global pariah, standing alone as the only country to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and then refuse to honour it.

However, the Canadian government has not just been inactive. It has relentlessly pursued short-term profits from the production of the dirtiest oil on the planet: the tar sands. It now protects the interests of corporations over the health and livelihoods of people. In the past year alone, the government lobbied for the Keystone XL pipeline and sought to weaken fuel standards in Europe. The expansion of the tar sands spells “game over for the climate,”, but the Canadian government has publicly stated that its priority was coming to the negotiations to defend the tar sands. Not only that, but the government has been accused of threatening to withdraw aid money to coerce poor countries into arguing against a second Kyoto period.

For these reasons and more, we stand with these youth and their walkout of Canada's address to the High-level Plenary of the United Nations climate negotiations. We support their actions and so too demand that the Canadian government start putting the interests of people before polluters. For too long our leaders have lobbied on behalf of the fossil fuel industry rather than protecting the future of its people.

Sincerely,

Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org

Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians

Dr. David Suzuki, Co-founder, David Suzuki Foundation

Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International

Judy Rebick, founder of rabble.ca

Tony Clark, Polaris Institute

Jamie Henn & May Boeve, 350.org

Tzeporah Berman, Climate and Energy Campaigner, Greenpeace International

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers

Indigenous Environmental Network

Roger Rashi, Alternatives International

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

Green Climate Fund: For People or Polluters?

Climate Justice Now!
Dec 8, 2011

The GREEN CLIMATE FUND should serve the needs of the peoples of developing countries. But Parties of developed countries are doing their utmost to ensure that the Fund operate based solely on their terms.

“Paying the Polluters” is one of the principles that they want the Green Climate Fund to be based on. Their efforts to ensure that the private sector be able to access funds directly from the GCF succeeded with the Transitional Committee’s proposed design that includes a private sector facility. Attempts from developing countries during the TC process and now in the COP17 process to ensure that the role of the private sector is subject to country-defined policies and priorities are being met with intense opposition.

Why we need an 'ecosocialist' movement

By Jim McIlroy

Alliance Voices

December 5, 2011

In the Brisbane [Australia] Socialist Alliance Branch pre-conference discussion recently, there was some discussion over the usefulness of the concept of "ecosocialism" as a vehicle for building the socialist movement today. I would like to defend the assertion that the term "ecosocialism" is now a vital instrument for reconstructing a mass socialist movement in the current world political situation.

The main problem faced by the socialist/Marxist movement right now is not whether or not Marx and Engels sufficiently analysed, or emphasised, ecological questions in their theoretical analysis of class society and history, but the fact that socialism/Marxism is now a tiny current in the international political scene. Historical questions, such as the fact that Stalinism, not Marxism, is responsible for the degeneration and collapse of the Soviet Union, are important, but not the key issue facing us at present.