By Dahr Jamail

Burning sugar cane field in the Lower Lempa region of El Salvador for industrial-scale production (Erika Blumenfeld)

While debate about whether climate change is real or not continues in the US, the world’s leading producer of CO2 emissions per capita, those already living with the effects, like Jose Domingo Cruz in El Salvador, don’t have time to debate.

“Our storms are increasing in number and intensity,” Cruz, a member of his community Civil Protection Committee that responds to community needs during natural disasters, told Al Jazeera while standing on a levy that ruptured during Tropical Storm Agatha last year. “All of us attribute this to climate change.”

The levy, originally constructed in the aftermath of devastating floods caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, now has two huge ruptures in need of repair before the next hurricane season that begins in roughly six months.

A severe drought in 2008 and 2009, and Hurricane Stan in 2005, also took a severe toll on both land and lives in the area. Increasing sea levels will also heavily impact this part of El Salvador, which is largely populated by people who had to flee the US-backed war that raged in the country from 1979 to 1992.

A 2007 climate change study conducted by El Salvador’s National Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources focused on the Lower Lempa River and Bay of Jiquilisco areas of the central Pacific coast.

The study found that this area can expect more of what it is already experiencing: increasing minimum and maximum temperatures, a shift in observed seasons, more frequent observations of extremely wet and extremely dry years, and intensified extreme event activity, including tropical storms and hurricanes.

Against the backdrop of these dire predictions, the people are, however, forming a movement that is learning to protect and sustain itself in the increasingly chaotic world of global climate change and its severe ramifications on people, the environment, and local economies.

Social movement as survival mechanism

In addition to climate change, El Salvador faces environmental issues that include deforestation, soil erosion, water pollution, and soil contaminated from decades of cotton and sugar cane production using toxic herbicides and fertilisers.

El Salvador is the 2nd most deforested country in the Western Hemisphere, second only to Haiti. Only two per cent of primary forest that existed 50 years ago remains today.

Estela Hernandez assists local communities in sustainable living practises (Erika Blumenfeld)

In response to increasing natural disasters related to climate change – and as an effort to promote environmental protections and sustainable living – a group known as The Mangrove Association was birthed in 1999. Members of the group are primarily subsistence farmers and fisher-folk whose livelihoods depend on the viability of local ecosystems now threatened by climate change and unsustainable farming practises like those practised by the sugar cane industry.

Estela Hernandez, member of the board of directors of the Mangrove Association, a group that assists local communities in sustainable living practises and in adapting to climate change.

“The sugar-cane industry here now has expanding borders,” Estela Hernandez, member of the board of directors of the Mangrove Association, told Al Jazeera. “They are taking more water, and the chemicals they use are making people in nearby communities sick.”

Hernandez’s group works to support a grassroots coalition of community groups called La Coordinadora, that today includes more than 100 communities. With assistance from EcoViva, a group that enables grassroots leadership in the area by assisting with financial and technical resources, the Mangrove Association functions as a grassroots response to address the crisis causing effects of climate change in this region of El Salvador.

“Local communities are on the front-lines of climate change, and many local organisations like the Mangrove Association are offering the only significant response to this very serious problem,” Nathan Weller of EcoViva told Al Jazeera. “Communities like those in the Bay of Jiquilisco can no longer rely solely on the conventional development model to intervene for them. They live the effects of climate change, are working actively on solutions to confront them, and the Mangrove Association serves to catalyse these efforts.”

In what has become a major grassroots social movement that aims to increase diversified sustainable farming, organic foods, food security, and all of this via environmentally friendly methods, many people living in this area are actually seeing their lives improve, despite the challenges.

Yet, the challenges are many, and are not going away.

Dr Anny Argeta is a kidney specialist at the New Dawn clinic in Ciudad Romero.

“There are agricultural chemicals that have been identified as causes of kidney failure,” she told Al Jazeera, “Ministry of Health records show one of the leading causes of death in this region is kidney failure.”

Hernandez and others in her association and the communities it is tied to are gravely concerned about what they believe is an epidemic of kidney failure in the area. They blame the aerial spraying of chemicals on sugarcane crops.

Other problems arise when the industrial farmers burn the crops, so as to enable easier extraction of the cane.

The deputy mayor of Jiquilisco, Rigoberto Herrera Cruz, provided Al Jazeera with a local government statement that articulated these issues.

“Burning of sugarcane contaminates the air, and our hospitals are showing bronchial and respiratory illnesses, mostly in our children. Use of chemicals on the crops contaminates the soil/water, and this leads to kidney failure, which has been increasing in society and we still don’t have an effective treatment to stop this trend.”

In addition, his office stated that the destructive method of burning the fields destroys organic material, increases greenhouse gasses, creates an altered micro-climate, reduces subterranean water, and an increase of soil loss and erosion. His office also stated that the salaries of sugarcane workers “are at a level of misery.”

“Burning the crops of sugarcane also kills the fauna we are trying to protect,” Hernandez added, “And the herbicides these companies use to help their crops mature faster, some of which are prohibited, is washed by the rain into the Mangroves where there are shrimp production pools.”

Hernandez and her association work to protect El Salvador’s mangrove forests. This is to protect the communities and rich ecosystems there, but also because of the critical role mangroves play in preventing increasing climate change. Mangroves, a saltwater-loving tree, trap carbon emissions and protect the coastline from hurricanes.

“The long-term sequestration of carbon by one square kilometre of mangrove area is equivalent to that occurring in fifty square kilometres of tropical forest,” Dr. Emily Pidgeon of Conservation International has said of the value of mangroves in their role in the climate change crisis.

The areas of focus for the Mangrove Association are the Lower Lempa River Estuary and Bay of Jiquilisco. Together they make up El Salvador’s largest protected area, which has been recognised as a wetland of world importance under the International Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, in addition to having been designated a UN International Biosphere Reserve. The majority of El Salvador’s 26,000 hectares of mangroves exist in these areas.

By addressing these issues in all their complexities, Hernandez and the Mangrove Association are creating a model that may well one day be used around the world.

A movement with teeth

Alonzo Sosa of the environmental unit of the mayor's office in Tecoluca (Erika Blumenfeld)

Alonzo Sosa with the environmental unit of the Mayor’s office of the Municipality of Tecoluca is part of the Movement for the Defence of Life and Natural Resources.

“We started this movement two and a half years ago because of the rampant health problems people in our communities were experiencing due to the unsafe farming practises of the industrial farmers, like the sugarcane producers,” Sosa told Al Jazeera.

“The chemicals they use, contaminating our water, overuse of land and widespread kidney failure, this is all very serious. So now, we are pushing for better farming practises, trying to eliminate these chemicals and burning, because it damages our biodiversity.”

According to Sosa, “It’s not just environmental units in local governments that will solve this crisis. We need local governments, journalists, communities, everyone. The only requirement to join our movement is for you to care for the environment and our resources.”

Needless to say, the larger producers of sugarcane in El Salvador have not met the movement’s requests with open arms.

“The bigger producers are carrying out these atrocious practises, because they are only interested in their own capital and profit,” Sosa added, “We are in a constant struggle with the cane operators who desire perpetual expansion.”

Antonio Lemus is an environmental lawyer with the University of El Salvador. Five years ago his university signed an agreement with the Mangrove Association to work together with the local communities towards better environmental policies.

After researching the negative impacts the sugar cane industry was having, he said, “We decided to get legally involved, because we’re clear that it damages human health, the environment, and these things are impacted on a national scale”.

Lemus is using the Ministry of Environment to enforce new environmental regulations, “But big producers and vendors of chemicals are ignoring and violating peoples’ health and their right to a healthy environment,” he said, “In El Salvador’s environmental law, Article 2, Section B, all people have a right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, and this is recognised by the UN.”

Antonio Lemus, an environmental lawyer with the University of El Salvador (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

Article 2, Section C of the same law says: “All economic activities must be carried out in harmony with the environment”.

Despite having the law on his side, Lemus said the state does not have overall control of what is happening, so his university has begun working with local municipalities to create a Municipal Ordnance called “The Ordnance for the Protection, Recovery, and Management of Natural Resources and the Environment”.

Once this ordnance is ratified, Lemus believes he will be better able to “help people stop this ecological crisis and the ecological crimes being committed in their communities”.

Thus, even though there will not be a national mechanism for filing lawsuits, this will exist on a local level so as to enable communities and municipalities to present lawsuits against violators.

Sosa believes these matters are urgent. “We are in a new historical context. If we don’t change how we live, we aren’t going to last very long, no matter how much money we have.”

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who has been covering the Middle East and Iraq for five years. He has reported from Iraq and is the author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, and The Will To Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. His website is Dahrjamailiraq.com.

Julianne (left) with Global Exchange's Community Rights Director Shannon Biggs

The following post was written by Global Exchange intern Julianne Stelmaszyk:

As one of the many interns who has passed through the doors of Global Exchange, I experienced more than I expected while working there.

I had the opportunity to work on an upcoming book about the Rights of Nature with leaders and activists from around the world, calling for a completely new paradigm in humankind’s relationship with nature.

I was able to read, edit, and write about this concept and when my colleagues invited me to join them in Cancun for the COP16 UN climate negotiations, I was excited to be a part of the movement for climate justice and the Rights of Mother Earth.

As a student of Environmental Studies, in class we talk a lot about solutions to climate change, particularly the United Nations and its ability to bring collective action to problems and crisis’ at the global level.  Being someone who has only learned about the “problems of the world” when I got to college, the past few years have been a wake-up call for me.  I began to think about working with an international NGO or government where I could make a change.

Working at Global Exchange opened my eyes to another side of the environmental movement that is more than just carbon trading and buying green. Going to Cancun for the climate negotiations allowed me to make deeper connections to the work I have been doing in the office.

Panel during COP16

Before Cancun, I saw these conferences as a viable solution to climate change, but after being there I’m not so sure.  The Moon Palace, where the negotiations took place, was a good 30 minute drive away from the side events held for grassroots organizations. In Cancun, we split our time between two spaces that held panels and workshops on everything from indigenous women’s rights to the truths about REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).  The negotiations were spread out all over Cancun which hindered the potential opportunity for progress.

Activists marching in Cancun

There I was, amongst the world’s top activists who are making change in communities across the globe;  Maude Barlow, Tom Goldtooth, Bill McKibben, and thousands of informed indigenous people who know what is best for their land, but because the events were so sprawled out it was challenging for activists to fully participate.  Informative panels were held at the exact same time a few blocks away from each other. So many people came bursting with ideas and solutions, yet no one could participate in them, let alone those at the Moon Palace.

Aside from the disorganization, there was still a positive outcome in the fact that activists from around the world were gathering for a united cause.  On the day before I flew home, we all marched in solidarity with thousands of activists and indigenous people towards the Moon Palace and were greeted with a wall of Federales.  Then we gathered to hear people speaking on the change that needs to be made inside the negotiations and how the indigenous voices must be heard.  It was inspirational to be walking along side people from all over the world for the same cause.

My experience at the conference made me realize how the environmental movement is actually being capitalized…how carbon markets like REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) only serve as another means to profit, another market to buy and sell while fueling the effects of climate change on vulnerable communities.  I am grateful that I was able to participate in such a movement and to stand alongside people from all walks of life in solidarity to demand change. I look forward to sharing my newly gained knowledge from my time at Global Exchange and the Cancun negotiations at my university back in Boston.

On the way to participate in a rally organized by the international peasant group Via Campesina in Cancun, a Bolivian indigenous farmer took some coca leaves out of his hand-woven satchel and pressed them into my hand. “You will need these during the climate talks in Cancun to keep you from getting tired or hungry,” he insisted. “Pachamama—mother earth—gives us these leaves. She takes care of us if we take care of her.” Bonding as we chewed the bitter leaves together, the wizened Bolivian farmer shared his hopes that the negotiators would listen to his president, Evo Morales, and come up with an accord that would allow the world to live in harmony with nature.

The climate agreement that was ultimately hashed out in Cancun did not reflect the viewpoint of Bolivia’s indigenous community, their President Evo Morales, or Bolivia’s passionate UN negotiator, Pablo Solon. The Bolivian government and its grassroots allies wanted a binding agreement that would force significant reductions in greenhouse gases. They wanted an agreement that respected indigenous rights. They wanted an agreement grounded in a new concept – the rights of nature – that acknowledges that she who gives us life and abundance (and coca leaves) has as much right to exist as humans.

Many mainstream environmentalists were quick to defend the Cancun agreement, insisting that a weak agreement is better than nothing, since it allows the international process to go forward and allows activists to keep fighting for better outcomes in the future rounds, including at next year’s talks that will take place in Durban, South Africa. No agreement, they suggest, would have stopped the process cold.

But we should be clear that the minimalist agreement from Cancun is totally inadequate to address the climate crisis. It acknowledges that deep cuts on global greenhouse gas emissions are required, but does not set binding targets. This is due, in large part, to the refusal of the United States—from the time of the Kyoto Accords—to agree to mandatory cuts.

The agreement sets up a much-needed Green Climate Fund to help poor nations obtain clean technologies but does not lay out clear sources of financing or how the fund will be controlled. The governments agreed to give an interim trustee role to the World Bank, a move that angered groups in the global south that have suffered at the hands of the Bank and activists who have opposed the Bank on a policy level.

The agreement embraces a policy on “deforestation mitigation” known as REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries. This gives polluters in the north a chance to buy carbon credits for protecting forests in the global south. Bolivia, and most organizations on the ground and in the streets of Cancun for the past two weeks, object to REDD on the grounds that it commodifies the forests of the global South, endangers indigenous control over the forests and their right to livelihood, and allows northern polluters to keep polluting. Bolivian negotiator Pablo Solon said handing out carbon credits for protecting forests makes it easier for industrialized nations to achieve their emissions reductions targets without taking domestic action to rein in greenhouse gases. “We want to save the forest, but not save developed countries from the responsibility to cut their emissions,” Solon said.

At the 11^th hour, the negotiators—desperate for an agreement—were annoyed at what they saw as Bolivia’s obstructionism. “The experts that know about climate change know that we are right,” Solon insisted. “This agreement won’t stop temperature from rising by 4 degrees Celsius, which is just not sustainable. But they just want an agreement, any agreement, so they are pushing this through.” While inside the confines of Cancun’s Moon Palace Bolivia was left isolated, outside Bolivia was seen as the superhero standing up for the poor, the indigenous communities, and the rights of nature.

Addressing a news conference in Cancun on December 9, Bolivian President Evo Morales—himself an indigenous former coca farmer–made some dire forecasts. “We came to Cancún to save nature, forests, planet Earth, not to convert nature into a commodity or revitalize capitalism with carbon markets.” He predicted that without strong, mandatory emissions reductions, the world’s governments would be “responsible for ecocide”.

I think Evo and my Bolivian coca farmer friend would agree that if we are to avoid ecocide, we cannot rely on government officials meeting in plush golf resorts. Instead, the solutions will come from organic farmers and social entrepreneurs. They will come activists who confront corporate polluters. They will come from passionate environmentalists putting even more pressure on their governments. They will come from those fighting for climate justice in their communities around the globe. Ultimately, they will come from a grassroots global movement steeped in the values of mother nature.

For more COP16 updates, check back here on our Climate Justice blog. If you’re on Twitter, follow @globalexchange for related COP16 updates from Global Exchange, and use hashtag #COP16 for general COP16 tweets.

Some Global Exchange staff and volunteers are joining fellow climate justice campaigners, environmentalists and social justice advocates from around the world for COP16 in Cancun. Today Shannon Biggs reports:

Months before civil society boarded planes or hopped on buses and bikes destined for Cancun (yes, we met up with a small contingent of cyclists arriving from West Virginia) — it was clear that we weren’t really very welcome.

Far too few of us were even approved as credentialed NGO observers.  The Moon Palace conference site was miles and miles away from the city center, and those without credentials were left out in the Cancun sun.  When La Via Campesina attempted to set up their gathering site nearby, the permits were denied.

For anyone who might have thought we could ingratiate ourselves upon arrival with a heartfelt message from the people of planet Earth, those notions were quickly set straight: We were eschewed, ignored, stopped, searched, silenced, kicked out, barricaded, and banned.

Despite Bolivia’s introduction to the UNFCCC of the People’s Accord that emerged from 35,000 people gathered in Cochabamba earlier this year, it mysteriously disappeared from the negotiating table in Cancun.  Police detained caravans of campesinos and internationals en route carrying messages from communities across Mexico who themselves could not come to Cancun.  When some 20 caravans finally converged for a spiritual ceremony at the ancient Mayan temple of Chichen Itza two hours west of Cancun, they were turned away at the gates. Intense police barricades stopped the civil society march miles from the official space or the public eye.  Those who dared to enter the Moon Palace to publicly oppose the market-based mechanism of the carbon trading scheme REDD were silenced, hauled away and some had their credentials revoked.

OK we get it.  Go home already.

Last year’s talks in Copenhagen made it clear that the official United Nations FCCC process is based not on the root causes of environmental exploitation—but ‘market fixes’ to the same corporate-­led economic model and ‘endless-m­ore’ value system that have driven us to the cliff’s edge.  In Cancun it has become clear that even the modest goals set forth in Kyoto can’t stand against the juggernaut of economic growth at all costs.

There were voices of reason at the table. Bolivia’s UN Ambassador and negotiator to the talks, Pablo Salon, in taking seriously the People’s Accord and Rights of Nature Declaration that came out of the Cochabamba World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth is being called an agitator stalling progress within the official negotiations.

Yesterday, Bolivian President Evo Morales spoke eloquently about the need for a radically new path forward: “In past decades, the United Nations approved human rights, then civil rights, economic and political rights, and finally a few years ago indigenous rights. In this new century, it is time to debate and discuss rights of Mother Earth. These include the right to regenerate biocapacity, the right to life without contamination.”

But the Bolivians who came to the negotiations to represent social movements and to seriously address the failure of the market to protect the planet have been isolated, sidelined and ridiculed along with the rest of us who stand outside. As Bolivia’s official statement from this morning pronounces “History will be the judge of what has happened in Cancun.”

Many came to bring the message of Cochabamba to Cancun. But where do we go from here if the lessons of Copenhagen and Cancun are that our leaders are deaf to the cries of the planet?

The UNFCCC may have it right—we should just go home.   It is time to deliver the message of Cochabamba to the people who are capable of creating change, of creating 1,000 Cochabambas.

Last month with the help of Global Exchange partners the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, Pittsburgh, PA became the first major U.S. city to ban natural gas drilling while elevating community decision-making and the rights of nature over corporate “rights.” They join over 125 communities who are also taking local control of their destinies, refusing to become sacrifice zones for the good of the market and the destruction of the environment.

Along with CELDF, Global Exchange is working with dozens of communities here at home to do the same thing, from Mt. Shasta CA to Big Sur to Santa Monica. Buffalo New York.  New Mexico. Maine. Washington State. Ecuador. Bolivia. In all of these places, a new set of rules is being put into place.

If we want to be heard at the UN, then we need to go home and build the revolution of change in the places where we live.   That is what Global Exchange came to Cancun for — to link arms with our friends on the outside toward building a real movement for rights—for nature and for our communities.

Global Exchange, the Council of Canadians and Fundacion Pachamama‘s new report for Cancun, “Does Nature have Rights? Transformi­ng Grassroots Organizing to Protect People and the Planet” explores the grassroots movement for the rights of nature taking root. The way forward is in our own backyards.

For more COP16 updates, check back here on our Climate Justice blog. If you’re on Twitter, follow @globalexchange for related COP16 updates from Global Exchange, and use hashtag #COP16 for general COP16 tweets.

Last night in the wee hours, a regressive, non-binding, dangerously unbalanced climate agreement was pushed through with “consensus” by all delegations except Bolivia. Following is the statement of response from the Bolivian government.

From the Plurinational State of Bolivia:

The Plurinational State of Bolivia believes that the Cancun text is a hollow and false victory that was imposed without consensus, and its cost will be measured in human lives. History will judge harshly.

There is only one way to measure the success of a climate agreement, and that is based on whether or not it will effectively reduce emissions to prevent runaway climate change. This text clearly fails, as it could allow global temperatures to increase by more than 4 degrees, a level disastrous for humanity. Recent scientific reports show that 300,000 people already die each year from climate change-related disasters. This text threatens to increase the number of deaths annually to one million. This is something we can never accept.

Last year, everyone recognized that Copenhagen was a failure both in process and substance. Yet this year, a deliberate campaign to lower expectations and desperation for any agreement has led to one that in substance is little more than Copenhagen II.

A so-called victory for multilateralism is really a victory for the rich nations who bullied and cajoled other nations into accepting a deal on their terms. The richest nations offered us nothing new in terms of emission reductions or financing, and instead sought at every stage to backtrack on existing commitments, and include every loophole possible to reduce their obligation to act.
While developing nations – those that face the worst consequences of climate change – pleaded for ambition, we were instead offered the “realism” of empty gestures. Proposals by powerful countries like the US were sacrosanct, while ours were disposable. Compromise was always at the expense of the victims, rather than the culprits of climate change. When Bolivia said we did not agree with the text in the final hours of talks, we were overruled. An accord where only the powerful win is not a negotiation, it is an imposition.

Bolivia came to Cancun with concrete proposals that we believed would bring hope for the future. These proposals were agreed by 35,000 people in an historic World People’s Conference Cochabamba in April 2010. They seek just solutions to the climate crisis and address its root causes. In the year since Copenhagen, they were integrated into the negotiating text of the parties, and yet the Cancun text systematically excludes these voices. Bolivia cannot be convinced to abandon its principles or those of the peoples we represent. We will continue to struggle alongside affected communities worldwide until climate justice is achieved.

Bolivia has participated in these negotiations in good faith and the hope that we could achieve an effective climate deal. We were prepared to compromise on many things, except the lives of our people. Sadly, that is what the world’s richest nations expect us to do. Countries may try to isolate us for our position, but we come here in representation of the peoples and social movements who want real and effective action to protect the future of humanity and Mother Earth. We feel their support as our guide. History will be the judge of what has happened in Cancun.

For more COP16 updates, check back here on our Climate Justice blog. If you’re on Twitter, follow @globalexchange for related COP16 updates from Global Exchange, and use hashtag #COP16 for general COP16 tweets.

—

Around 1:00 on the last day of COP16, a dozen or so activists staged an action at the Moon Palace in Cancun to protest the silencing of civil society voices by the UNFCCC. Their mouths taped over with signs reading”UNFCCC,” they locked arms in front of the escalators leading to the closed chambers where high-level negotiations were taking place.

Wearing signs saying “Global South,” “Women,” “Indigenous,” “Youth,” “No REDD,” and “Cochabamba” – a reference to the Cochabamba Peoples Agreement that was unilaterally dropped from the UNFCCC negotiating text – the group stood their ground amid an onrush of security, as Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project, Deepak Rugani of Biofuelwatch and Global Forest Coalition, and Rebecca Leonard of Focus on the Global South shouted “The UN is silencing dissent!” and other pointed political messages.

“We took this action because the voices of indigenous peoples, of women, of small island countries, of the global south, must be heard!” they shouted, as police, media and a crowd of onlookers and supporters gathered.

Nicola Bullard of Focus on the Global South, who was standing by, said, “What we see here is a group of people representing the voices that are silenced in the U.N. process. In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen the exclusion of countries of the global south,  and their proposals ignored. We’ve seen activists and representatives from civil society excluded from the meetings and actually kicked out of the UNFCCC itself. This is a symbolic action to show the delegates here that we think this process is exclusionary, that there are voices that must be heard, that there are perspectives and ideas and demands that must be included in the debates being held in this building today. These decisions are far too important to be left to politicians. We need to open this up and hear the voices of the people and the voices of the South.”

After about fifteen minutes, the activists were led out of the building by security with their arms interlocked and put on a bus that took them to the Villa Climatica, outside the Moon Palace.

Stay tuned to this Climate Justice blog for updates from Cancun and COP16. If you’re on Twitter, follow @globalexchange for related COP16 updates from Global Exchange, and use hashtag #COP16 for general COP16 tweets.

—

In the middle of week two at COP16, protests have begun to erupt, both inside the halls of the Moon Palace, and outside in the streets of Cancun. When la Via Campesina, the world’s largest movement of peasant and smallholder farmers, called for a global day of action yesterday, people around the world responded. Actions in 30 U.S. states and over a dozen countries resonated with the sentiment among civil society in Cancun that the way forward for climate equity and climate stabilization does not lie with the elites, but with people in their communities on the ground.

Along with La Via Campesina, Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Ricardo Navarro of Friends of the Earth International, and a number of social movement representatives and government officials from the ALBA countries held a press conference to condemn the false solutions and backroom deals being pushed in the negotiations, and to call for mobilizations worldwide. The key demand they pronounced was for climate solutions based on traditional indigenous knowledge, community-based practices, human rights and the rights of nature.

Miguel Lovera of the Paraguayan delegation offered a cogent summary of what many here see as a fundamental failure in approach at COP 16: “There is a lot of talk here in Cancun about money, about chainsaws, and about plantations, but there is little talk about forests, or about the real work of the people who confront climate change everyday.”

Indigenous Rights Protest at the Moon Palace in Cancun

In a similar vein, there is a lot of talk about markets, as signified by the Copenhagen Accord, but very little talk about rights, signified by the Cochabamba Agreement. Indeed, the conference began with the wholesale removal of the Cochabamba Agreement’s rights-based framework from the negotiating text.

The word on the street is, “This is not a climate conference, it’s a trade conference.” As Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project said, “In 2003 we came here to fight the World Trade Organization. Now we have to fight the World Carbon Trade Organization.” One way of looking at the problem, writ simply, is that there is a fundamental conflict between markets and rights.

By “markets,” we do not mean the simple exchange of money, the buying and selling of things, the basic transactions of the cash economy. Markets have always been places, physical places, where goods and services are exchanged, but where other forms of social and cultural exchange exchange take place as well. In any number of ways marketplaces, like our farmers markets today, have always been strongly allied with the commons – places where, despite the hand-to-hand exchange of money for goods, other things go on as well.

In contrast, when we talk about “markets” in the climate debate, we mean financial speculation, and the creation of commodities out of things that previously have been kept out of the market: water, air, Co2, biodiversity, cultural practices; investment for the sake of profit and development for the sake of economic growth.

These kind of market mechanisms, simply put, are incompatible with human rights and the rights of nature. A significant piece of the civil society struggle in Cancun is to make sure that rights are not mowed down altogether, nor taken as an afterthought, as “safeguards” in agreements like REDD, but are central to the way forward on climate.

La Via Campesina Speaks On Rights and Their Exclusion from UN Events

Natalia Green, Program Coordinator of the Fundacion Pachamama in Ecuador, is one of many people here in Cancun promoting the Rights of Nature. “The indigenous perspective that we are not apart from nature, but a part of nature has been taken up by many people,” she says, “because our juridical system that excludes nature is driving the planet to an ecological crisis. In Ecuador we worked through the political system in 2007 and 2008 to become the first country in the world to recognize rights for nature.”

The rights of nature paradigm is too complicated to explain in a blog post; for the newest material on it, see the new report “Does Nature Have Rights: Transforming Grassroots Organizing to Protect the People and the Planet.”

Ricardo Navarro of Friends of the Earth expresses concern for promoting human rights safeguards within multilateral policies, as opposed to building policies on a foundation of rights. “In regards to safeguards,” says Navarro, “what would you say if Pinochet said he would give safeguards for human rights; who’s going to believe him, by God? It’s a bank, for Christ’s sake, why would we expect a bank to promote human rights?”

Navarro continued, “We have to understand one thing; human beings are children of the Mother Earth. We often say that Mother Earth is where we live, but it’s more than that. We are like a creature in the womb of the mother earth. So, if we have rights, how is it that our mother doesn’t have rights? Its totally illogical. Mother Earth must have rights. The Government of Bolivia is absolutely correct in promoting the rights of Mother Earth. I hope other governments start to understand!”

Indigenous Environmental Network and Ruckus Society Fly a Banner

Check back here on our Climate Justice blog for updates from Cancun and COP16. If you’re on Twitter, follow @globalexchange for related COP16 updates from Global Exchange, and use hashtag #COP16 for general COP16 tweets.

Our goal: figure out a way to offer new Global Exchange members this holiday season a little something extra beyond the standard membership benefits, in exchange for their support.

The recession kept coming up in conversation. We figured most people would have limited funds to spend on gifts this year, so why not offer supporters who give Global Exchange gift memberships this holiday season some cool freebies to go along with the membership. More bang for your buck, so to speak.

We came up with six different Membership Gift Packages, so folks could choose the theme that interests their gift recipient the most. Each one would cost the standard Global Exchange membership rate ($35) but in addition to the usual perks (including discounts to our Fair Trade stores and quarterly newsletters), we’d also include both Fair Trade chocolate AND coffee, PLUS a whole other gift (depending on which gift package they choose.)

One of the packages is called the Climate Justice Membership Gift Package.

What it comes with: In addition to the Fair Trade chocolate, coffee, and gift membership certificate, you get a copy of Does Nature Have Rights?, a printed report produced by the Council of Canadians, Fundacion Pachamama, and Global Exchange.
Your gift provides its recipient the opportunity to join and support the people’s movement to achieve real and fair climate solutions — solutions that ensure the burden of addressing climate change is not placed on the world’s poorest communities.

If you’re as excited as we are about this gift, then go online to order yours soon. As one might suspect, it’s a ‘while supplies last’ type of situation.

Remember, in addition to the Climate Justice Membership Package, there are 5 other packages to choose from!

Happy choosing and happy holidays, from all of us here at Global Exchange!

The Via Campesina march began today surprisingly on time, at 9am. We approached the intersection just outside the space where hundreds are camping with Via members from across the Americas to a sea of green. Green scarves, flags, shirts, hats and banners – all denouncing Monsanto’s invasion of genetically modified corn into Mexican traditional strains, and celebrating campesinos.

After walking through the streets of downtown Cancun, several hundred people boarded buses and we were moved out of town towards the COP16 talks at the Moon Palace. Throughout the week decisions were being made about the specific route of the march, and it appeared that we would be advancing towards the official UNFCCC site.

I boarded a bus with the Bolivian civil society contingent and talked with elders on the bus about their journey to Cancun and their thoughts on the talks compared to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba. They shared some cocoa leaves with Medea Benjamin (Global Exchange and Code PINK Co-founder) who joined us in the downtown march, and we were strengthened for what was to be a long day.

As we gathered on the highway to the airport (and blocked a full lane of the road), thousands joined us and the chants began. The air was filled with drumming and chants of ‘globalizamos la lucha, globalizamos la esperanza’ (globalize struggle, globalize hope), ‘REDD no! Coahabamba si!’, ‘del norte al sur, del este al oeste, ganaremos esta lucha, cuesta lo que cueste!’ (from the north to the south, from the east to the west, we will win this struggle, it will take whatever it takes!)

We continued for 6 miles until we were met by a line of riot police and behind them a heavily fortified road block.

An indigenous man carrying a ‘No REDD’ banner walked to the federal police and pleaded for their compassion and understanding, explaining that we were there in legitimate protest to have the people making crucial decisions listen to us.

We spread out onto both sides of the highway and once a makeshift stage was set up with a microphone, the crowd was greeted by Bolivia’s Ambassador to the UN Pablo Solon who reported on the attempts being made by the Bolivian government to have the Rights of Nature/Rights of Mother Earth recognized on the inside. Two brief videos of his talk to the crowd are here and here (in Spanish).

A member of the official delegation from Uruguay also spoke, as did Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network, their official delegate to the UNFCC and a member from CLOC in Guatemala.

Below are more pictures from today and a quick shout out to the folks in Toronto, Canada for their solidarity action this afternoon.

Global Exchange’s Carleen Pickard and fellow climate justice campaigners, environmentalists and social justice advocates from around the world are in Cancun for COP16 where they are attending the La Via Campesina organized alternative forum among other climate events. Today, Irene Florez reports from the Alternative Forum:

In Mexico Walmart is quickly outpacing local abarrotes or grocery stores. Today one can walk 10 blocks in any direction and still be hard pressed to find a store devoted to selling fresh produce. In many cities Walmart has staked out key retail space near downtown urban centers. This helps explain why though sales at U.S. stores have dropped, Walmart maintains profitability. In the last quarter of 2010 Walmart’s international sales grew 9.3 percent to $26.9 billion mainly through their Mexico, Brazil, Japan and China locations.

I’m thinking about this as I attend the alternative climate summit hosted by Via Campesina.

The issues on the table are complex and even more, interrelated. It is not possible to talk about food justice for producers without talking about healthy food access for urban consumers. We cannot talk about food subsidies without being aware that many cannot access healthy un-packaged foods in their ancestral homes.

For many the intertwined nature of struggles is daunting. Here, talks dig right into the water-drop-like impacts of the various multinationals such as Walmart and Bimbo.

What will come out of the Cancun UN Climate talks? What will come out of the alternative forum? I think only signs like “Cambia tu vida, no tu clima” (Change your life, not your climate) can point the way and allow us to remain settled amidst the ominous climate warnings and environmental degradation.

The conclusion here is that the current crisis, global warming, is not a natural phenomenon. It is a result of economic strategies. In this sense surpassing this crisis will be achieved when multiple connected strategies are carried out; strategies that create new structures of power and develop long-term social capital that recuperates social justice histories.

Your thoughts?