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.

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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.

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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.

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?

“Si zapata vive, que chinga les pusiera!” the crowd chanted while snaking its way through downtown Morelia in the state of Michoacan. If Zapata (Mexico’s larger-than-life revolutionary leader) were alive, he’d open a can of woop-ass on you. That’s a rough translation, but you get the sentiment. Zapata would be invoked frequently throughout the journey.

After El Salto, the caravan conducted a rally and march through Morelia with chants like “si se ama, se defende” (if you love it, defend it) and “el pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido” (the people united, will never be defeated). Later, the caravan stopped in the little pueblo of Tepuxtepec in the state of Michoacan. As the caravan pulled up to the main square, it seemed the whole town had come out to greet us. A long row of school children lined the front of the square facing the municipal building, faces lit with curiosity.

Most workers of Tepuxtepec have lost their livelihoods at La Luz y Fuerte Central power company after the government fired 44,000 union workers last year. Over 90% of the economy of the town was lost. The SME, Mexican electrical workers union, has been in a struggle to regain their jobs and strategize. While many have taking a buy-out package, over 17,000 continue the struggle.

“We decided to fight and say no to the crumbs that the government throws at us,” said the secretary of the SME union Andres Servin Retana to the gathered crowd. “They are trying to break the unions, kill our union,” he continued. “We’re not willing to give up our rights. If we let down, then the next wave of “reforms” will be pushed through. We want to give future generations some hope,” another speaker proclaimed.

In the meantime folks have, some workers had been supporting their own family plus other relatives. Now the community is scrambling to make ends meet by sharing food and resources. We would later meet with SME union folks in Mexico City at their headquarters for the forum there, after which many joined the caravan. The community fed us in the community hall. Not sure how many pounds of rice I ate, but it was sufficient to get me to Mexico City!

A fellow caravaner named Albert, a Canadian of indigenous heritage, said he could relate to the struggle of the workers here. He is a power line worker in a small town on Hudson’s Bay in northern Canada.

After Tepuxtepec, we arrived in Toluca we stopped for a rally to raise the issues of the caravan and support the electrical workers union (SME). We arrived late to join a planton called El Malinche, where residents had taken over part of a neighborhood for a sit-in/lock-down. The government wants to build a Super Highway (Super Via) that would displace residents and local parks. The Super Via project would be a toll road used by those from one of the most affluent districts just west of D.F.

The residents say “Hell No!” I’ve rarely in my life been given such a warm and heartfelt welcome. When the caravan arrived they shouted chants, “Zapata vive, la lucha sigue sigue!” while shooting off fireworks.

A press conference was held with members of Frente Amplio, La Via Campesina, and other organizations speaking. “We want an urban development that is viable, that is for everybody, that is legal,” said a panelist from Frente Amplio.

Another said that we have to realize we are in a long struggle. “We have seen a disaster of the land we could never have imagined,” said Rafael Martinez of Frente Amplio. “Que jamas pasaran.”

“This is a struggle for all and mother earth. We are rebuilding real life, where vida is more important than money,” he said, contrasting this with the destruction of neo-liberalism.

After food and punch in the makeshift spontaneous community housing that included a kitchen, abundant art and displays of various struggles of local communities, we settled in to sleep wherever there was space.

Because there were so many people, some of us had to stay on a cold concrete roof with bunnies and chickens and barking dogs. But one cold night of warm solidarity is nothing compared to the struggles of some of these folks. We promised to bring their message to Cancun and beyond. And with heartfelt thank-yous and blessings for the road as warm as the welcome the night before, the caravans rolled toward the next destination, only now with a few more people and a few more voices of struggle to absorb and carry forward.

Ride along with Carleen and other caravan members as they share stories from the caravan to COP16. Next stop: Mexico City:

The first leg(s) of the Via Campesina caravans are over – the three delegations arrived from Guadalajara, San Luis Potosi and Acapulco. We’ve now posted report backs from Guadalajara (thanks to GX volunteers Ryan and Irene) and Acapulco (see my previous posts) and to read about the travels of the caravan from San Luis Potosi, check out the blogs by the Council of Canadians. Also be sure to see the growing stock of photos that are being posted.

After navigating the streets of Mexico City by bus, my caravan arrived at the the Mexican Electrical Workers (SME) compound and joined hundreds at the International Forum about the Climate Crisis – an educational forum with expert speakers drawing links between climate change, the need for economic reform and social justice and recognition of climate justice solutions to the crisis. You can read a great interview with Paul Nicholson from the European delegation of Via Campesina on their website.

Hundreds started to gather at the Ángel de la Independencia at 5pm. It’s a familiar and favourite place to begin marches in this massive city. By 6 and the start of the International March For Life and Social and Environmental Justice we had grown to 2500. Marching fiercely through the streets to the main square – the Zócalo – we chant and meet other caravan participants and campesinos that have come to join the caravan leaving tomorrow (Dec 1) onwards to Cancun. I’m thrilled to see that friends who rode bikes on a ‘climate reality tour‘ from West Virginia to Mexico City (and on to Cancun) have arrived safely and even claim to enjoy riding in the City.

It is dark once we reach the Zócalo and we hear from leaders from Via Campesina, the SME, the Assembly of those Affected by the Environment and National Liberation Movement. To see how urgent the need is for action in the next 10 days, check here. Great analysis and updates are already being posted from activists already in Cancun, Via Campasina has posted the program for the Alternative International Forum for Live and Environmental & Social Justice (Program English), and the mega caravan leave early tomorrow morning!

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

In Cancun both La Via Campesina and Dialogo Climatico – Espacio Mexicano are organizing spaces for activist convergence, workshops and panels. The La Via Campesina forum will take place from Dec 3-8. Inviting international delegates from around the world, they state:

“While transnational corporation and complicit governments convene at the COP16 to promote new ways to capitalize off the climate crisis, La Via Campesina and allies will be present to denounce and resist false market-based solutions. Defend the rights of mother earth and build real solutions for a cool planet at the Alternative International Forum for Live and Environmental & Social Justice.”

The Diálogo Climático – Espacio Mexicano forum – International Climate Justice Forum – Community Dialogue – will take place from December 5 – 10 with the “objective of creating a space for information, discussion, analysis and formulation of proposals and strategies from civil society, organizations and social movements and indigenous communities about climate change from a climate justice perspective.”

For information about either of the forums, information is available on the websites listed above.

Shannon Biggs, Director of Global Exhange’s Community Rights Program, will be presenting and participating on the Rights of Nature/Rights of Mother Earth in both spaces with Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, Belen Paez of Fundación Pachamama and Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Movement. To see a video report back from the World People’s Climate Conference in Cochabamba, Bolivia where the Rights of Mother Earth/Rights of Nature were codified in the Cochabamba Accords, click here.

And if you have not seen this yet, watch the Story of Cap and Trade.

Stay tuned for more on the global day of action on Dec 7 – ‘Thousands of Cancuns for Climate Justice’ coming up next!

In Cancún and in thousands of cities and towns around the world, a growing movement of farmers, youth, workers, scientists, religious and other worried peoples of all stripes are fighting for strong, fair, and iron-clad agreements that will give humanity – and the eco-systems we depend on – a fighting chance for survival.

Global Exchange is joining a call by La Via Campesina (LVC) — the international peasant movement — inviting our activist members to consider joining a Caravan for Life and Environmental Justice through Mexico in late November.

Three caravans will travel through ten Mexican states, helping make local grass-roots environmental struggles more visible while building support for major demonstrations scheduled to take place worldwide while climate talks are underway.

These climate talks in Cancún are a critical moment to speak up for climate justice. Join us on a caravan to the climate talks in Cancún and be a part of the movement. Find out about caravan routes, the application process and costs. Caravan capacity is limited and Global Exchange is filling a small number of spots.

Hope to see you in Cancún.

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