Contre l’introduction de la compensation “forêts” dans le marché carbone californien

Monsieur le Gouverneur Brown,

Nous vous écrivons pour vous exhorter de ne pas inclure le mécanismes de compensations internationales REDD + (Réduction des émissions dues à la déforestation et à la dégradation des forêts) dans le marché carbone en Californie. Les systèmes de marché carbone n’ont pas réussi à réduire les émissions alors que les projets de compensation ont constamment ignoré les droits des communautés locales et sont intrinsèquement viciés. Les organisations soussignées envoient cette lettre pour alerter contre l’inclusion de crédits REDD + qui ne manqueront pas d’aggraver les conflits environnementaux et sociaux.

Les premières tentatives pour inclure les forêts dans les marchés carbone soutenus par l’ONU ont conduit à d’importants débats techniques. Les crédits forêts internationaux REDD + ont été jusqu’à présent rejetés dans les négociations climatiques de l’ONU et exclus du marché carbone européen de l’Union européenne (EU ETS) pour de bonnes raisons. Des problèmes techniques non résolus, y compris l’additionnalité (qui prouve que la zone forestière n’aurait pas été protégée sans), les ‘fuites’ (les destructeurs de la forêt passant à un autre domaine), la permanence (les arbres ne stockent pas le carbone en permanence), la mesure (très complexe et incertaine car elle repose sur la diversité des variables biologiques) et la temporalité (les émissions et les absorptions peuvent encore survenir plusieurs années après qu’un projet arrive à terme). Outre ces incertitudes techniques, les causes sous-jacentes de la déforestationrestent largement ignorées tandis que la responsabilité de réduire les émissions à la source est édulcorée.

En raison de ces problèmes, introduire les mécanismes internationaux de compensations forêt dans le cadre du marché carbone en Californie augmenterait probablement les émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) relatives aux objectifs AB32 plutôt que de les diminuer, puisque les industries polluantes achètent des droits pour accroître leurs émissions. Cela reviendrait àexposer les communautés à faible revenu qui vivent à proximité des installations industrielles en Californie à des problèmes environnementaux et de santé encore plus importants. Alors que de nombreux peuples autochtones et des communautés tributaires des forêts qui vivent dans le Sud ont très peu de titres officiels sécurisant pour leurs terres, REDD + va alimenter la spéculation, augmenter la pression sur les droits fonciers et déposséder les populations locales. Ces risques sont aggravés par l’inclusion de la monoculture dans la définition standard des Nations Unies de ce que constitue une forêt.

Les forêts riches en biodiversité ont une signification unique pour ceux qui y vivent et en dépendent pour leur subsistance et leur survie culturelle. Les projets REDD+ font peser de graves préoccupations en termes de violations des droits humains et environnementaux et ont conduit à ce que des peuples autochtones et des communautés locales dans le Chiapas (Mexique) et dans la région Acre (Brésil) s’y opposent (ce sont les deux régions où les pollueurs de la Californie achèteraient ces crédits internationaux). Réduire les forêts à de seuls puits de carbone fait courrir d’énormes dangers. Les luttes pour la terre s’intensifient à mesure que les droits sur les terres sont séparés des droits d’accès et d’usage d’autres éléments de la nature.

Le gouvernement du Chiapas au Mexique, promeut par exemple un projet REDD + pilote dans la forêt tropicale Lacandon sur plus de sept réserves naturelles. Afin d’être «prêt pour REDD +», le gouvernement doit prouver que les zones à partir desquelles des certificats de carbone seraient générés sont sous une protection environnementale. A cet effet, la Commission nationale adéjà déplacé plusieurs communautés locales en utilisant des expulsions forcées et des pressions économiques en dépit de fortes résistances.

En outre, l’expansion des monocultures d’agrocarburants est une autre raison de l’empressement du gouvernement du Chiapas. Un programme d’Etat, intitulé “Reconversion productive de l’agriculture», finance les communautés locales de la jungle Lacandon pour planter des palmiers africains et de plants de jatropha pour les agrocarburants qui sont envahissants, qui détruisent les forêts locales et créent des dépendances économiques qui écrasent l’autonomie locale. Le Chiapas est l’État au Mexique avec la plus grande zone de plantation de palmiers, situés sur les bords de zones naturelles protégées, et ces monocultures utilisent de grandes quantités de pesticides qui polluent les sols et l’eau et nuisent gravement à la santé des populations locales. Une fois de plus: les plantations ne sont pas des forêts!

La Californie devrait appliquer des politiques qui s’attaquent aux causes profondes de la déforestation et du changement climatique afin d’entamer une transition vers une ère post-fossile. Les politiques fondées sur la justice sociale et environnementale doivent garantir que les pollueurs soient tenus responsables de leurs émissions de GES et de la destruction de l’environnement, tout en faisant en sorte qu’elles bénéficient aux communautés vulnérables et à faible revenu. Nous vous demandons de maintenir le système international REDD + hors du marché carbone californien. En outre, nous vous recommandons respectueusement de regarder attentivement la façon dont le marché carbone européen a échoué, comme une préfiguration de ce qui pourrait advenir marché carbone en Californie. Commercer les émissions de carbone n’est PAS une solution au changement climatique.

Cordialement,

- Aliança RECOs – Redes de Cooperação Comunitária Sem Fronteiras (Brazil)

- Movimento Mulheres pela P@Z! (Brazil)

- ITEREI

- Friends of the Earth International

- Centro de referência do movimento da cidadania pelas águas florestas e montanhas Iguassu ITEREI

- Plataforma Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, Democracia y Desarrollo (PIDHDD)

- Terræ Organização da Sociedade Civil (Brazil)

- Carbon Trade Watch

- FERN

- Common

- Attac France

- The Corner House

- Centre for Civil Society Environmental Justice Project (Durban, South Africa)

- Earth Peoples

Despite their disruption, can dams help the organisation work towards ending poverty while keeping carbon emissions down?

* Howard Schneider for the Washington Post
* Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 14 May 2013

The World Bank is making a major push to develop large-scale hydropower, something it had all but abandoned a decade ago but now sees as crucial to resolving the tension between economic development and the drive to tame carbon use.

Major hydropower projects in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Nepal and elsewhere  all of a scale dubbed “transformational” to the regions involved  are part of the bank’s fundraising drive among wealthy nations. Bank lending for hydropower has scaled up in recent years, and officials expect the trend to continue.

Such projects were shunned in the 1990s, in part because they can be disruptive to communities and ecosystems. But the World Bank is opening the taps for dams and related infrastructure as its president, Jim Yong Kim, tries to resolve a quandary at the bank’s core: how to eliminate poverty while adding as little as possible to carbon emissions.

“Large hydro is a very big part of the solution for Africa and south Asia and south-east Asia … I fundamentally believe we have to be involved,” said Rachel Kyte, the bank’s vice-president for sustainable development and an influential voice among Kim’s top staff members. The earlier move out of hydro “was the wrong message … That was then. This is now. We are back.”

Indigenous Himba protest against Orokawe dam and human rights violations, 2013 (Photo © Earth Peoples)

It is a controversial stance. The bank backed out of large-scale hydropower because of the steep trade-offs involved. Big dams produce lots of cheap, clean electricity, but they often uproot villages and destroy the livelihoods of the people the institution is supposed to help. A 2009 World Bank review of hydropower noted the “overwhelming environmental and social risks” that had to be addressed but also concluded that Africa and Asia’s vast and largely undeveloped hydropower potential was key to providing dependable electricity to the hundreds of millions of people who remain without it.

“What’s the one issue that’s holding back development in the poorest countries? It’s energy. There’s just no question,” Kim said in an interview.

Advocacy groups remain sceptical, arguing that large projects, such as Congo’s long-debated network of dams around Inga Falls, may be of more benefit to mining companies or industries in neighbouring countries than poor communities.

“It is the old idea of a silver bullet that can modernise whole economies,” said Peter Bosshard, policy director of International Rivers, a group that has organised opposition to the bank’s evolving hydro policy and argued for smaller projects designed around communities rather than mega-dams meant to export power throughout a region.

“Turning back to hydro is being anything but a progressive climate bank,” said Justin Guay, a Sierra Club spokesman on climate and energy issues. “There needs to be a clear shift from large, centralised projects.”

The major nations that support the World Bank, however, have been pushing it to identify such projects  complex undertakings that might happen only if an international organisation is involved in sorting out the financing, overseeing the performance and navigating the politics.

The move toward big hydro comes amid Kim’s stark warning that global warming will leave the next generation with an “unrecognisable planet”. That dire prediction, however, has left him struggling for how best to respond and frustrated by some of the bank’s inherent limitations.

In his speeches, Kim talks passionately about the bank’s ability to “catalyse” and “leverage” the world to action by mobilising money and ideas, and he says he is hunting for ideas “equal to the challenge” of curbing carbon use. He has criticised the “small bore” thinking he says has hobbled progress on the issue.

However, the bank remains in the business of financing traditional fossil-fuel plants, including those that use the dirtiest form of coal, as well as cleaner but carbon-based natural gas infrastructures.

Among the projects likely to cross Kim’s desk in coming months, for example, is a 600-MW power plant in Kosovo that would be fired by lignite coal, the bottom of the barrel when it comes to carbon emissions.

The plant has strong backing from the United States, the World Bank’s major shareholder. It also meshes with one of the bank’s other long-standing imperatives: give countries what they ask for. The institution has 188 members to keep happy and can go only so far in trying to impose its judgment over that of local officials. Kim, who in his younger days demonstrated against World Bank-enforced “orthodoxy” in economic policy, now may be hard-pressed to enforce an energy orthodoxy of his own.

Kosovo’s domestic supplies of lignite are ample enough to free the country from imported fuel. Kim said there is little question Kosovo needs more electricity, and the new plant will allow an older, more polluting facility to be shut down.

“I would just love to never sign a coal project,” Kim said. “We understand it is much, much dirtier, but … we have 188 members … We have to be fair in balancing the needs of poor countries … with this other bigger goal of tackling climate change.”

The bank is working on other ideas. Kim said he is considering how the bank might get involved in creating a more effective world market for carbon, allowing countries that invest in renewable energy or “climate friendly” agriculture to be paid for their carbon savings by industries that need to use fossil fuels. Existing carbon markets have been plagued with volatile pricing  Europe’s cost of carbon has basically collapsed  or rules that prevent carbon trading with developing countries.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to establish a stable price of carbon,” Kim said. “Everybody knows that.”

He has also staked hope for climate progress on developments in agriculture.

Hydropower projects, however, seem notably inside what Kim says is the bank’s sweet spot  complex, high-impact, green and requiring the sort of joint public and private financing Kim says the bank can attract.

The massive hydropower potential of the Congo river, estimated at about 40,000MW, is such a target. Its development is on a list of top world infrastructure priorities prepared by the World Bank and other development agencies for the Group of 20 major economic powers.

Two smaller dams on the river have been plagued by poor performance and are being rehabilitated with World Bank assistance. A third being planned would represent a quantum jump  a 4,800MW, $12bn giant that would move an entire region off carbon-based electricity.

The African Development Bank has begun negotiations over the financing, and the World Bank is ready to step in with tens of millions of dollars in technical-planning help.

“In an ideal world, we start building in 2016. By 2020, we switch on the lights,” said Hela Cheikhrouhou, energy and environment director for the African Development Bank.

It is the sort of project that the World Bank had stayed away from for many years  not least because of instability in the country. But as the country tries to move beyond its civil war and the region intensifies its quest for the power to fuel economic growth, the bank seems ready to move. Kim will visit Congo this month for a discussion about development in fragile and war-torn states.

Kyte, the World Bank vice president, said the Inga project will be high on the agenda.

“People have been looking at the Inga dam for as long as I have been in the development business,” she said. “The question is: Did the stars align? Did you have a government in place? Did people want to do it? Are there investors interested? Do you have the ability to do the technical work? The stars are aligned now. Let’s go.”

The capitalist system is in a deep crisis. Since the 2008 financial crisis where the system nearly imploded, it has yet to fully recover. And instead, the crisis has spread and has deepened the food, economic, energy and climate crises. The deep systemic crisis is crystal clear evidence that the neoliberal regime must come to an end. However, instead of listening to the 99 percent, the governments, led by the G-20, have imposed austerity measures, cutting social services, making the people pay for the bailout of banks and corporations and doing nothing to curb the speculators who played a major role in the crises.

To make it worse, these same governments have been reviving international institutions that have long been delegitimized, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and now the World Trade Organization (WTO). Together with these institutions, there is a new push for further free trade liberalization, pushing a new wave of free trade agreements (FTAs) such as the Transpacific Partnership Agreement, the US-EU FTA, the EU FTAs with countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the Bilateral Investment Treaties and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and a new model of capitalist exploitation of nature called the “green economy.”

Asia is no stranger to this crisis

The 1997 financial crisis that crippled the countries of Asia has left a deep scar. In a blink of an eye, currencies lost up to 70 percent of their value, local businesses suddenly had debts they could not afford and it plunged millions of people below the poverty line and into unemployment. Indonesia alone, by January 1998, had lost 75 percent of its currency value.

Years after the devastation, most analysts had come to the agreement that it was the liberalization of the economies of Asia, particularly its capital accounts, that had allowed for speculators to come in and out, taking billions of dollars with them, leaving crashing economies behind them. It was also the years of Structural Adjustment Programs imposed by the International Financial Institutions that had turned Asia into export-oriented economies, growing cash crops, becoming completely dependent on the international markets. Finally, the austerity measures that the IMF imposed in the wake of the crisis, did much more harm and wreaked the economies even further. These are the very same austerity measures that the G-20 governments are now imposing on their peoples.

Indonesia’s increasing dependency

Many years, after, we can still see the dependency of Asian economies on the international market. In Indonesia, the liberalization of its market led to the increasing dependency on the import of various goods. In 2012 alone, Indonesia imported around Rp125 trillion (13 billion USD) worth of food. It among others consisted of beef, wheat, rice, soybean, fish, salt, and potatoes. As a result of the high dependence on food imports, particularly in the fishery sector, the sector’s labor force has gone down. Furthermore, increased importation will further weaken the domestic sectors, impacting especially on the women whose role and contribution to agriculture will diminish.

Another factor that makes matters worse, is the increasing protection of foreign investors. Based on the Jakarta Stock Exchange data in 2012 alone, the value of foreign investment in Indonesia is around Rp 436 trillion (45 billion USD) or 70 percent of the total value of stock trading. In 2012, foreign direct investment in primary sector of food crops, plantation and mining was worth 4.8 million USD. This increasing trend of investment in primary sectors have led to escalation of agrarian conflicts, land and natural resource grabbing by corporations and investors.

In addition, the amount of foreign investment does not correlate with the enhancement of welfare for Indonesian workers. There is a decline in labor absorption. In the agriculture sector for example, during the past few years, 450,000 workers were not absorbed and this has increased the number of unemployment. These facts describe how the national sector, in particular the small economy, has been really hit by foreign companies. And that the government of Indonesia has been giving more guarantees to the foreign investors than its people.

However, this tale of dependency on the international markets and the protection of foreign investors and transnational corporations over the people, can be seen not only in Indonesia but across the region as well. In South Korea, local farmers who have been indebted and plunged into poverty because of trade liberalization, have been led to commit suicide. In the Philippines, the poverty incidence among the fishing population is now at 53 percent, several points higher than the national average of 30 percent. In India, welfare workers have very low wages in special economic zones as part of the privileges provided to investors that was in the investment deal in the Free Trade Agreements signed by India. In Thailand, because of trade related intellectual property rights, countless numbers of HIV and HIV/AIDS patients die as they cannot afford the patented anti-retroviral drugs they need to live.

We need to Change the System

Humanity and Nature will not have a future if we continue down this path paved by capitalism. This system of overproduction, overconsumption, and the over-exploitation of Nature must end. The capitalist principle of endless growth has pushed our planet to its limits and the people have been paying the price with their lives. Extreme weather, floods, droughts, typhoons – have all led to the displacement of millions of people, led to the loss of livelihoods and has led to the loss of lives. In the Philippines alone, the recent devastation by Typhoon Bopha left more than a thousand dead in its wake.

The WTO, FTAs and investment agreements only seek to protect the interests of transnational corporations and the 1 percent that profit out of the crises. We need to end the reign of neoliberalism and put a stop to the WTO and the new wave of FTAs threatening to sweep the world.

The time is Now for Economic Justice

We need to debunk the myth that without the WTO, there will be chaos. We need to demand an end to the free trade regime and fight for a world without the WTO. There are alternatives to free trade and dependency on international markets. Trade needs to be at the service of the people and not the other way around.

What we demand and propose is Economic Justice – a system where there is redistribution of wealth and the recovery of peoples’ control over vital sectors of our economy in order to better serve the people instead of the elites. The financial sector and the banking industry cannot speculate and gamble with the future of humanity. The extractive sector, the industries, the agri-business, the service sector cannot over-exploit our Mother Earth and treat humans as slaves.

The Roadmap to Bali

In this light, the Indonesian People’s Movement Against Neocolonialism-Imperialism (Gerak Lawan) would like to work hand in hand with other movements in Asia and around the world, to dismantle the ongoing efforts to revive the WTO in the upcoming Ministerial meeting to be held in Bali, Indonesia on 3-6 December 2013.

In this opportunity we would like to link and strengthen our struggle in Indonesia with other movements in our region and the world, with the following proposals:

Declare the WTO as illegitimate – The WTO has abused its legal mechanisms to constrain the sovereignty and rights of States to develop national policies for people and nature. This needs to end.
We want a world without the WTO – No matter how you reform the WTO or improve its agreements, it will never be fair or just, as it is built on the principles of free trade, endless growth and the capitalist exploitation of people and nature. And this includes changing the leadership of the WTO. Even if a new Director General is elected, the WTO will never have the peoples’ welfare in mind.
Revoke all FTAs and investment treaties and demand that our governments not sign on to any more FTAs or BITs –The push for further trade liberalization needs to be stopped immediately. Peoples and nature have endured enough abuse.
Formulate an alternative model of international trade based on Economic Justice – Social movements, peasants, fisherfolks, indigenous peoples, women, youth, workers, migrants, environmental and trade justice activists and organizations all have proposals of alternatives that are based on justice. Many have in fact been implementing their alternatives such as agroecology, food sovereignty and several other examples, all showing that it is possible to have a different kind of way of developing and co-existing with Nature. We can come together and reimagine an international trading system that promotes Economic Justice and is based on complementarity, cooperation and solidarity.

We will have a series of activities in the lead up to the mobilizations during the Bali Ministerial and we call on all of you to come join us as we deal a decisive blow to neoliberalism and push forward our alternatives.

We therefore call on all social movements, peoples organizations, trade unions, women, migrants, youth, and environmental and trade justice activists, occupy movements, indignados and other new movements, to all come to Bali, Indonesia this December 3-6, and together, stop the WTO and FTAs and push for Economic Justice. Let us bring back that fighting spirit we had in the streets of Hong Kong during the WTO Ministerial. Together, we can defeat the system and make another world possible.

SIGNEES:
Gerak-Lawan (Gerakan Rakyat Lawan Neokolonialisme & Imperialisme)
Indonesia for Global Justice (IGJ) - Bina Desa - Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) - Solidaritas Perempuan (SP) - Aliansi Petani Indonesia (API) - Indonesian Human Right Committee for Social Justice (IHCS) - Komisi untuk Orang Hilang dan Korban Kekerasan (KONTRAS) - Climate Society Forum (CSF) - Koalisi Anti Utang (KAU) - Koalisi Rakyat untuk Keadilan Perikanan (KIARA) - Institut Hijau Indonesia (IHI) - Lingkar Madani untuk Indonesia (LIMA) - Jaringan Advokasi Tambang (JATAM) - Aliansi Jurnalis Independen (AJI Jakarta) - Front Perjuangan Pemuda Indonesia (FPPI) - Lingkar Studi-Aksi untuk Demokrasi Indonesia (LS-ADI) - Serikat Nelayan Indonesia (SNI) - Kesatuan Nelayan Tradisional Indonesia (KNTI) - Serikat Buruh Indonesia (SBI) - Asosiasi Pendamping Perempuan Usaha Kecil (ASPPUK) - Perhimpunan Bantuan Hukum dan Hak Asasi Manusia Indonesia (PBHI) - Universitas Al-Azhar Indonesia (Dosen Hubungan Internasional) - Asosiasi Ekonomi-Politik Indonesia (AEPI) - Koalisi Rakyat untuk Hak Atas Air (KRuHA) - Aliansi Pemuda Pekerja Indonesia (APPI) - Migrant Care

Supporters:
All Nepal’s Peasants’ Federation - Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) - Aniban ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (Union of Agricultural Workers) Philippines - Automotive Industry Workers’ Alliance (AIWA) - Assembly of the Poor, Thailand - Automotive Industry Workers’ Alliance (AIWA) - ATTAC Japan - Bangladesh Kishani Sabha - Bangladesh Krishok Federation - Bhartiya Kisan Union, BKU, India - Border Agricultural Workers Project, - Earth Peoples, International - Focus on the Global South - FTA Watch Thailand - Global Justice Ecology Project - Jubilee South-Asia-Pacific Movement on Debt and Development - Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, India - Kilos Ka, Mindanao - La Via Campesina - Migrant Forum in Asia - Mindanao Peoples’ Peace Movement - MONLAR, Sri Lanka - National Union of Workers in Hotel Restaurant and Allied Industries- Northern Peasants Federation, Thailand - NOUMINREN, Japan - Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) - Philippine Airlines’ Employees Association (PALEA) - Philippine Independent Public Sector Employees Association - Philippine Metalworkers’ Alliance - Polaris Institute, Canada - Public Services Labor Independent Confederation (PSLINK) - Social Movements for Alternative Asia - South Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements - Sumpay Mindanao - Sustainable Alternatives for the Advancement of Mindanao - Thai Poor Act, Thailand - Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) - Transnational Institute - World March of Women - Pilipinas

WatchVIDEO

A animated film about REDD. This film attempts to explain the key issues in a simple to understand way. Seven NGOs were involved in producing the film: Amis de la Terre, Euronatura, FERN, Forest Peoples Programme, Iroko, Pro-Regenwald, Rainforest Foundation UK, ARA and Terra! The film is posted below, with a script and links to sources below that (this is also available as a pdf file).
The video is also available in:
FrenchL’histoire de REDD: Une reelle solution a la deforestation?
SpanishLa historia de REDD.

non-official translation into English by EARTH PEOPLES (POVOS DA TERRA/PUEBLOS DE LA TERRA)

PORTO ALEGRE CHARTER

TO OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND ORGANIZATIONS OF BRAZIL AND THE WORLD

We, representatives of indigenous nations and leaders of indigenous organizations in Brazil, members of the organizations that are part of the Coordination of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil - APIB (Articulation of the Indigenous peoples of the Northeast and Minas Gerais states and Espirito Santo - APOINME , Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon - COIAB; Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the South - ARPINSUR, Great Guarani People’s Assembly - ATY GUASU; Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the Pantanal - ARPIPAN and Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of the South East - ARPINSURESTE ) gathered in the city of Porto Alegre, State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, during 29 to 31 January 2012, after participating in the Social Forum with the theme: Crisis of capitalism, social and environmental justice and after participating at the Social Movements Assembly , held from 24 to 28, and facing the People’s Summit and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio + 20, which will be held in June this year in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Given the different processes of organization, preparation and participation for Rio + 20 Conference, we express to our sister organizations Abya Yala, Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Andres (IOTC), Indigenous Council of Central America (CICA) and other indigenous organizations in this continent and of the world, our position on these processes.

First - When considering the importance of the issues and specific topics that are on the United Nations agenda, because of its obvious impact on the lives of our peoples, we state our disagreement with the way how the “official system”, in some cases coordinated by indigenous on the national and international level, have proceeded, by putting individuals in charge of organizing the global agenda on issues that affect us.

Second - We condemn the fact that our leaders and organizations in Brazil and Abya Yala have been, up to this moment, ignored (and left out) in these processes, saying that these do not represent our people and in the case of Brazil that there are only two organizations that would be the representative, the Intertribal Committee and the National Council of Indigenous Women (CONAMI).

Third - We want to clarify to our brothers and sisters of Brazil and of the world that these organizations are coordinated by individuals that are working in the governmental department of Indigenous Affairs, the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), a questionable affiliation for our indigenous communities. While our organizations, like any social organization can have its problems, in the history of the Brazilian indigenous movement, we are the actors, we struggle together with and for our bases. Under the coordination of APIB, we have been important in our actions against dynamics and incidences against our people and organizations by the national government.

For these struggles in institutional spaces and especially our concrete struggles taking place on the ground, in defense of our lands and territories, against (large scale landowners) companies, monoculture, agribusiness, mega-projects such as hydroelectric dams, ports, roads and mining and quarrying (logging, mining and others), many of our leaders of our local organizations and associations have been killed, persecuted and imprisoned illegally. In the year 2010, 63 of our brothers were killed, and so far the culpits have not been tried and convicted by the Brazilian justice, the perpetrators and planners.

We will not allow that this reality and history of struggle will be disrespected and ignored.

Fourth - Given these facts, we reaffirm that we do not recognize dynamics, entities and initiatives that haven’t been through consultation and coordination with our organizations, that are doing exactly what governments do, they frequently violate our right to free, prior and informed consent, a right enshrined in the Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Specifically, to preserve the dignity for our brothers and sisters who are there, we do not recognize (support) that the space for discussion of the global agenda of the Rio +20 and other issues that affect us as indigenous peoples is Karioca II.
Karioka II is an official ((governmental, UN system, specific foundations and non-governmental organizations funded by…)) initiative and clearly detached from the social and political reality of the specific problems of our peoples and communities.

Fifth - We reaffirm to all our brothers and sisters, to governmental bodies, NGOs and the diverse political, social and grass-root movements in Brazil and to those of the world that the space for discussions on the global agenda and the specific agenda of the indigenous peoples and communities will be the Free Land Camp (Acampamento Terra Livre - ATL), for the sake (concept) of “Living Well” and “Full ((Healthy, Intact)) Life” in Rio de Janeiro, in the context of the People’s Summit and the ((Rio+20)) Conference of the United Nations.

We clarify that the Free Land Camp so far has been the largest political action that our people and organizations have developed every year since 2004, gathering over 1000 indigenous leaders to discuss their problems, demands, recommendations and collective proposals to the Brazilian State. This year we decided to do the same in Rio de Janeiro, in order to internationalize our common efforts and in the hope to create a space of convergence for and with our brothers and sisters of the world that come to the Global Peoples Summit and the UN Conference.

Sixth - Finally, we call on all peoples, organizations and indigenous leaders from Brazil and the world to get together with us in order to show governments and transnational corporations, that despite the geographical distance, language and other differences, we are united, we have similar problems, rights, needs and aspirations for which we will fight and influence the various national and international levels during and beyond the Rio + 20.

For the Good Living and Full Life of Our Peoples.

Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil - APIB

Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, January 31, 2012.

TO DOWNLOAD ORIGINAL IN SPANISH CLICK:HERE

Monday, 22 August

German based NGOs protested in Berlin in front of the historic Brandenburger Tor against Brazil’s mega dam project Belo Monte,  and the new forest law. (To watch video click: Video PROTEST in BERLIN )

Later the group went to the Embassy of Brazil to Germany.

Rettet den Regenwald (RdR) hand delivered  Folders with the originals of 40 0000 signatures  - against the proposed new Forest Law that would open the door for big companies to destroy much larger amounts of nature, and possibly  late rewarded them for their bad behavior in form of carbon credits for “reforesting” with monoculture forests and any other kind of plantations.

Gesellschaft fuer bedrohte Volker (GfbV)  delivered to the Brazilian Governmental Representative in Berlin a letter signed by the NGO’s german language speaking offices from Austria, Swiss, Tirol and Germany. The letter addressed President Dilma Vana Rousseff with the concern that the Belo Monte dam was approved without the Free Prior Informed Consent of the indigenous peoples. Yvonne Barngert, from GfbV-Deutschland reminded the Embassy offical that Brazil had signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Linda Poppe, Survival International-Deutschland, handed a letter campaign concerned about non contacted indigenous groups that live and roam near the megadams construction site. An encounter with these indigenous groups that are hiding in voluntary isolation ocured not even 70 km away from the dam’s final location site. The letter requested that their territory should be without delay secured for them and demarcated as Indigenous Territory TI. So far, the area is merely under special protection for 2 years,  with no long term guarantee. There will be an influx of over 100 000 expected addional workers that would settle in the neigboring areas inside the forests, further pressuring on the indigenous groups that live in voluntary isolation - which are the most vulnerable of the indigenous populations in that area in Altamira, Para, in Brazil.

Rebecca Sommer,  Society for Threatened Peoples International (STPI), handed the Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth,  and reminded that the MPF,  and its prosecutors, are worldwide much applauded as a role model for its historic move to halt Belo Monte with the legal argument that the dam would violate the Rights of Nature.

Ecuador was the first country, that included the Rights of Mother Earth into it’s constitution. Bolivia called for the Peoples movements to create the Declaration on the Rights of Mother Nature, that is now pushed with UN concrete walls to be adoptedwith the ultimate goal to become an UN Convention. To download the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth click here EARTH_DECLARATION.rtf

Amid the latest UN climate talks taking place in Bonn Germany Friends of the Earth International have released a report highly critical of the role of the World Bank in continuing to fund dirty energy investment in developing countries and continuing to push carbon markets and offset programs which essentially privatise developing country forests in the process of generating carbon offsets.

The World Bank was made interim trustee of the new Green Climate Fund in December 2010 in Cancun. The Fund was established to assist developing countries to adapt to the impacts of global warming.

Related: Interview with Sarah-Jayne Clifton, coordinator of the Climate Justice and Energy Program of Friends of the Earth International | Follow the Bonn climate talks: Adopt a Negotiator Project; Climate Action Network; Friends of the Earth.

Friends of the Earth International Economic Justice Program Coordinator Sebastian Valdomir said on release of the report in Bonn: “The World Bank is part of the climate problem, not the climate solution. Its conflicts of interest, and appalling social and environmental track record, should immediately disqualify it from playing any role whatsoever in designing the Green Climate Fund, and in climate finance more generally.”

The Bonn conference, running from June 6 - 17, is a build-up to COP 17, which will be held in Durban, South Africa from 28 November to 9 December 2011. The Bonn meeting has attracted more than 3,000 participants from 183 countries, including government delegates, representatives from business and industry, environmental organisations and research institutions.

Two projects of particular note detailed in the report are the US$3.75 billion loan to finance Eskom’s controversial 4,800 megawatt Medupi coal-fired plant in South Africa and the investment of US$450 million for the Tata Mundra 4,000 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Gujarat, India. The Gujurat plant is expected to emit an estimated 25.7 million tons of CO2 annually for at least 25 years. The South African Medupi plant will be the world’s fourth-largest coal-fired plant and will emit an estimated 25 million tons of CO2 per year with 40 new coalmines to feed the Medupi plant.

The Bank continues substantial investment in fossil fuel based power plants despite the potential for renewable energy in South Africa and India. The report states on page 8

“The Bank did not give serious consideration to alternatives to coal, even though South Africa has significant renewable energy potential. The World Bank is allocating less than 7% of the loan to renewable energy15 despite the fact that NERSA calculates that wind energy will be cheaper than coal by 2025, and concentrated solar power will be on a par with coal by 2030 (Groundwork, 2009). Furthermore, renewable energy technologies create more jobs than coal-fired plants: wind, for example, creates 12.6 jobs per gigawatt hour (gwh) of power as opposed to coal’s 0.7 jobs (Groundwork, 2009).”

The Bank has also been increasing investment in large hydropower since 2003 strongly aguing for their inclusion under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and carbon offset credits even though many of the projects were already under construction without any offset credits with the projects involving substantial social and environmental impacts.

In the tropics dams are a significant source of greenhouses gases with the report saying

“Scientific studies have shown that decomposing organic matter in reservoirs caused by dams has resulted in significant emissions of the greenhouse gases methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide (International Rivers, 2008). Methane emissions from dams currently account for at least 4% of the total global warming impact of human activities, and constitute the largest single source of anthropogenic methane (Lima, 2007; International Rivers, 2008).”

The Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos, funded by loans by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, was opened in December 2010 and has displaced 6,200 Indigenous Peoples on the Nakai Plateau and negatively affected more than 110,000 people downstream, who depend on the Xe Bang Fai and Nam Theun rivers for their livelihoods. According to the report Villagers continue to suffer from the damaged river ecosystem as their fish catch and water quality have declined. The rport authors accuse the World Bank of violation of its own safeguard policy on resettlement by failing to ensure alternative sources of domestic water, and not providing compensation for the loss of agricultural land. The Dam also opens up access to the Nakai-Nam Theun National Protected Area, exacerbating logging and poaching and threatening biodiversity.

World Bank investments in Carbon offsets and investment in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) was also criticised in the report for failing to take measures to protect community rights and even to reduce deforestation.

“An analysis of a range of REDD Readiness Preparation Proposals (R-PPs) uncovered the fact that they neglect national legal frameworks with regard to customary rights, the right to Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC), and land titling (FERN & FPP, 2011). They may pay lip service to forest peoples’ rights and benefit sharing but they do not address land conflicts; they prioritise state ownership and carbon monitoring over livelihoods, biodiversity and cultural values. They also tend to be reliant on analysis that unjustifiably blames local communities for forest loss and damage. National consultations with Indigenous Peoples and other forest dependent communities on these R-PPs have been “either nonexistent or inadequate” (FERN & FPP, 2011).”

The Cancun negotiations of December 2010 paved the way for REDD inclusion in carbon markets and carbon trading. The Friends of the Earth report says that “The World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) is already designing forest carbon trading systems that are clearly “based on the assumption that carbon offsets will eventually deliver funding for REDD” on a global scale (FERN, 2011).”

A report published in Januray 2011 from some of the world’s top experts on forest governance has criticised various international climate change accords including REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) and REDD+ for their narrow focus on carbon storage which has failed to stop rampant destruction of the world’s most vulnerable forests and often acted to further marginalise indigenous peoples.

The Cancun agreement was criticised by FoE Australia who claimed REDD was neither a win for forests nor climate as it will enable countries like Australia to keep polluting by buying offsets in forest nations such as Indonesia. A scathing report - What a Scam! Australia’s REDD Offsets for Copenhagen - was published by FoE Australia and Aidwatch in November 2009 on Australia’s REDD offsets.

Policy Analyst at Friends of the Earth United States Kate Horner stated in a press release from the Bonn climate talks “The World Bank claims to provide leadership on climate change but, as shown in this report, it is a major funder of dirty fossil fuel projects, carbon trading and mega dams. These initiatives deepen poverty and push us closer to the brink of a global environmental disaster.”

Sources:

• Friends of the Earth International - World Bank: catalysing
catastrophic climate change (PDF)

• Friends of the Earth International Press Release, June 11, 2011 - Report Reveals World Bank’s Role in Fuelling Climate Chaos

By Daphne Wysham

It started in the dog days of August, 1996, when Washington becomes a

ghost town. That was when the World Bank revised its energy efficiency
standards for thermal power plants, weakening them dramatically. Why
would the primary institution entrusted with the task of financing
clean energy development at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 suddenly
lower its standards for fossil fuel power plants, essentially
incentivizing more pollution? It turned out it had a lot to do with
carbon offsets.

But it took us a few years to figure that out. The first piece of the
puzzle came together in 1997 when the project I direct, the
Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, issued a report finding that the
World Bank had been ramping up its investment in coal, oil, and gas.
Our report found that, in the five years since the Earth Summit, the
bank had funded projects that would add about 2 gigatons of carbon to
Earth’s atmosphere every year. The Bank had failed in living up to the
mandate entrusted to it in Rio, and instead was taking the planet
toward climate catastrophe.

It wasn’t until a year later that the puzzle came together. In a
second report, we found that the World Bank was poised to embark on
trading in carbon offsets. Bank officials said they were merely
“learning by doing” and would only “help” the UN set up carbon
markets, then exit, stage right. Fourteen years later, carbon offsets
have gone from a boutique business to a booming industry, and our
worst fears have been realized.

Ever since the World Bank lowered its energy efficiency standards,
power plants have been able to raise them again to where they were
before August 1996, and count that as a carbon offset. It works like
this: A polluter in the North buys a certain quantity of carbon
offsets emissions from the World Bank, at a cost cheaper than reducing
those carbon emissions at home. A coal burner in a developing country
gets paid to do what it was previously required to do as a condition
of World Bank lending — burn coal more efficiently. The World Bank
charges a 13 percent brokerage fee on the transaction. The net result:
The Bank is richer for expanding fossil fuel and carbon finance in the
global South, the global climate is more unstable with additional
carbon dioxide, and some corporation in the global North can claim
fake emission reductions and carry on polluting. Weakened energy
efficiency standards, we came to find out, are the least of our
worries. As my co-director at the Sustainable Energy and Economy
Network, Janet Redman, wrote in our 2008 report, “World Bank: Climate
Profiteer,” the World Bank launched a whole new market in some of the
most perverse incentives for increasing greenhouse gas emissions ever
imagined.

For example, the bank’s “Global Gas Flare Reduction Partnership,” is
now poised to push Nigeria, the second largest emitter of CO2 from
poisonous gas flares, to gain carbon offset credits for ending gas
flaring. Sounds great, right? Well, gas flaring is already illegal in
Nigeria. Has been since 1984. By providing carbon offsets for ending
gas flaring, the bank is actually incentivizing oil companies to obey
the law and stop poisoning communities only if paid. Some people call
that bribery. A better word might be extortion. If Chevron Nigeria
ends gas flaring, for example, Chevron in Richmond, California could
actually increase its emissions and claim a “reduction” with these gas
flare offsets.

Similarly, in 2005 the bank helped broker carbon offsets for one of
the most potent global warming gases on the planet – HFC-23. The end
result: Rather than phasing out the production of these
ozone-destroying and global warming gases in China as required under
the UN’s Montreal Protocol, there was a sudden jump in the production
of HFCs – in order to reap millions to then turn around and destroy
them. Thankfully, that trade has now been banned by the European
Union.

The World Bank’s perverse incentives to pollute are now something of
the norm when it comes to greenhouse gas mitigation efforts. In
California, for example, the state’s cap and trade with offsets scheme
allows companies to use carbon offset credits to fulfill a percentage
of their emissions compliance requirements. Some California
environmental justice communities have recently filed a lawsuit to
stop it. The reason? Offsets allow pollution to continue, even
increase, in their communities, so long as the polluter buys some
other carbon offset elsewhere.

The US Government Accountability Office has issued repeated reports
claiming that carbon offsets are virtually impossible to verify,
warning: “The use of carbon offsets in a cap-and-trade system can
undermine the system’s integrity, given that it is not possible to
ensure that every credit represents a real, measurable, and long-term
reduction in emissions.” But that hasn’t stopped people from pushing
to expand carbon offsets to include large tracts of forests in the
global South under the proposed Reduced Emissions from Deforestation
and Degradation (UN REDD). An inevitable conflict is now playing out
between the future “owners” of the carbon in the trees in the global
North and Indigenous peoples who have inhabited and protected these
forests for generations.

There is a better, more principled way forward, and it does not
involve destroying things we value if we save or “offset” the same
quantity of that natural resource elsewhere. It involves
internationally recognized principles like “polluter pays.” It
involves strong national laws like US EPA authority to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions within our national boundaries and
enforcement of the Endangered Species Act. It involves cutting
subsidies, like World Bank loans or cheap oil, gas, and coal leases
handed out to mining companies by the Department of Interior. It
involves providing predictable finance for clean, renewable energy –
just as Germany has done with great success while simultaneously
phasing out nuclear power.

We need not entrust the unstable global climate to the derivatives
traders at Goldman Sachs and the neoliberal schemes of offset brokers
at the World Bank. We know how to value nature without putting a price
on it. Indeed, something as priceless, and unpredictable, as our
planet’s carbon cycling capacity – a critical foundation of all life
on Earth – should never be cheapened with a price tag.

–
Daphne Wysham
Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies
Co-Director, Founder, Sustainable Energy & Economy Network www.ips-dc.org/seen
Host, Earthbeat Radio/TV www.earthbeatradio.org; www.therealnews.com
twitter.com/daphnewysham
202-787-5208
skype: daphne.wysham