Fwd: Climate Space in Tunis : To Reclaim Our Future,
We Must Change the Present Our Proposal for Changing the System and
not the Climate
from
jasper teunissen
on Apr 24, 2013 10:13 AM
-------- Origineel bericht --------
Onderwerp: [fse-esf] Climate Space in Tunis : To Reclaim Our Future, We
Must Change the Present Our Proposal for Changing the System and not the
Climate
Datum: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:53:36 +0200
Van: Maxime Combes <maxime.combes@...>
Aan: fse-esf@...
Dear all
Please find below the final declaration of the Climate Space held in
Tunis during the last World Social Forum.
This final declaration is endorsed by the facilitator organisations of
the Climate Space.
Please find attached the declaration translated into Français, Español,
Português e Italiano.
You can find the different versions on http://climatespace2013.org :
* in english :
http://climatespace2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/to-reclaim-our-future-we-must-change-the-present-our-proposal-for-changing-the-system-and-not-the-climate/
* in Français :
http://climatespace2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/pour-reprendre-notre-avenir-en-main-nous-devons-changer-le-present-nos-proposition-pour-changer-le-systeme-pas-le-climat/
* in Español :
http://climatespace2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/para-recuperar-nuestro-futuro-tenemos-que-cambiar-el-presente-nuestra-propuesta-para-cambiar-el-sistema-en-vez-del-clima/
* in Português :
http://climatespace2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/para-garantir-nosso-futuro-temos-que-transformar-o-presente-nossa-proposta-para-transformar-o-sistema-e-nao-o-clima/
* in Italiano :
http://climatespace2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/per-pretendere-il-nostro-futuro-dobbiamo-cambiare-il-presente-la-nostra-proposta-per-cambiare-il-sistema-e-non-il-clima/
Please feel free to distribute it widely.
Cheers
Maxime
--
Maxime COMBES
maxime.combes@... <mailto:maxime.combes@...> // Twitter :
MaximCombes
+33 6 24 51 29 44 <tel:%2B33%206%2024%2051%2029%2044> // skype :
maxime.combes
Alter-Echos (www.alter-echos.org <http://www.alter-echos.org>)
*La nature n'a pas de prix, les méprises de l'économie verte
<http://www.france.attac.org/livres/la-nature-na-pas-de-prix-les-meprises-de-leconomie-verte>*,
en librairie.
---
*To Reclaim Our Future, We Must Change the Present*
*Our Proposal for Changing the System and not the Climate*
The capitalist system has exploited and abused nature, pushing the
planet to its limits, so much so that the system has accelerated
dangerous and fundamental changes in the climate.
Today, the severity and multiplicity of weather changes ? characterized
by droughts, desertification, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, forest fires
and the melting of glaciers and sea ice ? indicate that the planet is
burning. These extreme changes have direct impacts on humans through the
loss lives, livelihoods, crops and homes all of which have led to human
displacement in the form of forced migration and climate refugees on a
massive an unprecedented scale.
Humanity and nature are now standing at a precipice. We can stand idle
and continue the march into an abysmal future too dire to imagine, or we
can take action and reclaim a future that we have all hoped for.
We will not stand idle. We will not allow the capitalist system to burn
us all. We will take action and address the root causes of climate
change by changing the system. The time has come to stop talking and to
take action.
We must nurture, support, strengthen and increase the scale of
grassroots organizing in all places, but in particular in frontline
battlegrounds where the stakes are the highest.
System Change means:
*
Leave more than two thirds of fossil fuel reserves under the soil,
as well as beneath the ocean floor, in order to prevent catastrophic
levels of climate change.
*
Ban all new exploration and exploitation of oil, tar sands, oil
shale, coal, uranium, and natural gas.
*
Support a just transition for workers and communities away from the
extreme energy economy and into resilient local economies based on
social, economic and environmental justice.
*
Decentralize the generation and ownership of energy under local
community control using renewable sources of energy. Invest in
community based, small-scale, local energy infrastructure.
*
Stop building mega and unnecessary infrastructure projects that do
not benefit the population and are net contributors to greenhouse
gasses like, mega dams, excessive huge highways, large-scale
centralized energy projects, and superfluous massive airports.
*
End the dominance of export-based industrial forms of food
production, (including in the livestock sector), and promote
small-scale integrated and ecologically sound farming and an
agriculture system that ensures food sovereignty, and that locally
grown crops meet the nutritional and cultural needs of the local
community. These measures will help to cool the planet.
*
Adopt Zero Waste approaches through promoting comprehensive
recycling and composting programs that end the use of greenhouse gas
emitting incinerators ? including new generation hi-tech
incinerators ? and landfills.
*
Stop land grabbing and respect the rights of small farmers, peasants
and women. Recognize the collective rights of indigenous and tribal
peoples consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, including their rights to their lands and
territories.
*
Develop economic strategies that create new kinds of ?climate jobs?
- decent paying jobs that directly contribute to carbon reductions -
in such sectors as renewable energy, agriculture, public
transportation and building retrofits.
*
Recover the control of the public sources to finance projects for
people and nature like health, education, food, employment, housing,
restoration of water sheds, conservation and restoration of forest
and other ecosystems and others and stop the subsidies to dirty
industries, agribusiness and military industry.
*
Take cars off the roads by building clean public transport
infrastructure that is adaptive to local, non-combustion energy
sources, and make it accessible and affordable to everyone.
*
Promote local production and consumption of durable goods to satisfy
the fundamental needs of the people and avoid the transport of goods
that can be produced locally.
*
Stop and reverse corporate driven free trade and investments
agreements that promote trade for profit and destroy the labor
force, nature and the capacity of nations to define their own policies.
*
Stop the corporate capture of the economy and natural resources for
the profit of Transnational Corporations.
*
Dismantle the war industry and military infrastructure in order to
reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of warfare, and divert war
budgets to promote genuine peace.
With these measures we will be able to achieve comprehensive employment
for all because built into this systemic change there will be more and
better quality jobs than currently exist within the capitalist system.
With these measures we will be able to build an economy that serves the
people and not the capitalists. We will stop the endless degradation of
the earth?s land, air, and water and preserve the health of humans and
the vital cycles of nature. We will avoid forced migration and millions
of climate refugees.
System change requires an end to the global empire of transnational
corporations and banks. Only a society that has the type of democratic
control over resources which is based on workers (including migrant
workers), indigenous and women?s rights and respects the sovereignty of
the people will be able to guarantee economic, social and environmental
justice. System Change requires a break from the patriarchal society in
order to guarantee women?s rights in all aspects of life. Feminism and
ecology are key components of the new society that we are fighting for.
We need a new system that seeks harmony between humans and nature and
not an endless growth model that the capitalist system promotes in order
to make more and more profit. Mother Earth and her natural resources
cannot sustain the consumption and production needs of this modern
industrialized society. We require a new system that addresses the needs
of the majority and not of the few. We need a redistribution of the
wealth that is now controlled by the 1%. And we also need a new
definition of wellbeing and prosperity for all life on the planet under
the limits of our Mother Earth.
While there will still be a battle inside the international UN climate
negotiations, the main battlegrounds will be outside and will be rooted
in the places where there are frontline struggles against the fossil
fuel industry, industrial agriculture, deforestation, industrial
pollution, carbon offsets schemes, and REDD-type carbon offsets
projects, all resulting in land and water grabbing and displacements
taking place all over the world.
The United States, Europe, Japan, Russia and other industrialized
countries, as the main historical carbon emitters, should implement the
biggest emissions reductions. China, India, Brazil, South Africa and
other emerging economies should also have targets for emission
reductions based on the principles of common but differentiated
responsibility. We do not accept that on behalf of the right to
development several projects for more unsustainable consumption and
exploitation of nature are being promoted in developing countries only
to benefit the profits of the 1%.
The fight for a new system is also the struggle against false solutions
to climate change. If we don?t stop them they will disrupt the Earth?s
System and deeply affect the health of nature and all life. We therefore
reject techno-fix ?solutions? like geo-engineering, genetically modified
organisms, agrofuels, industrial bioenergy, synthetic biology,
nanotechnology, hydraulic fracturation (fracking), nuclear projects,
waste-to-energy generation based on incineration, and others.
We are also in opposition to those proposals that want to expand the
commodification, financialization and privatization of the functions of
nature through the so-called ?green economy? which places a price on
nature and creates new derivative markets that will only increase
inequality and expedite the destruction of nature. We cannot put the
future of nature and humanity in the hands of financial speculative
mechanisms like carbon trading and REDD. We echo and amplify the many
voices that are urging the European Union to scrap the EU Emissions
Trading Scheme.
REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation),
like Clean Development Mechanisms, is not a solution to climate change
and is a new form of colonialism. In defense of Indigenous Peoples,
local communities and the environment, we reject REDD+ and the grabbing
of the forests, farmlands, soils, mangroves, marine algae and oceans of
the world which act as sponges for greenhouse gas pollution. REDD and
its potential expansion constitutes a worldwide counter-agrarian reform
which perverts and twists the task of growing food into a process of
?farming carbon? called Climate Smart Agriculture.
We must link social and environmental struggles, bring together rural
and urban communities, and combine local and global initiatives so that
we can unite together in a common struggle. We must use all diverse
forms of resistance. We must build a movement that is based on the daily
life of people that guarantees democracy at all stages of societies.
Many proposals already contain key elements needed to build new systemic
alternatives. Some examples include, Buen Vivir, defending the commons,
respecting Indigenous territories and community conserved areas, the
rights of Mother Earth ? rights of Nature, food sovereignty, prosperity
without growth, de-globalization, the happiness index, the duties to and
rights of future generations, the Peoples Agreement of Cochabamba and
others.
We have all long hoped for the possibility of another world. Today, we
take that hope and turn it into courage, strength and action - that
together, we can change the system. If there is to be a future for
humanity, we need to fight for it right now.
*April 2013*
/Signed by the facilitators of the Climate Space/
Alliance of Progressive Labor, Philippines
Alternatives International
ATTAC France
Ecologistas en Acción
Environmental Rights Action, Nigeria
ETC Group
Fairwatch, Italy
Focus on the Global South
Global Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power and end TNCs? impunity
Global Forest Coalition
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Grupo de Reflexão e Apoio ao Processo do Fórum Social Mundial
Indigenous Environmental Network
La Via Campesina
No-REDD Africa Network
Migrants Rights International
OilWatch International
Polaris Institute
Transnational Institute
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