The market-based and techno-fix solutions on the table for the 2015 UN climate talks are diverting attention from the real culprits and delaying real action. Most political leaders have been happy to choose measures that suit existing business models and continued corporate profit-making. There’s little prospect of the deal that’s being cooked up in Paris delivering anything for the climate.
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The India Climate Justice Collective has released the fifth issue of the “Mausam” magazine. This time the focus is on India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, submitted to the UN Climate Convention in October, to which they say: “We think it was not nationally determined...
The collective efforts of various organizations from Africa, America, Europe and Asia have resulted in the study booklet: “Peasant Agroecology for Food Sovereignty and Mother Earth, experiences of La Via Campesina”. From their distinct territories, 10 articles share experiences in agroecology training, organizing, production and marketing of healthy foods.
On November 5th, one of the largest environmental disasters in the history of Brazil occurred. Two dams operated by mining company Samarco burst in the state of Minas Gerais, dumping sludge with the company's toxic waste in an area where hundreds of families lived. The disaster killed dozens of people, destroyed hundreds of homes, and destroyed the life of one of Brazil's major rivers, the “Río Doce.” This in turn has affected the water supply of hundreds of thousands
In early November, a gathering of peasants and indigenous peoples from Mindanao, Bohol and Palawan, denounced the government’s plan to devote eight million hectares of land to oil palm by 2023. Oil palm plantations in the Philippines cover almost 55,000 hectares. The Philippine Coconut Authority’s (PCA) 2014 to 2023 road map has identified about a million hectares for potential oil palm farms.
The Unist’ot’en camp in North-Western British Colombia, Canada, has since 2011 been maintaining a check-point to control access through their territory to stop government and industry plans to build several gas and oil pipelines.
The Indian government is producing many proposals to make more profit from the country’s forests. These include wider application of their huge Compensatory Afforestation Fund and private leasing plans.
For decades, governments and intergovernmental agencies like the UN or the World Bank have been busy finding ways to allow the flow of large investments and projects to go on – no matter the consequences. Despite fossil fuels being the main cause of climate change, we see oil, coal and gas companies expanding extraction activities. Despite land clearance for industrial agriculture being one of the main causes of deforestation, we see agribusinesses increasing tree and crop monocultures.
By Oilwatch.
The purpose of this document is to present the commitments and efforts that peoples, nationalities, and communities have undertaken against the extraction of oil, gas, or coal as a contribution toward avoiding climate disaster.
We, the signatories of this declaration, are calling on the European Union (EU) to exclude bioenergy from its next Renewable Energy Directive (RED), and thereby stop direct and indirect subsidies for renewable energy from biofuels and wood-burning.