[Cc-webedit] [Fwd: Re: [mediateam] Re: Copenhagen - Where is our narrative? - Proposal to use CJA statement for main post-cop text]

[website at climatecamp.org.uk]

This was sent in by Jody. If there are no objections I will put it up
tonight.

Neil
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: [mediateam] Re: Copenhagen - Where is our narrative? -
Proposal  to use CJA statement for main post-cop text
From:    "Jody Boehnert" <jody.boehnert at googlemail.com>
Date:    Wed, December 23, 2009 11:45 pm
To:      website at climatecamp.org.uk
Cc:      hamish at undercurrents.org
         "simon collister" <simon_collister at hotmail.com>
         mediateam at lists.riseup.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks Neil.

I think we need to really make sure that we emphasize the CJA action (on the
16th) above and beyond all others..... as it was this event that was our
major focus.  The new CJN statement that came out today is much stronger
than Oliver's text, and additionally does not need editing so I would
suggest we just publish this statement and replace the main picture. Ideally
a good empowering image of something positive not police related. I will try
and find one on twitter and send you something. Does this sound okay?

Additionally it would be great to have a more descriptive blog or statement
about 'The People's Assembly' - as from my understanding this assembly
process is something we (CJA) are going to try and build into a central
movement building strategy so it would be good to really big up this first
symbolic assembly as a building block for our movement.

So ideally the top band would have five red boxes: the three there already
and two more: 1) CJN statement  2) The People's Assemblies

And we would get rid of '*Thousands ignore police intimidaton at No Borders
protest to demand justice for climate refugees'* - since as important as
this is - it is not the MAIN point of our action.

If this is okay with everyone I will write something about People's
Assemblies and post it on this list before asking Neil to put it on-line.
But can we go ahead with the CJN statement relatively soon?

Jody



Here is the statement:

*Statement of Climate Justice Now! on the outcomes of COP15*

*Call for “system change not climate change” unites global movement*
*Corrupt Copenhagen ‘accord’ exposes gulf between peoples demands and elite
interests*

The highly anticipated UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen ended with
a fraudulent agreement, engineered by the United States and dropped into the
conference at the last moment. The "agreement" was not adopted. Instead, it
was "noted" in an absurd parliamentary invention designed to accommodate the
United States and permit Ban Ki-moon to utter the ridiculous pronouncement
"We have a deal."

The UN conference was unable to deliver solutions to the climate crisis, or
even minimal progress toward them. Instead, the talks were a complete
betrayal of impoverished nations and island states, producing embarrassment
for the United Nations and the Danish government. In a conference designed
to limit greenhouse gas emissions there was very little talk of emission
reductions. Rich, developed countries continued to delay any talk of deep
and binding cuts, instead shifting the burden to less developed countries
and showing no willingness to make reparations for the damage they have
caused.

The Climate Justice Now! coalition, alongside other networks, was united
here at COP15 in the call for System Change, Not Climate Change. In
contrast, the Copenhagen climate conference itself demonstrated that real
solutions, as opposed to false, market-based solutions, will not be adopted
until we overcome the existing unjust political and economic system.

Government and corporate elites here in Copenhagen made no attempt to
satisfy the expectations of the world. False solutions and corporations
completely co-opted the United Nations process. The global elite would like
to privatize the atmosphere through carbon markets; carve up the remaining
forests, bush and grasslands of the world through the violation of
indigenous rights and land-grabbing; promote high-risk technologies to
restructure the climate; convert real forests into monoculture tree
plantations and agricultural soils into carbon sinks; and complete the
enclosure and privatisation of the commons. Virtually every proposal
discussed in Copenhagen was based on a desire to create opportunities for
profit rather than to reduce emissions, and even the small amounts of
financing promised could end up paying for the transfer of risky
technologies.

The only discussions of real solutions in Copenhagen took place in social
movements. Climate Justice Now!, Climate Justice Action and Klimaforum09
articulated many creative ideas and attempted to deliver those ideas to the
UN Climate Change Conference through the Klimaforum09 People's Declaration
and the Reclaim Power People's Assembly. Among nations, the ALBA countries,
many African nations and AOSIS often echoed the messages of the climate
justice movement, speaking of the need to repay climate debt, create
mitigation and adaptation funds outside of neoliberal institutions such as
the World Bank and IMF, and keep global temperature increase below 1.5
degrees.

The UN and the Danish government served the interests of the rich,
industrialized countries, excluding our voices and the voices of the least
powerful throughout the world, and attempting to silence our demands to talk
about real solutions. Nevertheless, our voices grew stronger and more united
day by day during the two-week conference. As we grew stronger, the
mechanisms implemented by the UN and the Danish authorities for the
participation of civil society grew more dysfunctional, repressive and
undemocratic, very much like the WTO and Davos.

Social movement participation was limited throughout the conference,
drastically curtailed in week two, and several civil society organizations
even had their admission credentials revoked midway through the second week.
At the same time, corporations continued lobbying inside the Bella Center.

Outside the conference,the Danish police extended the repressive framework,
launching a massive clampdown on the right to free expression and arresting
and beating thousands, including civil society delegates to the climate
conference. Our movement overcame this repression to raise our voices in
protest over and over again. Our demonstrations mobilized more than 100,000
people in Denmark to press for climate justice, while social movements
around the world mobilized hundreds of thousands more in local climate
justice demonstrations. In spite of repression by the Danish government and
exclusion by the United Nations, the movement for system change not climate
change is now stronger than when we arrived in Denmark.

While Copenhagen has been a disaster for just and equitable climate
solutions, it has been an inspiring watershed moment in the battle for
climate justice. The governments of the elite have no solutions to offer,
but the climate justice movement has provided strong vision and clear
alternatives. Copenhagen will be remembered as an historic event for global
social movements. It will be remembered, along with Seattle and Cancun, as a
critical moment when the diverse agendas of many social movements coalesced
and became stronger, asking in one voice for system change, not climate
change.

The Climate Justice Now! coalition calls for social movements around the
world to mobilize in support of climate justice.

We will take our struggle forward not just in climate talks, but on the
ground and in the streets, to promote genuine solutions that include:

- leaving fossil fuels in the ground and investing instead in appropriate
energy-efficiency and safe, clean and community-led renewable energy
- radically reducing wasteful consumption, first and foremost in the North,
but also by Southern elites
- huge financial transfers from North to South, based on the repayment of
climate debts and subject to democratic control. The costs of adaptation and
mitigation should be paid for by redirecting military budgets, progressive
and innovative taxes, and debt cancellation
- rights-based resource conservation that enforces Indigenous land rights
and promotes peoples' sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water
- sustainable family farming and fishing, and peoples' food sovereignty.

We are committed to building a diverse movement – locally and globally – for
a better world.

Climate Justice Now!
Copenhagen
19 December 2009
www.climate-justice-now.org
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