CANCUN, MEXICO: CAMPESINOS MARCH AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE IN CANCUN Several thousand campesinos undertook a kilometer-long march on Tuesday, Oct. 7, headed towards the meeting place of the United Nations conference on climate change where more than 190 countries took part, to demand an “agreement that respects the communities of the world.”
Amongst the more prominent organizations that participated in the march were NGO’s (non-government organizations) of global stature such as Greenpeace, Oxfam and the international organization Via Campesina that is very well-known in the environmental struggles within Mexico. “It is urgent that an agreement to reduce 50 percent of the greenhouse gases be reached and we are demanding that the United States, Japan, China and the G8 (Group of 8) give in to the demands of the world communities,” said Rafael Alegria of Via Campesina of Honduras. He was surrounded by hundreds of rainbow flags that symbolize Mother Earth and green flags belonging to the campesinos. The campesinos suffer directly the impact of climate change with extreme phenomena such as the frequent and violent hurricanes that devastate the harvests and the dramatic reduction of water in many widespread regions. “It is better that [the Cancun negotiators] do not reach any agreement rather than reaching a bad agreement,” said Ash-Lee Woodard from the Grass Root Global Justice alliance of the United States. To the sound of drums, rattles and Bolivian wind “zampoñas” (panpipes), they sang “the earth is not to be sold, it is to be loved and defended” and they held banners which read “food Sovereignty Now” and “The Forests Are Not Raw Material.” (www.latribuna.hn)
CANCUN, MEXICO: A CRUCIAL WEEK TO REACH AGREEMENTS IN THE CANCUN CLIMATE SUMMIT The conference on climate change in Cancun entered its final phase this past week. At a ministerial level, they had to finalize the agreements that were left unfinished at the preliminary negotiations of Monday, Nov. 29. On Tuesday, Dec. 6 began the higher-level segment of the conference, in which ministers and in some cases heads of state participated. The question was whether everyone would be left satisfied. Basically there were four aspects: how to accommodate all of the proposals on environmental protection from each of the countries; how to report and verify them; how to finance them and what form of legality should be given to all of them. In Copenhagen they attempted to deal with all of the issues in only one agreement that failed. From the beginning, Cancun was been defined as a first step that will serve as a basis for reaching a future agreement. The two principle countries that cause the greenhouse gas effects, the United States and China, clashed severely in Copenhagen but now have a very different attitude. The special envoy from the government of Barack Obama, Todd Stern, said that the United States maintains the objective of reducing emissions by 17 percent for the year 2020 with respect to the levels in 2005. China, who in Copenhagen categorically refused to accept international observers, demonstrated this time that it was very interested in looking for mechanisms to verify the environmental issues, said Karsten Sach, the chief negotiator from the German delegation. “The Chinese government still has to adjust itself to the idea of accepting some type of international regulation,” he added. (www.noticias.cr)
CANCUN, MEXICO: THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES COMPLAIN ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE The indigenous communities of the world find themselves seriously threatened by the climate change and its effects on food and the lifestyles of its inhabitants, stated Gabino Apata Mamani, representative of the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia. “The droughts are killing us. There is no food, no water. Our children are dying. We are affected by many illnesses that are unknown to us. Since 1985 we began to feel the changes in the countryside and they have become worse.” Apata commented during the International Indigenous Conclave that took place in the Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. The representatives of the 150 indigenous groupings participated in the alternative forums of the World Summit on Climate Change, which continued until Dec. 10. “The elders of each grouping would usually predict without error when it was the best time to seed the soil or to harvest, and this they did solely by studying the signs of nature. Now those forecasts are each time less accurate,” commented Apata. In his opinion, Adelfo Gegino, representative of the Mixes in Mexico, said that despite the differences in the geography, the indigenous peoples of the world share a troublesome reality because of the effects of climate change. “The climate change leaves us, the indigenous peoples, in a vulnerable situation. Our people have coexisted with nature since ancient times, but the changes that are occurring now put our style of life, our food production and our communities’ economies at risk,” he warned. He added that elsewhere, in the mountain range of the Andes, the springs and the river tributaries are drying up. The indigenous towns of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and Chile share this problem. “For us this event is of extreme importance because as it is known by many, our indigenous peoples are bearers of great richness and of ancient knowledge of how to take care of Mother Earth.” He said that in Mexico there are 20 million indigenous people that live in vulnerable areas affected by climate change and he remembered that in the state of Oaxaca, “which is where I am from, there were many deaths in the mountainous region of the Mixe and the Zapotecs because of the rains and floods, consequence of the climate change”. “We are here convinced that the indigenous peoples can make important contributions. We want them to be taken into consideration for whatever action is decided upon related to the reduction and the adaptation to the climate,” explained Gegino. (www.informador.com.mx)
CANCUN, MEXICO: A CRUCIAL WEEK TO REACH AGREEMENTS IN THE CANCUN CLIMATE SUMMIT The conference on climate change in Cancun entered its final phase this past week. At a ministerial level, they had to finalize the agreements that were left unfinished at the preliminary negotiations of Monday, Nov. 29. On Tuesday, Dec. 6 began the higher-level segment of the conference, in which ministers and in some cases heads of state participated. The question was whether everyone would be left satisfied. Basically there were four aspects: how to accommodate all of the proposals on environmental protection from each of the countries; how to report and verify them; how to finance them and what form of legality should be given to all of them. In Copenhagen they attempted to deal with all of the issues in only one agreement that failed. From the beginning, Cancun was been defined as a first step that will serve as a basis for reaching a future agreement. The two principle countries that cause the greenhouse gas effects, the United States and China, clashed severely in Copenhagen but now have a very different attitude. The special envoy from the government of Barack Obama, Todd Stern, said that the United States maintains the objective of reducing emissions by 17 percent for the year 2020 with respect to the levels in 2005. China, who in Copenhagen categorically refused to accept international observers, demonstrated this time that it was very interested in looking for mechanisms to verify the environmental issues, said Karsten Sach, the chief negotiator from the German delegation. “The Chinese government still has to adjust itself to the idea of accepting some type of international regulation,” he added. (www.noticias.cr)