The summit fails but the counter-summit succeeds

Today was the day to make plans for the future. In a sesson on the future of the movement born here, a Climate Justice Action representativa says that we have to attack the institutions which form the basis of the capitalists system because this system is based on growth, so it is not compatible with emissions reductions. Ricardo Navarro, from Friends of the Earth El Salvador, notes that politicians from rich countries represent corporates’ interests, not peoples’ interests.

For Navarro, the restriction on the participation of NGOs in the COP and their expulsion in the final days shows that we live a crisis of democratic legitimacy. In its intervention, he defends local production of food as a guarantee of sustainability and local production of energy as a factor of democracy.

Naomi Klein follows, saying that some environmentalists have gone from “let’s unite and save the world” to “the human species is lost”. We have to reject this way of thinking and guarantee that the marginalized voices will be at the center of the next COP, in Mexico.

After the discussion follows a demonstration for the release of the Climate Justice Action spokespersons arrested. About 1,500 people shout “free all political prisioners” and promise to go on fighting for the rights of those arrested for fighting for a better world.

The Klima Forum ends with the passage of the testimony for Central America activists, which will take responsibility for organizing the next Klima Forum. This is only the beginning of a large movement.

Today was also the day when Obama showed up to save the world. Well, not really, he just said that the US is going to continue to do what it has done and reinforced the compromise inherent to the cap-and-trade bill being discussed in the US, weaker than the Kyoto Protocol target.

As for support for least developed countries, Obama promised 10 billion dollars until 2012 and 100 billion dollars until 2020 if a “good” agreement is signed. These numbers are ridiculous compared to military spending, for instance. There is always money to destroy the world, but there is not enough money to save it.

That was the message brought by an activist who delivered the Klima Forum declaration (link) to government delegates. But most delegates left the room to lunch, ignoring the voices from about 300 NGOs.

The great surprise of this summit came from Africa. In the beginning, African countries united in the defence of an agreement that limited temperature increase to 1.5 ^oC, and demanded at least 65 billion dollars a year for climate debt reparations. Meles Zenawi, the leader of the African Union, clearly declared that he would not accept a suicide pact and threatened with a boycott from African countries if the summit continued to be controlled by rich countries. But after these dramatic speeches and promises came capitulation.

Before arriving here, the Ethiopian dictator stopped by Paris and met with Sarkozy. He left from that meeting agreeing with a treaty mentioning a maximum 2 ^oC rise in global temperatures and 10 billion dollars a year in the next three years of finantial aid. Worse still, 20% of that aid is linked with REDD promotion, as the latest issue of Climate Chronicle denounces (PDF).

But the so-called “EU-Africa Agreement” doesn’t represent Africa’s position. In an interview with Naomi Klein (http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/12/ambassador-lumumba-what-do-you-em-really-em-think), Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for G77, rejects the agreement and talks of climate fascism and of a deliberate act of genocide. The Sudanese diplomat says that a bad deal is not acceptable, distancing himself from the Tck Tck Tck campaign for “an ambitious, fair and binding deal” (whatever that means).

At the end of the day, Obama appears on TV announcing a deal made with China, India and South Africa. The deal excludes most of the world and adds absolutely nothing to previous treaties. Are the guys from Tck Tck Tck satisfied with this?

Real change cannot come from the corridors of capitalist power, it will come from social movements, communities and individuals who are building an alternative to the social and economic model based on profit, which attacks not only the essence of humanity but also the basis of its survival. I’m proud of being a part of this alternative.

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