by Tina Gerhardt
Photo: The City Project via FlickrCOCHABAMBA, Bolivia—A fundamental critique of capitalism
as the source of climate change pervaded the People’s
World Conference on Climate Change, from the opening
speech of Bolivian President Evo Morales on Tuesday to the final
declaration agreed upon Thursday.
On the first day, as 15,000 people from 125 countries
gathered for the summit, Morales laid out his view bluntly: “Either capitalism
lives or Mother Earth lives.”
“The main cause of climate change is capitalism,”
he continued. “As people who inhabit Mother Earth, we have the right to
say that the cause is capitalism, to protest limitless growth. … More than
800 million people live on less than $2 per day. Until we change the capitalist
system, our measures to address climate change are limited.”
Bolivia’s lead climate negotiator, Angelica Navarro, echoed
Morales’ points: “You cannot create a climate market to solve climate change.
You have to address the structural causes. These causes are not only to be
measured in terms of greenhouse gases. They are trade, finances, and economy.”
The conference ended on Thursday—Earth Day—in
Cochabamba’s downtown stadium, with world leaders and delegates presenting a
final declaration that broadly outlined a path forward for addressing both the
impacts of climate change and the economic and political structures that have
brought it about. That statement
will now be taken to the U.N. ahead of the next big international climate
conference, COP16, to be held in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of the year.
The Bolivian government laid the groundwork for the
declaration with a set
of four demands: climate reparations from developed countries to developing
countries; an International Climate Justice Tribunal; a Universal Declaration
for the Rights of Mother Earth; and development and transfer of clean
technologies. The final statement
called for creating a multilateral organization to fight climate change and
protect climate migrants; ensuring that knowledge related to technology
transfer not be privatized; and acknowledging and protecting the rights of
indigenous peoples.
The conference sought to avoid the backroom deals and lack
of transparency that plagued the U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December. “That is
not democracy. That is not the U.N.,” Navarro said of the Copenhagen
process. “For months, we were discussing our proposals with other
countries. They did not listen. What we want in Bolivia is a true and
participatory democracy. If the governments do not come up with a plan for
climate change, the people have to lead with a plan.”
The “people’s conference” invited civil society
into the process, creating a bottoms-up rather than a top-down approach.
Seventeen working groups met over the course of the three days, and dozens of
panels and countless informal strategy sessions were held too. The working groups had varying degrees
of success. Some reached
agreements that supporters can organize around and push for at future U.N.
climate meetings.
The forest working group rejected the U.N. REDD program
(Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), arguing that by
using market mechanisms to offset carbon emissions, it allows companies to
speculate and get around actual carbon reductions.
The working group on climate refugees drafted a statement
that was included in the final declaration, calling for protections for the
hundreds of millions of people expected to be displaced by rising sea levels,
droughts, floods, and dwindling water supplies. In his opening address on
Tuesday, Morales had called for borders to be opened to climate refugees.
The conference also provided a boost to the climate-justice
movement, giving advocates an opportunity to network, organize, and share
stories about local and regional environmental and indigenous struggles.
But there was also dissent at the conference. Various
organizations and an unofficial 18th working group focused on the discrepancy
between Morales’ rhetoric on behalf of Mother Earth and his policy of resource
extraction, emphasizing the environmental degradation brought about by mining
and oil and gas drilling. Revenues from natural gas help to keep Bolivia, the
poorest country in South America, afloat. Eduardo Gudynas has referred to this
policy as the “new
extractivism” of Latin America.
Oscar Olivera, who was active in organizing the “water
wars” against privatization in Bolivia 10 years ago, argued that there
are currently two kinds of movements: those on the inside of the government and
those on the outside. He said, “Social movements in Bolivia are fragmented not
because of ideological reasons but because of cooptation by the government. One
of the characteristics of this government is that there is not room left for
autonomous spaces, for grassroots organizing. Until 2004, the people of society
in Bolivia were very strong and organizing horizontally. The issue of land
distribution is not solved. Despite the rhetoric, oil and gas have not been
nationalized.”
Still, most conference attendees rallied together around the
main anti-capitalist message: to solve climate change, we must stop the push
for unlimited growth that capitalism is based on. This is well summed-up by a slogan that got attention in
Copenhagen and even more traction in Bolivia: “System change, not climate change.”
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