Bali, Indonesia-Global Justice Ecology Project, based in Hinesburg,
VT sent three representatives to Bali, Indonesia to participate in
the 13th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change.
The convention, which begins December 3rd, is set to focus on the
issues of reducing emissions from deforestation, advancing carbon
trading, and promotion of biofuels, as ways to address climate change.
Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle, Co-Directors of Global Justice
Ecology Project (GJEP) and Dr. Rachel Smolker, Biofuels Specialist
and Research Biologist for GJEP are meeting with organizations and
indigenous peoples from around the world to raise concerns about
carbon trading and biofuels. Internationally, concerns are mounting
about carbon trading that is blamed for worsening global warming by
promoting projects such as tree plantations that destroy natural
forests, which are important carbon sinks.
Global Justice Ecology Project will be releasing an important new
report on biofuels they co-produced with Global Forest Coalition.
Rachel (lead writer of the report) and Anne will participate in a
press conference regarding the report.
Prior to the official opening of the UNFCCC, Anne is attending a
special strategy meeting with the Durban Group for Climate Justice
While in Bali, Orin is also working as the Media Coordinator for
Global Forest Coalition.
All three already have attended sessions with the International
Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests.
What follows is GFC's first press release:
For immediate release
29 November 2007
No time left for false solutions:
Stop commercialising carbon, cut emissions at source!
The Global Forest Coalition (GFC) [1] is present in Bali, Indonesia,
for the 13th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, 3rd-14th
December, with a team of campaigners from around the world, including
Indigenous Peoples' representatives, to expose the false 'solutions'
- agrofuels [2] and carbon markets - being promoted by many
governments and companies.
It is now increasingly recognised that these failing solutions are
also having devastating impacts on the world's 854 million
chronically hungry people, [3] 1.6 billion forest-dependent people
[4] and on forests and biodiversity around the globe. [5] There is
also growing evidence that many are even making climate change
worse.[6]
However, these so-called 'solutions' have certainly worked for those
governments and companies supporting them - but only because they
have generated windfall profits and subsidies for the world's richest
transnational companies, who have discovered that there are huge
profits to be made out of commercialising carbon; [7] and because
they have allowed governments to be seen to be doing something
without making any difficult decisions.
Dr Miguel Lovera, Chair of the GFC, said:
"Governments are here to stop climate change, not promote carbon
commercialisation. They should keep forests out of carbon markets,
stop subsidising agrofuels and say a resounding No! to the World
Bank's planned Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. They need to roll
their sleeves up and get on with the very real and urgent task of
stopping climate change immediately. There's no time left to make any
more mistakes!"
Many effective 'tried and tested' processes, technologies, transport
systems and regulations, that cut emissions at source and provide
social and ecological benefits, already exist. These include (to name
just a few) bans on deforestation, converting to more sustainable
wind and solar energy sources and ramping up investment in efficient
and affordable public transport systems.
Journalists are invited to contact any of the campaigners listed
below, to talk about the specific social and environmental impacts of
commercialising carbon in different regions of the world.
In the first instance you may wish to contact our coordinators on
their Balinese mobiles:
Media Coordinator: Orin Langelle, GFC, US, +62 813 38959742, English
Campaigns Coordinator: Ronnie Hall, GFC, UK, +62 813 38959738, English
Speakers with different areas of expertise, regional knowledge and languages:
Marcial Arias, a leader of the Kuna people, Panama.
Indigenous Peoples' rights, UN Declaration of Indigenous Peoples,
especially in relation to UNFCCC and the UN CBD.
Kuna and Spanish, +62 813 38959740
Timothy Byakola, Climate and Development Initiatives, Uganda.
Agrofuels, carbon trading and plantations.
Lunyoro, Swahili and English, +62 813 38959739
Fiu Mata'ese Elisara-Laulu, O Le Siosiomaga Society, Samoa
Sustainable development that impacts culture, social, environment and
economic issues.
Samoan and English, +62 813 38959741
Sandy Gauntlett, Chairman of the Pacific Indigenous Peoples
Environmental Coalition (PIPEC), Aotearoa/New Zealand
Plantations and agrofuels, Pacific climate impacts, Indigenous Peoples rights
English, +62 813 38938574
Dr Andrei Laletin, Friends of the Siberian Forests, Russia
Russian government's positions on forests and climate change, REDD
Russian and English, +62 813 38950984
Dr Miguel Lovera, Chairperson of the GFC and Iniciativa Amatocodie, Paraguay
Conservation and restoration of forest biomass, rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, Dutch and Italian, +62 813 38959743
Simone Lovera, GFC's Managing Coordinator and Sobrevivencia, Paraguay
International Environmental Law, payment for environmental services
schemes, soy expansion, Indigenous rights, REDD.
English, Dutch, Spanish, German and Portuguese, +62 813 37984639
Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP), US
Genetically engineered forest trees; second generation agrofuels
English, +62 813 38918437
Hubertus Samangun, Director of ICTI, Tanimbar, Indonesia, Southeast
Asia Regional Coordinator of the International Alliance of Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests. Indigenous rights,
biodiversity and forest policy, agrofuels, REDD.
Bahasa Indonesia and English, +62 813 10778918
Swati Shresth, Kalpavriksh, India
Agrofuels (especially Jatropha), tribal law and protected areas.
Hindi and English, +62 813 38918431
Dr Rachel Smolker, Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP), US
lead author of GJEP/GFC report "The true cost of agrofuels: food,
forests and the climate"
English, +62 813 38959709
Also present in Bali are many members of the International Alliance
of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests. The
International Alliance is active in 43 countries. They can be
contacted via:
Kittisak Rattankrajangsri, International Alliance of Indigenous and
Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests, Thailand
Thai and English, +62 813 38934295
References:
1. The Global Forest Coalition is a worldwide network of
non-governmental organisations and Indigenous Peoples Organisations
that promotes effective rights-based forest conservation policies.
See http://www.globalforestcoalition.org for more information.
2. The term 'agrofuels' is a more accurate label for the production
of fuel from industrially produced agricultural crops (and is also
used by the FAO). The term 'biofuels' gives a false impression that
these fuels are environmentally friendly, when they are in fact
environmentally and socially destructive.
3. A recent report to the UN General Assembly, on the right to food
expressed "grave concerns" that agrofuels production "presents
serious risks of creating a battle between food and fuel that will
leave the poor and hungry in developing countries at the mercy of
rapidly rising prices for food, land and water". The author of the
report, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean
Ziegler, recently called for a five-year moratorium on the production
of agrofuels using current methods.
http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/swissinfo.html?siteSect=881&sid=8305080
According to the UN's World Food Programme 854 million people are
already chronically hungry and nearly six million children under the
age of five die of starvation every year: one child every five
seconds.
http://www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/introduction/hunger_what.asp?section=1&sub_section=
1
4. Agrofuels and plantations planted to offset carbon emissions in
the rich industrialised world are increasing deforestation, and this
is having a severe impact on forest-dependent communities. According
to the FAO, 1.6 billion people are dependent on forests or trees
outside forests http://www.fao.org/forestry/site/livelihoods/en/. See
for example, the impact of the tree planting project in the Mount
Elgon national park financed by the FACE Foundation at
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Uganda/book.html and the impacts of a
voluntary forest-related carbon offset project in Ecuador at
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Ecuador/book2.pdf
5. In Paraguay, for example, the expansion of the agricultural
frontier is the principal cause of biodiversity loss, and agrofuels
are stimulating demand for large scale monoculture products like soy.
It is now estimated to be 7-10% (Fundacion Moises Bertoni 2007) in
isolated and dwindling patches of forest. Since the 1980's this has
been caused primarily by the advance of soy monoculture.
6. The Global Forest Coalition/Global Justice Ecology Project will
launch its new report The real Cost of Agrofuels: food, forests and
the climate, in Bali on 4 December 2007. To take just one example,
however, a recent study of N2O emissions from agrofuels revealed that
some contribute up to 70% more to global warming via N2O emissions
than they do to cooling via avoided CO2 emissions. This is especially
true for fuels derived from rapeseed (about 80% of European
production) and corn (virtually all production in the US). In the
author's words: "Here we have concentrated on the climate effects due
to required N fertilization and we have shown that the use of several
agricultural crops with high N/C ratios for energy production can
readily lead to N2O emissions, large enough for several crops to
cause net climate warming instead of cooling by saved fossil CO2."
Crutzen, P.J., Mosier, A.R., Smith, K.A., Winiwarter, W. 2006. N2O
release from agro-biofuel production negates climate effect of
fossil-fuel derived "Co2" savings. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.,
2007, 7, 11191
7. The EU, for example, has fallen behind schedule to meet its Kyoto
target of an 8% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2012, and
the US$44 billion-a-year market has been labelled "an environmental
and economic failure". The scheme has, however, generated "record
profits for RWE AG and other utilities",
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=awS1xfKpVRs8&refer=home
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