Asia

Quezon City, PHILIPPINES — Greenpeace today called on the Philippine government to promote and invest in ecological farming practices as a solution to the challenges facing the country’s agriculture sector.

Bangkok, THAILAND — Over 75 Greenpeace activists from Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines today demonstrated at the US embassy in Bangkok condemning the derailment of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen by a handful of countries led by the US.

While Australia sizzles, much of Europe, North America, China and Asia has been subjected to snowstorms and freezing weather disrupting trade and transport with climate deniers chortling that global cooling is here.

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37 Years Fighting to Farm.

Oil Palm Conflicts get hot in Indonesia

Activists from a Climate Camp in the forests of Indonesia have taken direct action locking down earrthmoving and logging equipment. The site on the Kampar Peninsula of the island of Sumatra is being logged and cleared by Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Ltd (APRIL), one of the largest pulp and paper companies in Indonesia, to make way for tree plantations, grown for pulp and paper. All the activists have been detained by Police.

Related: Climate Defenders Camp established to preserve Indonesian Rainforest Peatlands | Photoset of Direct Action | APRIL watch Blog | Pulpmill watch | REDD Indonesia | Greenpeace Climate Rescue Blog

The Climate Vulnerable Countries' Forum over 9 -10 November has just concluded  meeting in the Maldives and released a statement calling for "ambitious emission reduction targets consistent with limiting global average surface warming to well below 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and long-term stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at well below below  350 p.p.m."

The forum is composed of countries from the Caribbean, Africa, South and South-east Asia, and the Pacific - many being vulnerable to sea level rise. The low lying Maldives announced in March plans to become the world's first carbon neutral nation, and
 embracing 100% renewable energy instead of oil.
 

"Children are already dying because of climate change and without urgent action these deaths will increase," said Rudolph von Bernuth, Emergency Director for Save the Children. "Nearly nine million children die every year before their fifth birthdays from simple causes like diarrhoea and pneumonia. Climate change will make these threats worse. Climate change is a global emergency for children."

Media Release - Published: 06 NOV 2009 - Oxfam Australia

Fifty members of Greenpeace and members of the local forest community have set up a Climate Defenders Camp on the Kampar Peninsula, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. They have spent the last week constructing a dam across one of the many canals built to drain the rainforest and peat soils in order to make way for plantations. This forest destruction emits huge quantities of CO2 and has led Indonesia to become the world's third largest climate polluter after China and the US. Global deforestation is responsible for about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.

"We are taking action to stop climate change right here at the frontline of forest destruction. To pull the world back from the brink of a climate crisis, we need Obama, Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown and other world leaders to commit to much deeper cuts in emissions from fossil fuels and to provide the critical funds needed to end deforestation. If they fail, we will face mass species extinction, floods, droughts and famine in our lifetime," said Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Bustar Maitar. See Photos of the Climate defenders Camp | Youtube Video: Greenpeace - Saving Sumatra's Peatland Forests

Conservation organisations have warned that the Copenhagen climate treaty threatens to subsidise the destruction of the world's remaining rainforests instead of financing their protection.

At the end of treaty negotiations in Bangkok on 8 October the European Union blocked language to prevent conversion of natural forests to plantations. Without the safeguard, industrial-scale logging and replacement of tropical forests with pulp or palm oil plantations could be funded by money intended to help developing countries reduce the 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, forest degradation and peatland destruction.

Update 2 Nov: European Union sets back Forest Negotiation, threatens Copenhagen Deal | Climate Defenders Camp established to preserve Indonesian Rainforest Peatlands