Stop! The UNFCCC is going off the rails!
Don't trade off Peasant's agriculture for rights to pollute
While scientific predictions of climate catastrophe continue to grow,
world leaders will gather in Copenhagen on 7-18 December 2009 for the
United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The
solutions being discussed by the UNFCCC continue to allow big energy
consumers to pollute with impunity while paying others to implement
projects supposed to capture carbon. The Kyoto protocol and the
market mechanisms it implemented have failed to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and to slow down climate changes(1).
Notwithstanding the urgency of the situation, this convention has
failed to radically question the current models of consumption and
production based on the illusion of continuous growth. Instead, they
have invented new business opportunities for the private sector to
continue to make huge profits at the expense of the destruction of
the planet. Carbon has become a new privatised commodity in the hands
of speculators who use it as a new product in the non-real economy
that has lead to the current economic crisis.
Agriculture is now at the centre of the climate talks. According to
the statistics, agricultural practices contributed about 17 per cent
of global emissions between 1990 and 2005. Moreover, the increased
pressure on agricultural land is likely to be one of the main drivers
of deforestation, an other major contributor to greenhouse gas
emissions. (2) Actually, forest destruction as well as environment
degradation from the agricultural sector mainly come from industrial
agriculture.
Large agribusiness extensions and vast monocultures make an intensive
use of oil-based chemical fertilisers, pesticides and machinery, they
convert carbon-rich forest and prairie into green deserts and they
are based on a long and unnecessary chain of secondary processing and
transport links.
On the other hand, small scale sustainable family farming is a key
solution to Climate Change. It contributes to cooling down the earth
and plays a vital part in the relocalisation of economies which will
allow us to live in a sustainable society.
Sustainable local food production uses less energy, eliminates
dependence on imported animal feedstuffs and retains carbon in the
soil while increasing biodiversity. Native seeds are more adaptable
to the changes in climate which are already affecting us. Family
farming does not only contribute positively to the carbon balance of
the planet, it also gives employment to 2,8 billion of people(3) -
women and men - around the world and it remains the best way to
combat hunger, malnutrition and the current food crisis. If small
farmers are given access to land, water, education and health and are
supported by food sovereignty policies they will keep feeding the
world and protecting the planet.
For peasants around the world, the false solutions proposed in the
climate talks, such as the REDD initiative (Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Degradation), the carbon offsetting mechanisms and
geo-engineering projects are as threatening as the draughts,
tornadoes and new climate patterns themselves. Other proposals such
as the biochar initiative, no till agriculture and climate resistant
GMOs are the proposals of agribusinesses and will further marginalise
small farmers. The heavy promotion of industrial monoculture
plantations and agrofuels as solutions to the crisis actually
increase pressure on agricultural land. It has already led to massive
land grabbing by transnational companies in developing countries,
kicking farmers and indigenous communities out of their territories.
It is unfair to use the benefits that small farmers provide to the
environment as an excuse to keep polluting as usual. The UNFCCC is
currently discussing mechanisms to include agricultural land in
carbon trading mechanisms, a move that could leave farmers with no
other support than dirty money from polluters. These mechanisms are
bound to fail, because they are not focused on reducing use of fossil
fuels or reducing emissions in industrialised countries.
Therefore La Via Campesina calls all its members, friends and allies
to mobilise in Copenhagen and around the world during the UNFCCC
conference in December 2009. A special action day on agriculture will
be declared as part of the mass protests by hundreds of social
movements and organisations.
Towards Copenhagen: What you can do at national and local level
1.Collect data and information related to the impact of climate
change on small farmer agriculture and small farmer livelihood
2.Collect data and information related to the impact of market based
solutions/ false solutions to climate change on small farmer
3.Bring information from the grass-roots level on how small farmers'
agriculture has been conserving ecosystems.
4.Persuade your government to reject market-based and pro-business
"solutions" and to promote real solutions to the current crisis such
as the protection of small scale sustainable agriculture and food
sovereignty.
5.Join the mobilisation! Together with other social movement we will
participate in various parallel activities in September in Bangkok
during the UNFCCC last preparatory meeting towards Copenhagen. We
will also mobilise for social and climate justice during the expected
WTO meeting and the FAO food Summit in October/November 2009.
We reject the false business solutions of the UNFCCC!
We demand an urgent reorientation of the world's economy towards a
people - centred economy where peasant's agriculture and local food
systems play a major role.
People and the planet are more important than profit!
Don't make business out of an environmental catastrophe!
Small scale family farming and food sovereignty cools down the earth!
(1) Peter Atherton of Citigroup who was heavily involved in Carbon
Trading has said about the world's biggest Carbon market - " The
European Emissions Trading Scheme has done nothing to curb
emissions...Have policy goals been achieved? Prices up, emissions up,
profits up...so no, not really" . (Citigroup Global Markets (2007),
quoted in L. Lohmann in Governance as Corruption, presentation,
Athens, November 2008;
<http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/ATHENS%2010.pdf>www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/ATHENS%2010.pdf
(2) Address by Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change , 14 May 2009
(3) Le Monde, 23 April 2009.
--
Fergal Anderson
<mailto:fergal@eurovia.org>fergal@eurovia.org
Skype: fergal.anderson
Mobile: +32488880847
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