Day VI in Copenhagen: Demonstrations and Declarations: “The People” Raise the Roof on Climate Injustice!

By Jacqui Patterson, NAACP Climate Justice Initiative Director

Another amazing day! As folks gather and organize, and frustrations mount, the intensity of the voice of the people increases.   The leaking of “the Danish Text”, the evident lack of commitment to advance a legally binding agreement, the continued advancement of false/harmful solutions such as REDDS, cap and trade, and “alternatives” such as nuclear energy and “clean coal”, as well as the latest offensive from the US, the approval of drilling for oil in Alaska, all act as kindling for the inferno of outrage.

At the Klimaforum, people were engaged with gaining signatures for “System Change, Not Climate Change: A People’s Declaration from Klimaforum 09.” The declaration calls for 1) Complete abandoning of fossil fuels in the next 30 years with 40% reduction in emissions by 2020. 2) Recognition, compensation, and payment of climate debt. 3) Rejection of purely market oriented and technology centered false and dangerous solutions. 4) Real solutions to the climate crisis based on safe, clean, renewable, sustainable use of resources and transition to food, energy, land, and water sovereignty.

Today 100,000 people, with indigenous leaders in the front, took to the streets of Copenhagen and marched 4 miles from the town center to the Bella Center where the conference is being held.  With signs making proclamations such as “There is No Planet B”, “Planet Not Profit”, and “Mother Nature Does Not Compromise”, “Bla, Bla, Bla Climate Justice Now” voices were heard nationally, regionally, and globally as a result of this massive demonstration.

Courtesy of Mari Rose Taruc

Courtesy of Mari Rose Taruc

Rewinding, I started the day with a mad-capped run to the DGI Byen University where I participated in a meeting on Gender and Climate change as part of the Development and Climate Days Side Events.  I showed a couple of clips from the video interviews I’ve filmed of women of color speaking on climate change.  Otherwise, the panelists presented studies on gender and climate change revealing a range of differential challenges women face, as well as the distinct roles women already play in mitigation and adaptation.

Perhaps the best clip to show linkages particularly with this last panel and some of the discussions around gender and climate change in the US, would be from the SisterSong National Membership Meeting where Elizabeth Barajas Roman of the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College shared her analysis of the challenging framing around the environment and population and impacts on women’s reproductive rights.

Day V in Copenhagen: In the Wake of Yesterday’s Walk-Outs and Protests, Struggles Continue

By Jacqui Patterson, Director of the NAACP Climate Justice Initiative

Though I missed some of the fun yesterday because you can’t be everywhere at once! I did learn that there was a bit of drama in the official proceedings as the representative from Tuvalu walked out of the deliberations along with some reps from other small island states such as Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago. All were frustrated over the failure of the states to commit to coming up with a legally binding agreement at the conclusion of the Copenhagen climate talks. Having much to lose if aggressive action is taken in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, the small island states were extremely frustrated by the reticence of wealthy/developed nations in taking responsibility for their actions.

Meanwhile civil society was out protesting in the halls, including staging a die-in where one participant feigned a collapse, signifying the death of the Kyoto Protocol.

Today I was at the airport, pleased to begin to receive the early arriving members from the Movement Generation for Change, Right to the City, and Grassroots Global Justice delegation.

Before going to the airport I was able to stop in on the Klimaforum and participate in a half day panel on the intersection of Food and Energy Sovereignty with Climate Change.  One point that was made that was particularly striking was referencing the dynamics around food and agriculture with transnational corporations holding sway, as a “plantation” situation with external corporations mining nations for their natural resources while the inhabitants are engaged as field hands, as opposed to rightful owners to the land and its produce.  Mono-cropping that has begun to proliferate as a direct response to climate change, is exacerbating the situation as well as destroying the biodiversity necessary for a healthy ecosystem.

After traveling for 22 hours, Mari Rose, the arriving delegation member who works with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, was generous enough to allow me to film her story and early thoughts about how she plans to engage here in Copenhagen and represent the interests of her community here.

Finally, each day we’ve tried to tie what’s happening here in Copenhagen with stories of what’s happening at home in the US because the talks here are interconnected with the experiences and interests of our communities, particularly communities of color. So I leave you with a video interview I did with Michelle Macarenhas Swann because it is very relevant to this question of food sovereignty and the principles we want to espouse in terms of community local self reliance.

Day IV in Copenhagen—On Human Rights Day Things are Heating Up in Chilly Copenhagen

By Jacqui Patterson, Director of the NAACP Climate Justice Initiative

Activists have been here for a few days, and have met and strategized together. Thus, the actions are an increasing reflection of growing solidarity and joint action across borders, movements, etc.

First thing this morning, a panel of African American and African activists, led by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance,  joined forces to honor President Obama’s receipt of the Nobel Peace on Human Rights Day, hail President Obama as a native son of Africa, and call on him to show leadership in advancing aggressive targets to address climate change.  Also represented on the panel was the Pan African Parliamentarians Network on Climate Change, Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, and the Black Women’s Roundtable.

Photo Credit: Peter DeJong/Associated Press

In late morning, indigenous rights activists gathered in front of the US embassy to call on President Obama to stop the war waged on native people and lands by the energy industry. They cited tar sands, oil refineries, coal fired power plants, etc. and called for just energy policies and enforcement of regulations.

Later, in the Bella Center Indigenous and Youth Activists gathered and simulated a storm through use of their bodies and vocalizations.  The sound was an impressive representation of what is already occurring and what will increase in terms of severe weather events.  Participants then gave testimony of the threat that increasing climate change has for their lives and what they want to see in the way of change. They called on decision makers to “seal the deal” for the sakes of their lives.

To end out the day I went over to the Klimaforum and listened to a talk on Cuba and Oil that centered on their efforts to maintain sovereign rights over this coveted natural resource. One of the audience members counseled Cuba to consider a model such as that of the Nordic nations who are also oil rich but execute a mixed economy model where they keep a significant portion of their oil for use in the Nordic region. Then they only export what they don’t need.  This is as opposed to many models where countries export all of their natural resources and end up buying their own resource back at a premium after it has been process/refined by an external entity.

I also met a fantastic youth activist from Senegal named Minielle Tall. She can tell her own story, which echoes so much of what we’ve heard in terms of being a cry for justice for the travesty of the suffering of her country and continent due to the lack of willingness by wealthy nations to adjust lifestyle and practices for the good of all.

Women, Water, and Climate Justice—Cameroonian Human Rights Activist Asaha Elizabeth Ufei Leads the Way

By Guest Blogger, Deborah McKinney of CJI Initiative Partner, Women of Color United

Some of the key reasons why Women of Color United is “making all this fuss” about women and climate change couldn’t be better explained than listening to Asaha Elizabeth Ufei’s description of issues affecting the women of her community in the Momo Division of the Northwest Province of Cameroon. The traditional gender roles and expectations of women and girls lay the burdens of home management, childcare, providing food and income on their backs. At the same time, women and girls are often forced into marriages, lose all property rights, endure violence in their homes, have little to no power in their homes and communities unless men permit it, and often have little to no education or resources.

As the climate conditions worsen, women are finding it harder to provide food and water for their families. The once reliable and nearby water sources are drying up or contaminated; and the crops aren’t producing enough. So we are faced with questions: How many more miles must women have to walk to provide basic life-sources? What other ways can women sustain their families when the traditional agriculture and craft materials are gone? How many women will have to uproot their families and migrate to other places—that may be hostile to immigrants—because they can longer find food and shelter in their communities? How many more women and girls will be pushed into survival sex work because there are fewer economic opportunities?  How many more people who speak up about human rights and organize for change will be severely punished, coerced to leave their countries, or forever silenced?

Elizabeth’s story illuminates the all too common experience of women in the Global South…and on some levels the lives of women of color and women in communities of poverty in the Global North. The mirror she gracefully holds up also shows the desperate conditions we, in the Global North, are increasingly facing as this climate crisis advances unabated.