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Related to this project: Climate Justice: organising for effective community action on climate change

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Re Climate Justice Workshop Articles for e-CIVICUS

CIVICUS UN/GYAN Article
Final Text sent to e-CIVICUS 26 May 2008

CIVICUS UN and GLOBAL YOUTH ACTION NETWORK
Climate Justice Workshop:
Organising for effective community action on climate change

Climate change is already affecting every corner of the world, every eco-system and every community, from Los Angeles to the Carteret Islands and from Reijkiavik to Ushuaia; but its effects are uneven, and the capacity of communities to adapt differs widely. For example, the wealthy North has the financial and technological resources to counter the worst effects of rising sea levels with costly engineering projects such as sea walls, but large swaths of the predominantly poor South lack the capacity to minimize the effects of increasingly destructive climate impacts.

Climate change is not the consequence of a fortuitous cause: it is not just a natural disaster like an earthquake or a tsunami. Climate change is the result of a 250-year process of industrial growth which first ignored, and then dismissed the ecological costs inherent to such process. The resulting accumulation of wealth in the rich North has come at the expense of the Commons both in terms of depletion of natural resources and the devastation of our environment.

Ironically, poor communities in developing and less-developed countries are most vulnerable to climate change and least able to minimise its impacts. It is only fitting that the countries that caused the current climate crisis and benefited disproportionably from market globalisation should assist these vulnerable communities to cope. Indeed, rich countries have a legal obligation to do so under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Our workshop and its 18-month follow-up process (leading up to the important climate change negotiations to be held in Copenhagen in December 2009,) aim to facilitate the development of community-based adaptation initiatives, capacity-building and best practices, networking and information dissemination, identifying resources, education and coalition-building. The project further aims to promote climate change advocacy in connection with the ongoing UNFCCC negotiations in three distinct respects: demanding Just and Equitable outcomes on climate change adaptation assistance for vulnerable communities; demanding immediate climate change adaptation assistance, and demanding immediate climate change mitigation implementation by developed countries, so as to minimize the degree of climate change impacts on vulnerable communities, thus reducing the mounting human and financial costs of adaptation.

The workshop and its follow-up process are mostly a Youth-led project, but the project is intended to be fully intergenerational, ethnically and geographically diverse, and gender balanced. All sectors of civil society, governments and business are encouraged to participate.

Mindful that CIVICUS is a generic civil society movement where members work on diverse sectorial areas, the workshop will ensure maximum participation and engagement by reaching out to civil society communities that are not necessarily focused on climate change. In the same spirit, with a view to assure inclusiveness and in order to reach out to the widest possible range of people in both the global South and the North, the workshop organizers, and presenters shall remain attentive to differences in cultural attitudes and geographic perspectives on climate change.
Please join us at: http://projects.takingitglobal.org/climatejustice




Organisers/Main Sponsors: CIVICUS UN and Global Youth Action Network
Co-sponsors: African Youth Initiative on Climate Change
First Peoples Movement
Earth Charter Youth Initiative
Supporters: Plataforma Federal de Juventudes Argentinas
Organización Argentina de Juventud pro NNUU



May 26, 2008 | 7:49 PM Comments  0 comments

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Untitled
Related to this project: Climate Justice: organising for effective community action on climate change

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Re G8 youths ask for 'strict' carbon cap-and-trade system

From CIVICUS UN

FYI: article from the Japan Times today

By KO HIRANO
Kyodo News
KOBE (Kyodo) Fifteen youths from the Group of Eight nations and five emerging economies have urged G8 environment ministers to introduce a "strict international carbon cap-and-trade system" to curb greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.


Change for tomorrow: Britain's environmental secretary, Hilary Benn, (second from left), meets Saturday in Kobe with young people representing the G8 nations and five emerging economies involved in addressing climate change issues. KYODO PHOTO
In a proposal called "The Kobe Challenge," the youths asked the ministers to "integrate climate change into all education systems" while calling for increased aid to developing countries to fight global warming.

The youths, representing 39 International Climate Champions selected by the British Council and local partners, met the ministers Saturday evening on the sidelines of three days of G8 environment ministerial talks through Monday in Kobe.

Chinese representative Ding Yinghan, a 10th grader at Beijing's No. 8 High School, said both developed and developing countries must bear responsibility for fighting climate change, citing the latter's surging emissions in sync with their rapid growth.

"I wish we would not blame a single country for climate change," said Ding, who represents about 30 schools taking part in the "Climate Cool Program" in Beijing. "That's something that the whole world has the responsibility for and the whole world should take positive action to tackle it."

Japanese representative Yo Kanno, a third-year student at Izumigaoka High School in Kanazawa, urged governments to increase spending in education on climate change to sharply increase public awareness.

Using moving images, Kanno said Kanazawa has seen less snow in recent years. He cited data showing average temperatures in the city have risen about 1.5 degrees over the last 50 years.

"We don't think it is constructive to pick on certain countries for their particular policies and blame at each other," Kanno said after being asked about criticism that Japan has been reluctant to employ the cap-and-trade system. "We'd rather want to think (about climate change) in the world as a whole and take action together."

The cap-and-trade system sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions by companies and other entities, and allows them to trade carbon credits in an effort to put prices on carbon.

"Here we're trying not focus on what we are and are not doing," said U.S. delegate Rebecca Chan, a senior at La Costa Canyon High School in California. "We're just trying to set goals and say that this is what we think internationally and we should be doing as global citizens to fight climate change."

But Chan, who said she wants to be an environmental lawyer, expressed hope that the Bush administration will take a leading role in tackling global warming.

SUMMIT ROUNDUP

G8 Toyako Hokkaido Summit
The climate champions — three each from the G8 countries plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa — held a preparatory meeting in London in March and a second gathering in Kobe last week to prepare for Saturday's hand-out of the proposal to the G8 environment ministers.

It was the first time the British Council, a government agency that promotes British culture around the world, has carried out the International Climate Champion project, taking over Britain's Climate Change Champion initiative launched in 2005.

"I respect your dreams and passion for the future," Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita said, receiving the proposal. "Let us all work together to address climate change."

Before meeting the G8 environment chiefs, the climate champions held separate talks with British Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Hilary Benn.

The Japan Times: Monday, May 26, 2008
(C) All rights reserved
Go back to The Japan Times Online Close window




May 26, 2008 | 12:37 PM Comments  0 comments

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Untitled
Related to this project: Climate Justice: organising for effective community action on climate change

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Re World Bank clean technology fund

From CIVICUS UN

Dear all,

FYI, article appearing in The New York Times today:

May 26, 2008
World Bank, U.S., Britain and Japan Take on Warming
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
The World Bank will raise at least $5.5 billion with the United States, Britain and Japan this year for climate change funds that will help poor nations use clean technology and tackle global warming, a bank official said on Sunday.

The bank will agree to set up the funds at its July board meeting and will raise the money by autumn, the bank’s vice president for sustainable development, Katherine Sierra, said in an interview in the Japanese city of Kobe, where she is attending a meeting of the Group of 8 environment ministers.

“We are hoping that initially the clean technology fund may begin with $5 billion and the other one may be $500 million for climate resilience,” Ms. Sierra said, adding a further announcement may be made at the G-8 summit in July.

The three-day meeting in Kobe is part of efforts to develop a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which expires in 2012. Japan wants the focus of a G-8 meeting in Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido to be the drafting of a new accord.

Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa and Antigua and Barbuda are also taking part in the Kobe meeting.

The bank announced earlier last week 40 developing and industrialized countries had agreed to create two international investment funds to help developing countries use clean technologies and mitigate the impact of climate change.