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

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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.





May 26, 2008 | 12:24 PM Comments  0 comments

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Model for self-financing, ecological, sustainable, local integrated development projects for the world's poor
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Re Model for self-financing, ecological, sustainable, local integrated development projects for the world's poor

From Terry Manning, Stichting Bakens Verzet ("Another Way") (The Netherlands)


Vicente Garcia-Delgado
Civicus at the UN

Dear Vicente Garcia-Delgado,

I have read your article dated 21 May 2008 "a few reflections on the Global Food Crisis and its implications for global peace and security" with interest.

The various problems are stated clearly in the article.

The question is : how do we solve them ?

NGO Stichting Bakens Verzet ("Another Way") promotes a Model for self-financing, ecological, sustainable, local integrated development projects for the world's poor. Projects under the Model provide some solutions to the food problem and contribute to reaching most of the MDG goals, targets, and sub-targets. This work enables grass-roots NGOs to draft their own advanced integrated development projects and to apply for their seed-financing. It describes step by step the local social, economic, productive and services structures which need to be created, and in which order, to form a cooperative, interest-free, inflation-free, local economic environment where individual initiative and genuine competition are free to flourish. The work is in the public domain and can be accessed and downloaded free of charge from website www.flowman.nl . Search engines rank the website as one of the world's leading resources on a wide range of development related issues.

Please feel free to make use of the material at the website as you see fit.

Sincerely,

T.E.Manning
Director
NGO Bakens Verzet (Another Way)
Wieringerwerf
Netherlands

May 25, 2008 | 2:30 PM Comments  0 comments

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Food Crisis Rippling Out Like a "Tsunami" (Inter Press Service)
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

DEVELOPMENT: Food Crisis Rippling Out Like a "Tsunami"
By Nergui Manalsuren

UNITED NATIONS, May 19 (IPS) - "A rolling tsunami of social unrest is underway as we speak -- hungry people are desperate people capable of taking desperate actions. This tsunami is rapidly enveloping the global South, and it won't take much longer before it knocks at the door of the global North," warned Vicente Garcia-Delgado, the U.N. representative for CIVICUS, the world alliance for citizen participation.

At a forum on the world food crisis held at the United Nations Friday, civil society groups stressed that over 800 million people are now at risk of starvation, while 100 million have joined the ranks of the extremely poor in just the last few months and are now living on less than a dollar a day.

The food price index of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation rose by 9 percent in 2006 and 23 percent in 2007. As of March this year, wheat and maize prices were 130 and 30 percent higher than a year earlier. Rice prices have more than doubled since late January.

A new briefing this week by the U.N. Economic and Social Council says that the poor, especially in urban areas but also the rural landless and small farmers who are net food buyers, have been most vulnerable to food price hikes, as a very high proportion of their household income is spent on food.

However, "Even within rich countries, increasingly large portions of the population are having real problems bringing food to the table and paying for other basic necessities," Garcia-Delgado said.

He stressed that the peace and security challenges presented by the hunger crisis and climate change must be understood as global challenges, calling for global solutions that address the concerns of all nations and peoples.

"Governments must not fall prey to the temptation to seek unilateral solutions based on defensive or militaristic non-solutions. It would be extremely dangerous to look at the current crisis strictly from a national perspective. A knee-jerk resort to a 'fortress America' or a 'fortress Europe' type of mentality would only exacerbate the risks of social and political chaos and will not work," Garcia-Delgado said.

Asma Lateef, director of bread for the World Institute, a Christian grassroots advocacy organisation that lobbies on issues of hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world, said that rising global food prices are being driven by at least four structural changes.

According to Lateef, one factor is growing demand for food and diversified diets, including meat, in many developing countries as people have begun to escape poverty and seen a rise in their incomes.

Secondly, she pointed out the competition for land use and diversion of crops posed by biofuels; thirdly, weather-related crop failures possibly associated with climate change, for example, the decline in wheat production due to an extended drought in Australia; and lastly, rising oil prices, as all contributing to food inflation.

Lateef called on donors, including the U.S., to strive to get the maximum benefit out of food aid resources by reducing restrictions on the procurement and shipping of food aid.

She stressed that the current food aid system must be well resourced, efficient, and flexible because "the capacity of the food aid system is being severely tested as the world tries to cope with this crisis, the recent disasters in Myanmar and China and ongoing humanitarian efforts."

"Furthermore, countries need to be encouraged to relax or avoid export restrictions on food. This only exacerbates the global problem. We need to take a global approach," she said.

"Special lines of credit and guarantees should be also made available to enable net food importing countries to meet the needs of poor people and continue to purchase food on international markets, in ways that do not raise debt burdens or impose more than the minimum conditionality," Lateef said.

Alan Imai, co-director of Shumei International Institute, who shared his successful experiences working with a women farmers' cooperative in Zambia, added that in addition to immediate action, the international community needs to consider long-term solutions that will lead to sustainable food production and economic development.

He also stressed the importance of empowerment of local communities and involving them in decision-making. "The United Nations, governments and other involved organisations must consult with, trust, and listen to local farmers in order to empower them toward self sufficiency, instead of depending on a few scientists and companies, whose motives and perspective cannot be the same as those who are running out of food," Imai said.

Garcia-Delgado said that there is certainly the temptation to cry out "We told you so!"

"Years of foot-dragging, unkept promises, endless negotiations, a slow response to climate change, and the refusal to harness market globalisation -- these are some of the principal reasons which have brought us to the sorry predicament we find ourselves at the beginning of the 21st century," he said.

(END/2008)


May 25, 2008 | 2:52 AM Comments  0 comments

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