http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/378053
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


]]> Mon, 26 May 2008 19:49:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/378053 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/377893
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



]]> Mon, 26 May 2008 12:37:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/377893 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/377887
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.




]]> Mon, 26 May 2008 12:24:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/377887 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/377409
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 ]]> Sun, 25 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/377409 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/377217 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)

]]> Sun, 25 May 2008 02:52:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/377217 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/373927
Campaign News
19 May 2008

CIVICUS calls for UN to start discussions on Parliamentary Assembly

At a Civil Society Forum on the World Food Crisis hosted by the NGO Section of the United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs on 16 May in New York, the main representative of CIVICUS, Vicente García-Delgado, has called for the UN to deliberate the establishment of a parliamentary body. "The peace and security challenges that the hunger crisis and climate change present must be understood as global challenges calling for global solutions that address adequately the concerns of all nations and all peoples," the representative said. Hence institution of global governance need to become "more supra-national". According to the statement, the alliance of civil society organizations considers that a UN Parliamentary Assembly could be a step into this direction: "CIVICUS would welcome the start of discussions at the General Assembly on the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly, as has been called over time by various civil society coalitions, most recently by the World Federation of UN Associations, the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly and others," García-Delgado stated in New York.


CIVICUS website www.CIVICUS.org
Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly website www.unpacampaign.org/

]]> Mon, 19 May 2008 15:33:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/373927 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/372725
ECOSOC Civil Society Forum on the Global Food Crisis
Presentation by Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS’ Main Representative at the UN


I very much appreciate the opportunity to share with you a few reflections on the Global Food Crisis and its implications for global peace and security.

To John Holmes, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, the recent statement by food envoy Jean Ziegler to the effect that the current hunger crisis amounts to a “silent mass murder” is unnecessarily alarmist and “a little over the top”; but to those mothers and fathers who can no longer feed their children, let alone themselves, Mr Ziegler’s message may not sound so far-off. If you were watching your neighbours die around you because of hunger in a world awash with plenty, what would you call that situation?

These unfortunate people, who are being denied their most basic human right, the right to life, are not alone. Citizens of good will around the globe share the same sense of extreme urgency. Many of them will prefer to call a spade a spade, alarmist or not. FAO, UNICEF and other humanitarian agencies, Faith-based organizations, and the NGO community at large may be sympathetic to such “alarmist” warnings as well. According to recent estimates, 800 million people are now at risk of starvation; 100 million have joined the ranks of the extremely poor in just the last few months, and development in poor countries has been set back by 7 years. Thousands of children, the elderly and infirm will die of starvation and malnutrition during the run of this Forum. If alarm bells do not go off in these circumstances, something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Is it all that surprising then that riots are sprouting everywhere, placing weak governments at risk, and that social upheavals are affecting the security of nations?

I will not list here the many examples of violence registered on account of the hunger crisis. The inflow of reports by the civil society and even the mainstream media is overwhelming. Riots have already taken place in some 40 countries, some of them deadly. Some of these countries are of high geopolitical significance. A silent, and not so silent, “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. Even within the rich countries, increasingly large portions of the population are having real problems bringing food the table and paying for other basic necessities.

Many governments are increasingly nervous. They are starting to sense troubling signs of potential conflicts over scarce food and water resources both internally and with their neighbours.

Northern governments are taking notice: the hunger crisis has rapidly risen to the top of the international agenda. In April last year, the UK called a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the security implications of climate change. The UN, the EU, the G8, other intergovernmental bodies and agencies, including the FAO, the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO and others are scrambling to deal with this new crisis and find solutions before it is too late. And they do indeed seem alarmed, any attempts at soothing their disquiet notwithstanding.

Paraphrasing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, climate change has the potential to generate wars and represents one of the biggest threats to Humanity.

Now the hunger crisis, a human rights violation of planetary proportions, has suddenly thrown the governments of the world against the ropes, having raised the ugly head of an impending peace and security crisis.

Before the global hunger crisis had reached current proportions, the implications of climate change on peace and security were discussed in late December at a conference organised by the Institute for Environmental Security, entitled “From Bali to Poznan – New Issues, New Challenges.” During the conference segment on the security implications of climate change, the speakers noted that current approaches toward the links between security and climate change have remained by-and-large beholden to a “national security” mentality by “sovereign states,” and wondered how the international community, collectively, may shape their involvement in the broader global competition between the haves and the have-nots, increase stability and decrease stress factors. They lamented the fact that there are currently no collaborative efforts to rectify this situation, and pointed out the need for security cooperation and the political will necessary to apply the resources to achieve it.

Thus, new instruments and mechanisms for collaborative action must be collectively pursued with the celerity the situation, now so dramatically aggravated by the hunger crisis, requires. As one of the presenters put it, Even though climate change may pose “hard security” threats, the policy response answer cannot be centered around “hard security instruments” alone.

This is the most important point of my message here today: the peace and security challenges that the huger crisis and climate change present must be understood as global challenges calling for global solutions that address adequately the concerns of all nations and all 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 mentality would only exacerbate the risks of social and political chaos and will not work.

What is most needed, then, is a broad agenda for cooperative responses to the security challenges of climate change; a global agenda focused on ways to minimise the risks of internal, regional and international conflicts, including immediate steps by developed countries to mitigate global green-house gas emissions to sustainable levels; assisting developing countries in their efforts to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change; identifying security threats at local-to-global levels; reinforcing disaster prevention capacity, and exercising reconstruction efforts to prevent future vulnerabilities.

* * *

Feeding the hungry is obviously the most immediate challenge right now, but achieving the full implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is a close second. There has been progress in some areas, such as a decrease in extreme poverty (thanks in large part to emerging economies in China, India and Brazil), external debt cancellation and increases in child education; but in other areas, progress has been minimal, while entire regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa are falling further behind. The general consensus is that the MDGs can be achieved by the target date of 2015 if developed countries would once and for all own-up to their part of the deal, ie, MDG Goal # 8, with the urgency and determination that the situation requires. The resources are there, and there’s simply no excuse to fail.

Implementing the MDGs is not enough either. The MDGs need to be substantially exceeded after 2015 in order to sustain the necessary level of progress which would allow for a broader level of development in poor countries, the only sure way to avoid a relapse into the current conditions.

Beyond that, starting immediately, development both in the rich North and the poor South must be sustainable. The current unregulated economic system and the out-of-control market globalization on which it is based must be transformed in order to substantially reduce the divisions between rich and poor both among nations as within nations, and to stop the further ravaging of our eco-systems and our biosphere.

Climate change is not a fortuitous act, but the result of 250 years of industrialization in the global North which first ignored, and then dismissed the ecological costs inherent to industrial production and consumption based on fossil fuels. Most of the global South has up to now contributed little, if anything, to climate change; their populations have not by-and-large benefited from market globalization, and they lack the resources and are least prepared to adapt to climate impacts.

And yet, poor communities and nations are already bearing the brunt of climate change. Rich countries have the resources to implement costly engineering projects, such as sea walls, to adapt to current and future climate impacts while millions in poor countries are left to swim or drown on their own. Looking the other way at this stage would amount to moral turpitude and would reflect an extremely dangerous lack of political foresight. Rich countries have an ethical, and indeed a legal obligation to assist poor countries adapt to climate change under Article 4 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Furthermore, climate change mitigation and adaptation must be implemented in a coherent manner, integrating the various strategies in national development plans. There can be no progress in climate change mitigation without progress in sustainable development, including the eradication of wasteful, energy-intensive patterns of production and consumption in the global North (and now China and India!), a substantial increase in the quantity and quality of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to reach 0.7% GNI (first promised more than 30 years ago!) and additional assistance on climate change adaptation for developing countries, including financial assistance, clean technology transfers, support for sustainable agriculture, and investments in infrastructure to avoid future vulnerabilities.

Fair trade, including the successful completion of the WTO’s Doha (Development) Round to help the poor, including through, among other things, the immediate dismantling of agricultural subsidies and other distorting trade barriers, and promoting sustainable agriculture, is another essential element of sustainable development, as is the cancellation of unsustainable debt, odious or not, of developing and middle-income countries. External debt is deemed unsustainable if it compromises the achievement of the MDGs and the further sustainable development of developing and middle-income countries.

Finally, the process of ODA, debt cancellation and fair trade must be carried out in a transparent, democratic, participatory and accountable manner, with the full and meaningful participation of civil society.

Beyond that, our institutions of global governance must move from strictly intergovernmental organizations toward more supra-national type institutions, starting right here at the UN. CIVICUS would welcome the start of discussions at the General Assembly on the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly, as has been called over time by various civil society coalitions, most recently by the World Federation of UN Associations, the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly and others.

The slow response so far on climate change, the neglect in developing sustainable agriculture, the rush to biofuels, the high cost of oil, a weak US dollar, commodities futures speculation, increased food demand in emerging economies, changes in diet in China and India… these and other factors have all combined to produce a “perfect storm” ahead of all calculations.

Civil Society has been calling for action for decades now, and there is certainly the temptation to cry out “We told you so!” Years of foot-dragging, unkempt promises, endless negotiations, a slow response to climate change, and the refusal to harness market globalization, these are the some of the principal reasons which have brought us to the sorry predicament we find ourselves at the beginning of the 21st Century.

The point is that unregulated Market forces should never have been allowed to dictate social policy; now market globalization has finally shown its failings in the full light of day, and the risks of mass starvation, climate change, and global political instability are straining the moral power and legitimacy of liberal democracies. Are we going to wait until it is too late? How much can Democracy stand?

* * *
CIVICUS’ outgoing Secretary-General, Kumi Naidoo has repeatedly called for civil society to be heard. There are several key opportunities coming up at which CIVICUS hopes and expects civil society to be heard on these issues. The Global Call to Action against Poverty will be working with partners to encourage a worldwide response.
Coming up first is the special meeting of the FAO from 3-5 June in Rome at which UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be joined by several world leaders including French premier Nicolas Sarkozy and Brazilian President Ignacio Lula da Silva . In conjunction with this meeting, people all over the world are expected to mobilise, sign petitions, take e-actions, talk to the press and call for immediate and long-term solutions to the food crisis. They will make sure that people living with the reality of the food crisis are given a voice in Rome (visit www.whiteband.org for details).
Just over a month later comes the second big opportunity, the G8 Summit in Japan. Not only will the food crisis still be top of the agenda along with climate change at the meeting in Hokkaido, but civil society plans to be heard when they present a global petition (www.whiteband.org/Action/take-action/actionnow).
And then the logical place to take this growing movement forward will be in the run-up to the September High Level Meeting called by the UN Secretary General at the UN on 25 September. An MDG Call to Action that has already got the support of over 30 countries across the world will help in keeping our eyes firmly on the goal. The 43 million people who Stood Up for the MDGs (www.standagainstpoverty.org) on 17 October last year and the hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty will expect nothing less.
* * *
The world is between a rock and a hard place, and the current economic crisis in the US and other countries is making our global challenges even more difficult to tackle.

Yet, all is not lost, except of course for those already succumbing to hunger and malnutrition. If we gather the much needed political will and act calmly, without resorting to defensive or militaristic ways, but with the urgency and determination our own survival requires; if we approach the current dangers as opportunities for a more just, equitable and compassionate world, together we can still do it.

Thank you.
Vicente García-Delgado, Esq
CIVICUS at the UN
CIVICUSUN@aol.com
www.CIVICUS.org
16 May 2008




]]> Sat, 17 May 2008 01:11:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/372725 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/367449


A view from the United Nations

March 2008


The global food crisis: Are the rich abandoning the poor?
By Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS´ UN Representative

Release Date: 9 April 2008 - e-CIVICUS 383

Are the rich nations of the world abandoning the global poor?

Basic food prices have increased dramatically over the last few years and are expected to continue their upward spiral for the foreseeable future, causing food shortages, increasing hunger and malnutrition, social unrest, large human displacements and desperation in poor regions of the world. Yet, the response of the wealthy North, except for a few honourable exceptions, has so far been manifestly inadequate.

Unless this situation is reversed soon, our own generation could be witnessing unprecedented humanitarian crises, increased social unrest, and new and renewed conflicts over scarce water and agricultural resources leading to mass migrations, general insecurity and untold human suffering.

The reasons for the current food crisis are many, including decreases in crop-producing land and lower harvest yields due to extreme climate events; water source depletion and advancing desertification; rapid increases in food demand from large emerging economies; changes in diet, including rapidly increasing meat consumption in China and India; the diversion of agricultural outputs toward bio-fuel production; spikes in the price of oil; population explosion; and unresolved local and regional conflicts.

For example, AlertNet reports that “Somalis uprooted by fighting in Mogadishu looted trucks carrying U.N. food aid, […] highlighting what relief agencies warn is a fast deteriorating humanitarian catastrophe.” www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L28564768.htm

The UN secretary general has warned that millions of people are at risk of starvation as global food stocks fall to their lowest levels in decades, Al-Jazeera reports that “In a letter to a US newspaper, Ban Ki Moon warned that shortages are forcing prices to rise which may have devastating consequences for the world's most vulnerable communities” http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/958CC5D2-638C-428E-AF84-91041B355EF0.htm

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that “Since 10 January [2008], some 20 provinces of southern China have suffered from disastrous cold, ice, and snow. Some 100 million people are officially estimated to have been affected. The most severely impacted crops include rapeseed, vegetables, and fruits. In addition, some 190,000 hectares of winter wheat were severely damaged.” www.fao.org/giews/english/shortnews/china080303.htm

FAO also reports that “Unusually cold weather has been sweeping through the upland areas near the Viet Nam-China border since January 14th, making it a record cold spell. About 150,000 hectares of rice have been destroyed, with a loss of about US$25 million. In the central province of Thanh Hoa , half of the rice area has also been lost (45,000 hectares). Other severely affected areas include Nghe An province and Hai Phong city.” www.fao.org/giews/english/shortnews/china080303.htm

In North Korea, “in addition to long-standing economic constraints, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was severely affected by floods in 2007 and continues to suffer from serious food shortages. Based on the most recent Government estimates, total cereal production in 2007 is about 3 million tonnes (milled base, or 3.6 million tonnes unmilled), a significant reduction from the 4 million tonnes of the previous year and the five-year average of 3.7 million tonnes. The major cereal losses were in maize (650 000 tonnes less, or 33 per cent down from the previous year) and in rice (400 000 tonnes less, or 25 per cent down from the previous year). “www.fao.org/giews/english/shortnews/dprk080325.htm

The Socialist Worker points out that, “This growing hunger has provoked resistance around the world. [There have been] food riots in Burkina Faso , Morocco and Egypt . These follow protests in Senegal and Mauritania earlier this year.” www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=14293

More food riots and political unrest are predicted, as has occurred in recent weeks in Pakistan , Indonesia and Egypt . In Egypt , shortages of government-subsidised bread recently triggered strikes, demonstrations and violence in which seven people died. www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-food1apr01,0,5185698.story www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a35318f0-fb80-11dc-8c3e-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=a955630e-3603-11dc-ad42-0000779fd2ac.htm

The Washington Post reports that “ Mexico is in the grip of the worst tortilla crisis in its modern history. Dramatically rising international corn prices, spurred by demand for the grain-based fuel ethanol, have led to expensive tortillas. That, in turn, has led to lower sales for vendors […] and angry protests by consumers.” www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601896_pf.html.

In Argentina , the new government of Cristina Kirschner is facing its first major social challenge as farmers blocked roads to protest large export tax hikes. As reported by IPS News, “Some analysts say the tax hike is aimed at keeping domestic grain prices artificially low and ensuring domestic supplies. Because international commodity prices are so high, without the tax on exports, there is little incentive to sell soybeans and other grains on the domestic market.” http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41694

In the Philippines , government officials are encouraging fast-food restaurants to cut rice servings in half, and exports have been suspended. The Philippines is not alone; Egypt and other traditional exporters of agricultural commodities have either curtailed or suspended exports to ensure food is available domestically at affordable prices. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20080401-127611/Tensions-rise-as-world-faces-food-crisis

And sometimes, as in Zimbabwe , food crises cannot be entirely blamed on the weather. Here, misguided agricultural policies and widespread corruption have resulted in decreases in agricultural production and disruptions in food-aid distribution. www.csmonitor.com/2002/1112/p01s03-woaf.html http://groups.yahoo.com/group/millenniumplus5ngonetwork/message/923

In his speech at the Center for Global Development in Washington , D.C. on April 2, 2008 , Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group, provided a striking assessment of the magnitude of the global food crisis: according to World Bank estimates, “33 countries around the world face potential social unrest because of the acute hike in food and energy prices. For these countries, where food comprises from half to three-quarters of consumption, there is no margin for survival.” http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:21711307~pagePK:34370~piPK:42770~theSitePK:4607,00.html

The steep increases in agricultural commodity prices is also affecting FAO´s World Food Programme to the point of issuing an emergency appeal to donor countries to come up with an additional US$500 million within the next few weeks, or risk rationing food deliveries to the poorest of the poor around the world, some 73 million people who desperately depend on FAO’s food assistance for their daily survival.

For donor countries, 500 million dollars is a drop in the bucket. Just the calamitous war in Iraq is costing about US$8 billion each month, http://zfacts.com/p/447.html (Other estimates put that figure at US$14 billion.) To stem the current US financial crisis, there has been no hesitation on the part the US Federal Reserve, the UK and the European Union to inject billions upon billions of dollars into the financial markets over the last few weeks. www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/fed-m13.shtml , http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/11/news/economy/fedauction/index.htm?postversion=2008031115Yet, $500 million to avert a shameful humanitarian food crisis is apparently hard to come by. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031303347.html

The 73 million people who are the poorest in the world have not benefited from market globalisation, and have contributed little, if anything to the current climate change chaos, since they have long been unable to reach even the first step on the ladder to development. In this context, the failure of rich countries to respond immediately to FAO’s appeal amounts to nothing short of collective moral turpitude. It is also politically shortsighted in the extreme.

Considering the likely tragic consequences of the current global food crisis, it is incumbent on developed countries to address this challenge head-on with the urgency it deserves. In this age of unparalleled wealth accumulation in Northern countries, it is simply unacceptable to abandon the poor and look the other way. The final price of a stingy approach or a business-as-usual attitude in this desperate situation would be far higher.

Along with the extraordinary levels of human suffering this situation is likely to thrust upon tens or even hundreds of millions of destitute people, we, the peoples and nations of the rich North, would henceforth have to live with the heavy moral burden of losing our own sense of humanity. Are we ready to pay that high a price?

But feeding the millions of hungry people is not enough. World leaders need to consider the complex combination of causes that have brought us to this sorry predicament. We now know that hunger, poverty, development, climate change, education, gender inequality, health, water, sanitation, globalisation, trade, aid, debt relief and investment are different sides of the same grand challenge facing humanity at the beginning of the 21st century: How can we all live dignified lives and develop sustainable communities within the carrying capacity of the Earth so that future generations have a chance to do the same?

Feeding the hungry is certainly the most urgent task ahead of us. But securing the full implementation of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is a close second. While progress - however uneven - has been made in emerging economies such as China , India or Brazil , as well as other developing countries, many of the poorest countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, are falling by the wayside. There is general consensus that reaching the MDGs is well within our means. There is absolutely no excuse to fail.

Implementing the MDGs is not enough, however. The MDGs must be significantly exceeded past the 2015 target date so that progress is sustained towards broader development in poor countries, the only sure way to avoid a relapse into the current conditions.

Furthermore, economic progress in both developed and developing countries must henceforth be sustainable. The current economic system and the unregulated financial and market globalisation on which it is based must be transformed in order to avoid greater social divisions between rich and poor, as well as an increasing, and increasingly dangerous, deterioration of our environment. Thus climate change mitigation and adaptation need to be mainstreamed into national development plans. There can be no progress on climate change without sustainable development, including the eradication of wasteful consumption in developed countries, substantial increases in official development aid (ODA), and climate adaptation assistance to developing countries. Fair trade, including the dismantling of agricultural subsidies and other distorting trade barriers in developed countries, is another essential element of sustainable development, as is the further extension of debt cancellation for developing and middle-income countries. National debt is deemed unsustainable if it compromises the attainment of the MDGs and the further sustainable development of poor countries. Finally, the processes of ODA, debt cancellation and fair trade must be carried forward in a coherent, sustained, democratic and transparent manner, including the full involvement of civil society.

Only under these favourable circumstances does humanity have a clear chance, perhaps the last one, to provide a more just, humane and equitable future for our children and the children of our children.

In solidarity,

Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS´ UN Representative

Please send your comments to CIVICUSUN@aol.com or editor@civicus.org
]]> Wed, 07 May 2008 09:48:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/367449 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/367447


A view from the United Nations

February 2008


Climate Justice: Fighting climate adaptation apartheid
By Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS´ UN Representative

Release Date: 28 February 2008 - e-CIVICUS 377

Sustainable development and climate change are one and the same challenge, and we cannot solve one without solving the other. This basic principle received wide recognition during the recent UN General Assembly Thematic Debate on climate change ( New York , February 11-12, 2008 - www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25629Cr=climateCr1=change).

This is something that many of us in civil society have known for some time now, particularly those who live and work in climate vulnerable communities, amid the poverty, suffering and desperation of large swaths of the population in many developing countries. They know that poverty is exacerbated by higher food prices due to drought, desertification, flooding or lack of water, and they realize that sustainable development, and most immediately, the Millennium Development Goals, offer the only hope to break out of this vicious cycle. It’s a good thing that governments at the UN have finally reached a consensus on this.

The world is one and we are all connected. No one individual, group or nation exists in a vacuum. Actions in one part of the world produce consequences in another. Destroy our ecosystem in one place, and we are destroying ourselves everywhere.

Poverty, underdevelopment and climate change are global challenges that are intrinsically connected. And they all share a common root, too: the unsustainable and profligate ways in which economic growth and wealth accumulation have been pursued in the developed countries since the time of the industrial revolution.

It bears remembering that the developed countries became so through unrestricted access to natural and human resources from faraway lands. The industrial revolution set in motion an unsustainable economic system leading to the present climate change predicament. In addition, unregulated market globalisation, a product of the prevailing economic system, has served to concentrate huge wealth in the hands of a tiny economic elite in both developed and developing countries. Income and net worth disparities have reached obscene levels while poverty, inequality and exclusion remain rampant. Unable to reach even the first step on the ladder to development, billions struggle to survive without the most basic necessities. Women and children are hit the worst.

It is a grotesque irony that these women and children are also the ones who stand to bear the brunt of extreme climate change impacts in the years ahead. Poor people from vulnerable communities in developing and less developed countries (and in pockets of poverty and exclusion in some developed countries) stand to suffer the most from already unavoidable climate change impacts even though they have contributed little, if anything, to the problem. They are also the least prepared to do something about it. New York , London and Venice have the resources to build sea walls, but the millions living in the Ganges delta are facing a dead end. This is tantamount to “climate adaptation apartheid” in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. (http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_20072008_en_chapter4.pdf).

We are not necessarily talking “reparations” here, the idea that colonial powers must pay their former colonies for historical abuses. But rich countries do have an ethical as well as a legal obligation to support generously the developing and LDC countries in their quest for sustainable development and their efforts to adapt to the unavoidable adverse effects of climate change, by providing these communities and countries with development aid and adaptation assistance, and the clean energy technologies necessary to ensure that development in poor countries goes forward and remains sustainable. (See UNFCCC Art 4, and particularly Section 4.4 at http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf).

Unfortunately, large numbers of citizens around the world either remain unaware of the potential for loss and suffering that climate change impacts can thrust upon their families and communities, or feel impotent about taking effective action. In many poor areas of developing countries, possible climate change impacts are hardly the main priority. When your own life and that of your children may depend on whether you find access to food and water today, the words “climate change” don’t have that much meaning. At most, climate change may sound vaguely like something some governments are said to be concerned about, particularly in the North.

And yet, in the next few decades it will be essential to these communities’ very survival that they become aware of the gravity of the situation -- of how, for example, food scarcity and lack of water are intimately related to climate change; and beyond that, it will be necessary that these communities organise themselves for effective action both in terms of joint adaptation efforts and efforts to ensure that they are treated with justice and equity in international climate negotiations; and that they have access to the financial, technological, and both adaptation and development assistance to which they are entitled.

These vulnerable communities are paramount in our hearts and minds. In solidarity, the larger civil society is increasingly engaging, at all levels and in diverse partnerships and collaborations, aiming to help improve the capacity of these communities for adaptation to climate change. Civil society organisations that focus on sustainable development, the environment or climate change, trade, etc. -- and of course the scientific community -- are doing their equally important part by contributing their expertise, knowledge and latest findings. Many civil society organisations also engage in climate change advocacy, and their goal is to ensure Justice and Equity in the way climate-related issues and, most of all, adaptation issues, are dealt with in UN Climate Change negotiations, which are just starting under the Bali Road Map.

At the forthcoming 2008 CIVICUS World Assembly (Glasgow, June 18-21) (www.civicusassembly.org) conference attendees will have a chance to learn about and exchange information on specific civil society efforts so far on climate change, and to explore effective ways forward, including diverse organisational, communications and action strategies, on both adaptation and advocacy, calculated to capitalise on the momentum achieved so far and to carry on sustained efforts to amplify vulnerable communities’ actions. Please join us at a workshop co-sponsored by CIVICUS and the Global Youth Action Network entitled “Climate Justice: Organising for effective community action on climate change.” If you cannot attend, you may still participate by sending us your own climate change stories: how is climate change affecting your community? What is being done about it and what needs to be done? We will attempt to offer you networking opportunities both with other similarly challenged communities and with local and international NGOs, government agencies, international organisations and the private sector.

We all have something of value to offer, and we must all come together in solidarity for effective civil society action on climate change calculated to benefit all of Humanity and particularly the most vulnerable among us.

In solidarity,

Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS´ UN Representative

Please send your comments to CIVICUSUN@aol.com or editor@civicus.org
]]> Wed, 07 May 2008 09:44:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/367447 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/367445 Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS UN

Ya hemos visto que los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio se encuentran en un punto crítico. Ha habido avances en algunas áreas, tales como la reducción de la pobreza extrema (favorecida por las economías emergentes como China y la India), la condonación de la deuda externa y el aumento en los niveles de escolarización infantil. Pero en otras áreas, por ejemplo, en la reducción de mortandad infantil, los avances han sido mínimos. Mientras tanto, zonas como el Africa Sub-sahariana continúan embarradas en una situación devastadora.

Esta situación resulta trágicamente irónica teniendo en cuenta que el anterior Secretario General de NNUU, Kofi Annan, trató de disipar la resistencia inicial de la sociedad civil a aceptar los ODM asegurando que este plan reflejaba lo que es “políticamente factible”. El argumento entonces era que una vez logrado el objetivo de reducir a la mitad el nivel de pobreza extrema para el 2015, continuarían los esfuerzos para lograr su erradicación total a partir de entonces. Es por tanto particularmente desalentador comprobar ahora que ni ese mínimo compromiso de los ODM parece ser “políticamente factible”. El cheque en blanco extendido a los países desarrollados por la sociedad civil global no ha surtido los efectos deseados, y con ello aumenta día a día el desaliento y la frustración.

Pero es más: En estos últimos años han aparecido nuevos e imponentes retos que hacen peligrar aún más la consecución de los ODMs. La grave crisis por la que atraviesa la economía estadounidense, que ya empieza a “infectar” la economía global, y el aumento imparable del precio del petróleo, por un lado, y los efectos del calentamiento global sobre la agricultura y la consecuente crisis mundial sobre los alimentos, por otro lado, presentan obstáculos adicionales de muy complicada solución y que están poniendo en grave riesgo los ODMs. Se calcula que estas crisis entrelazadas han provocado ya un retroceso de 7 años en la consecución de los ODMs.

Como saben, el Programa Mundial de Alimentos lanzó recientemente un llamado urgente para recolectar ayuda internacional debido a que la suba de los precios de los alimentos no permiten cumplir los compromisos actuales. El PMA advirtió que de no recibir US$500 millones adicionales para finales de abril (hoy!), se vería obligado a racionar alimentos a los 73 millones de personas que dependen de esta ayuda de NNUU para su supervivencia inmediata. Hasta donde yo sé, no se ha logrado reunir esta cantidad en la fecha prevista (cantidad que para la comunidad de países ricos resulta totalmente ridícula – solo la calamitosa e ilegal guerra en Iraq cuesta mensualmente del orden de 12 a 14 mil millones de dólares, y los Bancos Centrales de EEUU, Unión Europea y Reino Unido no han dudado ni un minuto para inyectar miles de millones en los mercados financieros en las últimas semanas.) Esta actitud de los países desarrollados no puede calificarse más que de “torpeza moral”; y muestra además una miopía política elevada a la n potencia.

Pero asegurar los alimentos para los millones de ciudadanos hambrientos no es suficiente. Nuestros líderes mundiales deben considerar la compleja combinación de causas que nos han llevado a este triste predicamento. Sabemos ahora que el hambre, la pobreza, la falta de desarrollo, el cambio climático, la falta de un comercio justo, etc, etc son diferentes caras del mismo gran reto que confronta la Humanidad al principio del siglo XXI. Cómo podemos lograr vidas dignas para todos y desarrollar comunidades sustentables dentro de los límites de capacidad del planeta, de modo que las generaciones futuras puedan a su vez vivir dignamente?

Dar de comer a los millones de hambrientos es ahora mismo el reto más urgente, pero asegurar la completa implementación de los ODMs le sigue muy de cerca. Existe el consenso generalizado de que los países desarrollados cuentan con los recursos necesarios para la consecución de los ODMs. No hay excusa para fallar.

Pero implementar debidamente los ODMs tampoco es suficiente. Los ODMs deben excederse substancialmente a partir de 2015 a fin de mantener un mínimo nivel de progreso que permita un más amplio desarrollo en los países pobres, el único modo de asegurar la prevención de una recaída a las condiciones actuales.

Más allá de esto, a partir de ya, el desarrollo económico, tanto en los países ricos como los pobres debe ser un desarrollo sostenible. El actual sistema económico y la salvaje globalización de mercado en que se basa debe transformarse a fin de evitar mayores divisiones entre ricos y pobres, y detener el progresivo deterioro de nuestro entorno. La mitigación y adptación al cambio climático deben integrarse coherentemente en los planes nacionales de desarrollo. No puede haber progreso en el área del cambio climático sin que la haya también en el área del desarrollo sostenible, incluida la erradicación del consumo excesivo en los países ricos (y ahora en China y la India!), el incremento substancial en ayuda oficial al desarrollo, y la ayuda a la adaptación al cambio climático para los países pobres. El comercio justo, incluido el desmantelamiento de los subsidios agrícolas y otras barreras comerciales por parte de los países desarrollados, constituye otro elemento esencial del desarrollo sostenible, como lo son también la cancelación de la deuda de los países pobres y de renta media. La deuda nacional se considera insostenible si compromete la consecución de los ODMs y el progresivo desarrollo de los países pobres. Y, finalmente, los procesos de AOD, cancelación de deuda y comercio justo deben producirse de modo coherente, sostenible, democrático y transparente, con la completa participación de la sociedad civil.

Solo en esta circunstacias favorables tendría la Humanidad un claro chance, quizá el último, para evolucionar hacia un futuro más justo, más humano, y más equitativo para nuestros hijos y los hijos de nuestros hijos.

Muchas gracias.



]]> Wed, 07 May 2008 09:35:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/367445 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/367443 FOCO-Foro Ciudadano de Participación por la Justicia y los Derechos Humanos (Buenos Aires, Argentina) y la Plataforma Argentina del GCAP, presentaron en Buenos Aires el Infome de seguimiento de los Objetivos de desarrollo del Milenio durante el 2007.

Durante el 2007 FOCO, como punto focal en Buenos Aires de la PLATAFORMA ARGENTINA del GCAP "Ningún Hogar Pobre en Argentina " realizaron un diagnóstico de la situación actual de los ODM en la Argentina desde una mirada de la Sociedad Civil, destacando los avances registrados por nuestro país en el cumplimiento de los mismos para el 2007, como así también señalamos las metas alcanzadas. El evento tuvo lugar en Buenos Aires el día 30 de abril. La introducción corrió a cargo de Jorge Carpio, director ejecutivo del FOCO. Tras una detallada presentación realizada por los autores del informe, Agostina Chiodi y Alejandro Casalis, intervinieron el Profesor Carlos Eroles, de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, y Vicente García-Delgado, representante de CIVICUS ante NNUU, ofreciendo sus reflexiones con respecto al informe y las perspectivas de implementación de los ODM. Cerró el evento Eloy Mealla, coordinador de relaciones institucionales del SES, Secretaría de Educación Superior de la República Argentina.

FOCO- Citizen Participation Forum for Justice and Human Rights (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and the Argentinean GCAP Platform, launched in Buenos Aires the 2007 Report on the Follow-up of the Millennium Development Goals.
During the year 2007, FOCO, as focal point in Buenos Aires, and the Argentinean GCAP Platform “Not one Poor Home in Argentina,” carried out a review of the current status of the MDGs in Argentina from a Civil Society perspective, emphasizing the progress made in implementation at the country level during 2007 and the goals reached so far. The event took place in Buenos Aires on 30th April. Jorge Carpio, FOCO´s executive director, introduced the report. Following a detailed presentation by the authors of the report, Agostina Chiodi and Alejandro Casalis, Prof Carlos Eroles of the Buenos Aires University, and Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS representative at the UN, offered their reflections with respect to the report and the prospects of implementation of the MDGs. Eloy Mealla, coordinator of institutional relations for SES, Secretariat of Higher Education of the Argentinean Republic, closed the event.

]]> Wed, 07 May 2008 09:30:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/367443 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/365651
Climate Justice: Organising for effective community action on climate change.
CIVICUS World Assembly, Glasgow, 19 June 2008

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 Helsinki 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 poor South lack the capacity to minimize the consequences 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 aim to facilitate the development of community-based climate 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 and 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.


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




]]> Sat, 03 May 2008 10:33:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/365651 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/365649
Climate Justice Workshop: Participant Input Form
____________________________________
Name____________________________ e-mail____________________________

Organization______________________ website_________________________
Location___________________________ Country__________________________

Geographical Scope: Local__ Provincial__ Nat´l__ Regional__ Global__

Mission______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Activities on Climate Change Adaptation? Yes__ No__ Don’t know __

Brief description of Climate Change impacts already experienced in your community____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What’s being done about it?________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________

What in your opinion needs to be done about it?_______________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________

At what level? Local__ Provincial__ Nat’l__ Global__ (mark one or more)

What resources are available?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please use back of form for additional information or to elaborate answers. Please return completed form to Vicente.


]]> Sat, 03 May 2008 10:26:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/365649 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/362439
Born in Barcelona, Spain, 1950

Education

Montesión High School, Palma de Mallorca, 1967

Miramonte High School, AFS Foreign Student, Orinda, California, 1968

Barcelona University School of Law, Barcelona, 1973

New York University, Master in Comparative Law, New York, 1974

Scholarships

American Field Service, 1967-68

Fulbright, 1973-74

Employment

Ramón Viladás Law Firm, Barcelona, Associate1969-73, Junior Partner, 1973-76

Fox Glynn Melamed Law Firm, New York, Foreign Associate, 1974-75

National Tourist Office of Spain, New York, Trade Relations Officer, 1976- 78

Windels, Marx, Davies Ives, New York, Associate, 1978-85, Partner 1985-91 (Retired from Law practice December 1991 due to health reasons.)

Membership

Barcelona Bar Association, 1973-current

New York State Bar Association, 1977-current

CIVICUS; World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Individual Associate, 2001-current.

Volunteer

CIVICUS; World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Main Representative to the United Nations (New York), 2002-current


]]> Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:16:00 EDT http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/362439 http://CIVICUSUN.tigblog.org/post/355507

Dear friends,

Greetings! I thought I would post a recent article appearing in e-CIVICUS which pretty much conveys my feelings on the plight of communities vulnerable to climate change and the need for developed countries to provide assistance for adaptation to climate change and sustainable development.

Thank you and best to all!
Vicente


A view from the United Nations

February 2008


Climate Justice: Fighting climate adaptation apartheid
By Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS´ UN Representative

Release Date: 28 February 2008 - e-CIVICUS 377

Sustainable development and climate change are one and the same challenge, and we cannot solve one without solving the other. This basic principle received wide recognition during the recent UN General Assembly Thematic Debate on climate change ( New York , February 11-12, 2008 - www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25629Cr=climateCr1=change).

This is something that many of us in civil society have known for some time now, particularly those who live and work in climate vulnerable communities, amid the poverty, suffering and desperation of large swaths of the population in many developing countries. They know that poverty is exacerbated by higher food prices due to drought, desertification, flooding or lack of water, and they realize that sustainable development, and most immediately, the Millennium Development Goals, offer the only hope to break out of this vicious cycle. It’s a good thing that governments at the UN have finally reached a consensus on this.

The world is one and we are all connected. No one individual, group or nation exists in a vacuum. Actions in one part of the world produce consequences in another. Destroy our ecosystem in one place, and we are destroying ourselves everywhere.

Poverty, underdevelopment and climate change are global challenges that are intrinsically connected. And they all share a common root, too: the unsustainable and profligate ways in which economic growth and wealth accumulation have been pursued in the developed countries since the time of the industrial revolution.

It bears remembering that the developed countries became so through unrestricted access to natural and human resources from faraway lands. The industrial revolution set in motion an unsustainable economic system leading to the present climate change predicament. In addition, unregulated market globalisation, a product of the prevailing economic system, has served to concentrate huge wealth in the hands of a tiny economic elite in both developed and developing countries. Income and net worth disparities have reached obscene levels while poverty, inequality and exclusion remain rampant. Unable to reach even the first step on the ladder to development, billions struggle to survive without the most basic necessities. Women and children are hit the worst.

It is a grotesque irony that these women and children are also the ones who stand to bear the brunt of extreme climate change impacts in the years ahead. Poor people from vulnerable communities in developing and less developed countries (and in pockets of poverty and exclusion in some developed countries) stand to suffer the most from already unavoidable climate change impacts even though they have contributed little, if anything, to the problem. They are also the least prepared to do something about it. New York , London and Venice have the resources to build sea walls, but the millions living in the Ganges delta are facing a dead end. This is tantamount to “climate adaptation apartheid” in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. (http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_20072008_en_chapter4.pdf).

We are not necessarily talking “reparations” here, the idea that colonial powers must pay their former colonies for historical abuses. But rich countries do have an ethical as well as a legal obligation to support generously the developing and LDC countries in their quest for sustainable development and their efforts to adapt to the unavoidable adverse effects of climate change, by providing these communities and countries with development aid and adaptation assistance, and the clean energy technologies necessary to ensure that development in poor countries goes forward and remains sustainable. (See UNFCCC Art 4, and particularly Section 4.4 at http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf).

Unfortunately, large numbers of citizens around the world either remain unaware of the potential for loss and suffering that climate change impacts can thrust upon their families and communities, or feel impotent about taking effective action. In many poor areas of developing countries, possible climate change impacts are hardly the main priority. When your own life and that of your children may depend on whether you find access to food and water today, the words “climate change” don’t have that much meaning. At most, climate change may sound vaguely like something some governments are said to be concerned about, particularly in the North.

And yet, in the next few decades it will be essential to these communities’ very survival that they become aware of the gravity of the situation -- of how, for example, food scarcity and lack of water are intimately related to climate change; and beyond that, it will be necessary that these communities organise themselves for effective action both in terms of joint adaptation efforts and efforts to ensure that they are treated with justice and equity in international climate negotiations; and that they have access to the financial, technological, and both adaptation and development assistance to which they are entitled.

These vulnerable communities are paramount in our hearts and minds. In solidarity, the larger civil society is increasingly engaging, at all levels and in diverse partnerships and collaborations, aiming to help improve the capacity of these communities for adaptation to climate change. Civil society organisations that focus on sustainable development, the environment or climate change, trade, etc. -- and of course the scientific community -- are doing their equally important part by contributing their expertise, knowledge and latest findings. Many civil society organisations also engage in climate change advocacy, and their goal is to ensure Justice and Equity in the way climate-related issues and, most of all, adaptation issues, are dealt with in UN Climate Change negotiations, which are just starting under the Bali Road Map.

At the forthcoming 2008 CIVICUS World Assembly (Glasgow, June 18-21) (www.civicusassembly.org) conference attendees will have a chance to learn about and exchange information on specific civil society efforts so far on climate change, and to explore effective ways forward, including diverse organisational, communications and action strategies, on both adaptation and advocacy, calculated to capitalise on the momentum achieved so far and to carry on sustained efforts to amplify vulnerable communities’ actions. Please join us at a workshop co-sponsored by CIVICUS and the Global Youth Action Network entitled “Climate Justice: Organising for effective community action on climate change.” If you cannot attend, you may still participate by sending us your own climate change stories: how is climate change affecting your community? What is being done about it and what needs to be done? We will attempt to offer you networking opportunities both with other similarly challenged communities and with local and international NGOs, government agencies, international organisations and the private sector.

We all have something of value to offer, and we must all come together in solidarity for effective civil society action on climate change calculated to benefit all of Humanity and particularly the most vulnerable among us.

In solidarity,

Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS´ UN Representative

End

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