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Climate Justice: Fighting Climate Adaptation Apartheid
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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=25629&Cr=climate&Cr1=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


April 9, 2008 | 7:18 PM Comments  0 comments

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