Climate Finance Durban Rio Cancant

international | environment | news report Monday November 21, 2011 20:49 by Owl

Climate finance interview

Climate finance interview

Hi so could you tell me a little bit about the conference here, the assembly, the meeting you’ve just had?

Hola, entonces me puedes decirme un poco mas sobre la conferencia aquí, la asamblea, el encuentro que has apenas tenido.

Si hemos apenas tenido aquí un encuentro aquí para hablar de estrategias sobre la financia climática, tenemos movimientos y organizaciones aquí … el sur global, y muchos países en europa y america del norte

Yeah we’ve just had a meeting here to talk about strategies on climate finance we’ve movements and organizations throughout the global south, and many countries in Europe and north America as well, I think that one part of the work was to find out what the situation is today and one of the important perhaps conclusions when we look at climate finance we don’t talk just about  the promises that are being made to provide funds from the north to for the mitigation to the south rather we recognize that climate finance must be a form of reparations of climate debt it must be recognized and organized as a way to restore to the earth and to the peoples of the earth in a just and in an equitable way the possibility of survival so we’re really talking about reparations we’re talking about restitution we’re talking about the possibility of survival for all of humanity and the environment and what we’re seeing is that there is climate finance that is flowing and is being promised from the north to the south most of that today is in the form and it’s still very small amounts, it’s very small amounts in relation to what is probably necessary to restore the balance to the earth and to peoples, and it is largely being driven by private companies, and by the carbon market and all kinds of private funding sources and obviously public sources. public money is continuing to go towards climate destruction, to war to repression of those who are resisting the advance of climate change so we need to look at that reality we begin to see that climate finance itself particularly by the big institutions like the world bank which is now seeking to consolidate and control on future flows of climate financing but indeed the world bank is itself one of the largest funders of climate change projects climate destruction, and it’s one of the largest funders that is very engaged, it is continuing to promote a model that is climate unfriendly and it is continuing to promote destruction and a funder of resources including atmosphere and space in the south in order to sustain a level a model of development in the north that scientists around the world are saying is simply unsustainable, we also say that if we’re looking at climate finance that we need to recognize and to target in a sense the continued outflow of financial resources from countries in the south, the resources that our countries need to be able to respond to the necessities, the urgencies of our people who are dealing with the realities of climate change, the flooding, changes in weather patterns, all the realities, those resources today are being used for servicing unlimited debts being used to pay royalties to transmit to corporations ,used to finance the outflow of profits, so we need to find ways also of stopping the outflow of resources from the south so that those resources can be available for the needs of climate justice as well as other social and environmental needs I think that the other thing that we were able to do this morning in the session is look at some of the things that are happening some of the plans that movements and networks have some of the calander of events including Durban, but simply seeing that there are a number of flashpoints for action and the potential for coordinated global actions

Ok, so can you say a little bit about the actions that are planned or that are potentially or actions that you’ve already engaged in or things that are sort of like effective strategies for climate justice?

 Some of the actions that were discussed this morning in the session had to do with one monitoring the advance of the impacts of climate financing both financing for destruction and financing for false solutions, financing for climate solutions, and to monitor those impacts, to monitor how the financing is flowing to see in a sense and to support this as a way of supporting and bringing together the communities that are resisting  those kinds of climate finance projects in a sense, we also looked at the need to follow closely and to put pressure on national governments, so that their decisions and the decisions that they take  the policies that they adopt, particularly in the coming months, as discussion deepens around the creation and structure of the global climate fund that was agreed to in princliple in cancun just a few weeks ago, I guess two months ago, this will be very important because for one the climate fund was agreed to, but it is clear that it was posited in the hands of the world bank as a trustee even if it was on a temporary basis theoretically on a temporary basis, this has already a dramatic impact on how the fund will be constructed to see where the money is coming from and how this will be channeled and what are the ways in which communities who are most affected might have and use in a sense the resources that are generated, so those another area of intense campaigning and monitoring, those who have talked about the importance of building the campaign around the world bank out of climate finance need out of argument that there are lots of questions and debate that needs to be strengthened particularly at the local level as to how climate funds how these reparations can be channeled, must be channeled but it’s very clear to us that the world bank must be out of the climate fund-yeah definitely-this is a consensus, so building that campaign is important and one of the tools one of the instruments for helping to build that campaign and other aspects of the mobilization around climate justice is the proposal to hold a Peoples tribunal on ecological debt and climate justice in Durban in December or as part of the mobilization toward … this is a peoples tribunal is a way of popular movements social organizations in a sense coming together and claiming justice, claiming our rights and denouncing in a sense the violation of our rights, violation of even legal standing that exists and also pointing to the creation of new categories of rights of legal in this case in particular the question of the rights of nature we can really build ..of the rights of nature are as important as the rights of human beings as the rights of peoples and then together the rights of humans the rights of nature the rights of peoples must have MUST HAVE primacy over the supposed rights of capital so these are big challenges but it is clear that there are concrete initiatives many of the things we have discussed at the local or regional level so we have both the big support

Ok brilliant, and could you say a bit about the organizations that are involved in the movement, which organizations in particular are working on the issue of climate justice climate finance and climate rights?

Certainly there are lots of organizations among those who were here this morning is of course jubilee south they are a network in Latin America Africa and Asia movements in every booking …questions of debt international financial institutions for a long time but also recognizing that the creation of financial debt has a lot to do with the creation and accumulation of ecological debt and climate debt so that these things really go hand in hand, friends of the earth international which was here amongst many other colleagues from Africa in particular we have movements certainly the via campesina the peasant movement around the world are very active on the question of climate, because they’re seeing that climate is a question of food sovereignty it’s a question of how… can be reduced to what many people consume, and many of the water networks that have grown up over the last years around privatization of water and establishing water as a basic human right these are some of the movements that are becoming more and more active around the question of climate justice of course there are many others, fortunately of course there are many environmental groups and organizations that are at the heart of the struggle but one of the big steps forward of the past couple of years has been really to be able to broaden the movement and to bring in and to link together those who have been working on or have maybe been focused on other issues of debt or trade or even militarization or women’s rights or other groups, so this is a big step forward for sort of broadening the base of the movement

Sure and can you say a bit about the hopes and expectations for Durban? Is it going to be like a huge protest manifestation or will there be convergence centres and pro active networking? What is the strategy?

I think it’s still a little early to go into much detail about what will actually happen in Durban and certainly part of what happens in Durban is a function of what will happen in the negotiations and in the climate between now and Durban, there is a strong sense amongst most of the movements that what must happen in Durban is a legally binding agreement that is focused on attaining reduction in emission levels in the north and not through compensation but in the north reduction at levels that are far far above or below, however you want to see it that are much different than the levels than the levels that have been discussed in cancun now or even in Copenhagen a year ago in developed countries rather than moving forward and recognizing the urgency of the problem recognizing their historical responsibility recognizing in a sense their present responsibility instead of upping in a sense  their commitments to CO 2 emissions reductions, they are in fact withdrawing they are putting back, and this is a very serious development, and if there is no evidence between now between now and Durban that there will be a fundamental change I’m sure that in Durban there will be a tremendous backlash, and the focus of the manifestation will be resistance, if we are in a different mode, if there has been evidence of change, in that reality between now and Durban then that is another question but I think in any way there will be certainly in south Africa in Durban and in particular in all of south Africa there is a long history of focusing on erasing the questions of resistance from the communities and putting issues like the question of climate justice in the context of the struggles of global justice the struggles against the capitalist system and its very important for Durban to follow in that same path

Ok thank you very much

Debt zeitgeist