tagged w/ Climate Summit
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Campaign groups say US president could use bipartisan summit to launch a national climate strategy
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 January 2013 07.44 EST
Barack Obama may intervene directly on climate change by hosting a summit at the White House early in his second term, environmental groups say.
They say the White House has given encouraging signals to a proposal for Obama to use the broad-based and bipartisan summit to launch a national climate action strategy.
"What we talked about with the White House is using it as catalyst not just for the development of a national strategy but for mobilising people all over the country at every level," said Bob Doppelt, executive director of the Resource Innovation Group, the Oregon-based thinktank that has been pushing for the high-level meeting. He said it would not be a one-off event.
"What I think has excited the White House is that it does put the president in a leadership role, but it is not aimed at what Congress can do, or what he can do per se, so much as it is aimed at apprising the American public about how they can act."
Continued at link http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/09/barack-obama-climate-summitCampaign groups say US president could use bipartisan summit to launch a national... more
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the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba closes, we speak to Bolivian President Evo Morales about the US decision to cut off climate aid to Bolivia; narcotrafficking; the tenth anniversary of the Water Wars in Cochabamba; the protest at the San Cristóbal silver mine; and the contradiction between promoting the environment and extractive industries—oil/natural gas exploration, mining.
On Thursday organizers of the peoples’ summit released an Agreement of the Peoples based on working group meetings. Key proposals include the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute polluters, passage of a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, protection for climate migrants, and the full recognition of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. [includes rush transcript]the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba closes, we speak... more
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The World People’s Conference of Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth came to an end yesterday, as delegates in Cochabamba, Bolivia gathered for the closing ceremonies to mark Earth Day.
The grassroots summit was called by Bolivian President Evo Morales–the only indigenous head of state in the world–to provide activists, experts, and government representatives with an alternative forum to the failed UN climate talks last December. According to official estimates, over 100 countries around the world were represented, including more than 40 official government delegations and thousands of activists and representatives of various social movements.
The conference consisted of 17 working groups which discussed concrete proposals: a declaration of rights for the protection of the environment, a climate justice tribunal to hold violators legally accountable, climate debt schemes to compensate under-emitting countries for damage caused to their ecosystems by global warming, and a global referendum on climate change.
Though the process was at times chaotic, progress was made on several proposals. A declaration of rights was formulated and modified by over one thousand delegates, who aim to complement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by expanding rights-based protections to the environment. To be considered by the UN however, the document would need to be raised by a member state–a seemingly distant prospect at this point.
A working group on forests presented a final declaration rejecting the UN-sponsored Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program–one of the more controversial issues at Copenhagen last winter. Introduced at the 2007 UN climate summit in Bali, REDD is being promoted as a global initiative to provide financial incentives for developing countries who reduce emissions through tropical forest preservation. Critics say the controversial program will in fact privatize and commodify tropical rainforests, rather than protect them.
“REDD is a predatory program that pretends to save forests and the climate, while backhandedly selling out forests out from under our Indigenous Peoples…displacing those of us least responsible for the crisis, who have been stewards of the forests since time immemorial,” said Tom Goldtooth, Director of the US-based Indigenous Environmental Network.
The declarations forged by the working groups in Cochabamba will be proposed by President Morales at the next UN climate summit in Cancún in December 2010 to counter the widely criticized Copenhagen Accord.
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Driven by feelings of exclusion and marginalization, activists came to Cochabamba for a more open and democratic discussion about climate solutions. Perhaps the most important result of the summit is its success in creating such a forum, where disparate groups could gather without having to confront backdoor meetings, leaked documents, and police intimidation. As delegates now move forward, they seek no less than to redefine global climate justice and, in the process, redefine democratic practice.The World People’s Conference of Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth... more
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From Melting Glaciers to Structural Adjustment: Maude Barlow on the Need for Water Justice
In the Andean highlands of South America, climate change isn’t just an abstract threat. In Bolivia, glaciers are melting at what experts say is an alarming rate as a result of rising global temperatures. We speak with Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, about the melting glaciers, climate change and water.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/22/from_melting_glaciers_to_structural_adjustmentFrom Melting Glaciers to Structural Adjustment: Maude Barlow on the Need for Water... more
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On the 16th December 2009 people united in Copenhagen to demonstrate about Climate Change and at the start of the high-level ministerial phase of the two-week summit, the movements for global justice attempt a take over of the conference for a day and transform it into a Peoples Assembly.
The goal was to disrupt the sessions and open a space inside the UN area to hold the Assembly. The assembly will give a voice to those who are not being heard, it will be an opportunity to change the agenda, to discuss the real solutions, to send a clear message to the world calling for climate justice.
The Peoples Assembly, in opposition to the false solutions being negotiated at the Climate Summits, highlight alternatives that provide real and just solutions: leaving fossil fuels in the ground; reasserting peoples and community control over resources; relocalising food production; massively reducing overconsumption, particularly in the North; recognising the ecological and climate debt owed to the peoples of the South and making reparations; and respecting indigenous and forest peoples rights.On the 16th December 2009 people united in Copenhagen to demonstrate about Climate... more
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A multi-billion dollar deal tabled at the Copenhagen climate summit could lead to conflicts in forest-rich nations, a report has warned.
LINK : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8473652.stmA multi-billion dollar deal tabled at the Copenhagen climate summit could lead to... more
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from this link~
Reporting from Washington - Increasingly optimistic that decisions by China and India will yield a breakthrough in international climate negotiations, President Obama announced Friday that he would take a more active and dramatically timed role at this month's climate summit in Copenhagen.
Obama will push back his visit to the conference to its final scheduled day, putting him in a better position to help broker an agreement, the White House announced.
The White House also said the United States would pay "its fair share" of a $10-billion-a-year, short-term financing package from wealthy nations to help developing nations adapt to rising temperatures and make the transition to low-emission energy sources. It's unclear what that share would be, but Obama included more than $1 billion for such efforts in his proposed 2010 budget.
The moves come in response to recent pledges by China and India to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, White House officials said, and after Obama's consultations this week with the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Australia.
By postponing his visit from Wednesday to Dec. 18, Obama appears to be betting that his presence can push negotiations "over the top" toward an agreement, a hope he has expressed several times. It will put Obama at the conference when dozens of other world leaders are there, and it immediately raises expectations for some type of climate agreement to result from the talks.
"Based on his conversations with other leaders and the progress that has already been made to give momentum to negotiations, the president believes that continued U.S. leadership can be most productive through his participation at the end of the Copenhagen conference on Dec. 18 rather than on Dec. 9," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
"There are still outstanding issues that must be negotiated for an agreement to be reached, but this decision reflects the president's commitment to doing all that he can to pursue a positive outcome," the statement said.
The move means the president will make two separate flights to Scandinavia this month, one to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo and another to the Copenhagen conference. Originally, he had planned to combine the trips.
Environmentalists welcomed the announcement.
"It's a very positive sign," said Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It clearly shows that he's really committed to this issue, because he's going to go when other heads of state are there and try to make this happen."
Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a phone interview from Copenhagen that delegates beginning to gather for the opening of the conference Monday "were not looking too fondly on the Dec. 9 appearance -- they thought it was a photo opportunity and not really coming to negotiate."
Meyer said he was "pretty amazed" by the switch to a Dec. 18 appearance.
The summit opens Monday.from this link~
Reporting from Washington - Increasingly optimistic that decisions... more
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Many people have been waiting for the climate summit to be held in Copenhagen in 22 days. Nations of the world have been waiting on the United States to wake up and start fighting global warming and with President Obama in office it appeared that were were doing just that.
Unfortunately I have been hearing a different tune in the media over the past 2 days. President Obama does not plan on making any large changes during the summit and may not even attend.
This is completely unacceptable in my book and even though I am not typically the type to call for a rally, we as a nation need to make sure that over the next 22 days President Obama knows exactly how we feel about climate change.
Come on, let's stand up.
Post any planned protests' in your area and if you don't have any planned, post your interest to have one. There are only 22 days left, that is not much time. The tea partiers are already out there protesting against the summit, so we have some work to do.Many people have been waiting for the climate summit to be held in Copenhagen in 22... more
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