Climate and Environment Justice

California Cap-and-Trade Scheme Could Endanger Rainforest Peoples

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(ENEWSPF)--May 6 - Under California’s new cap-and-trade program, the state is considering allowing a controversial form of carbon credits that have been rejected by the European Union as ineffective and potentially harmful to rainforests in developing countries. Now an international coalition of environmental groups including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Sierra Club California is urging Gov. Jerry Brown to reject the so-called REDD credits, which could endanger the lives and livelihoods of indigenous forest peoples.

Pablo Solon: everyone must accept binding climate commitments

by Pablo Solon

The United Nations climate negotiations in Bonn are more of the same and we are running out of time.

Everybody recognizes that there is a “gap”, but there are no concrete proposals to solve the “gap”. Most delegations prefer not to put a number on the “gap” to avoid the embarrassment of what all countries had agreed to in Doha last December 2012.

Author: 
Pablo Solon

Confronting the Hard Questions at the Climate Space

The Climate Space in the World Social Forum 2013 in Tunisia, March 26 to 30, will do what the recent negotiations have failed to do: tackle the hard questions, because “we have lost too many important battles in the fight for climate justice that there is little time left for us to stop Mother Earth and humanity from falling off the precipice and into a future too dire to imagine.”

 The organizers of Climate Space have already raised some of these critical questions in the lead up to the Forum:

Comments and Proposals: On the process and content of the REDD+ Readiness-Preparation Proposal (R-PP) of Thailand

The Thai Climate Justice Working Group attended the Review of Draft Thailand REDD+ Readiness-Preparation Proposal (R-PP) workshop on 7 March 2013, organized by the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) of the World Bank and the Lowering Emissions in Asia’s Forests (LEAF).  Even though the organizers specified that the objective of the workshop was to provide an opportunity for CSOs, local communities and ethnic groups engaged in the REDD+ process to review the Thailand RPP draft, workshop participants learned in the afternoon session that the draft had already been sent to the FCPF Part

Author: 
Jacques-chai Chomthongdi

Water shows the way

by SMRITI KAK RAMACHANDRAN from the Hindu

As the world observed World Water Day last week, Bolivian water activist Pablo Solon narrates how his countrymen forced the repeal of a water privatisation attempt by the government. 

What began as an ordinary citizen’s protest against water privatisation laid out the path for a bigger revolution that eventually paved way for Bolivia’s first indigenously elected government.

Climate Space: What went wrong in the Global Climate Negotiations?

By Pablo Solon

In the last 20 years, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the world have, instead of declining, increased, by more than a third. In 1990, GHG emissions were 37 Gigatons (Gt) of CO2e[1]. In 2010, they surpassed 50 GtCO2e[2]. At this rate, if business-as-usual continues, global emissions can reach 58 GtCO2e by 2020, which would be a catastrophe for humanity and nature.

Author: 
Pablo Solon

Strike Four in Climate Change: A “Climate Space” to rethink analysis and strategies

by Pablo Solon

In baseball, when you have 3 strikes, you are out. In the climate change negotiations we already have 4 strikes. Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban and now Doha. Four attempts and each of the results were bigger failures than the last. The emission reductions should have been at least 40 to 50% until 2020 based on 1990 levels. Four COPs later, the current numbers are down to a measly 13 to 18%. We are now well on our way to a global temperature increase of 4 to 8ºC.

Author: 
Pablo Solon

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