by Walden Bello* Published on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 by Foreign Policy in Focus Not surprisingly, the swift unraveling of the global economy combined with the ascent to the U.S. presidency of an African-American liberal...
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by SMITU KOTHARI & BENNY KURUVILLA
Interview with Egyptian economist Samir Amin.
SMITU KOTHARI
Samir Amin: “It was the financial corporations that asked the governments to step in and ‘nationalise’ them. The rescue package was drafted by them, and they are in control of most of the bailout money.”
The financial crisis continues to spread rapidly across the world, crippling banks, stock markets and manufacturing industries and leaving hundreds of thousands jobless in its wake. Two days after the much hyped meeting of the Group of 20 in Washington, D.C., economist Samir Amin shared his insights into and analysis of the arduous road ahead for economic globalisation and the urgent need for a course change from capitalism and the possibilities of a new internationalism in the form of a Bandung II initiative.
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Poznan statement from the Climate Justice Now! alliance
12 December 2008
THE URGENCY OF CLIMATE JUSTICE
We believe that any ´shared vision´ on addressing the climate crisis must start with climate justice and with a radical re-thinking of the dominant development model
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Nations are gathering in Poznan, Poland under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). To meet their obligations towards developing countries and repay their climate debt, industrialized countries must agree to appropriately and adequately finance adaptation, mitigation, and technology development and transfer. The World Bank Group is positioning itself to control key financial mechanisms of the UNFCCC.
We, the undersigned organizations, oppose any World Bank role in aninternational climate change convention regime, for the following reasons:
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We, the undersigned representatives of indigenous peoples, local communities and non-governmental organizations monitoring the progress of negotiations in Poznan are outraged that the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand opposed the inclusion of recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities in a decision on REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) drafted today by government delegates at the UN Climate Conference.
These four countries (often known as the ‘CANZUS Group’) want to include REDD in the future climate agreement, but they oppose protecting the rights of the indigenous and forest peoples who will be directly affected by REDD measures. In discussions today, these countries insisted that the word “rights” and references to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples be struck from the text.
We, representatives of peasant organizations, women, migrants, workers, consumers, urban and rural poor, fisherfolks, social movements and civil society organizations are writing to express our alarm that efforts are being made...
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The UN´s Clean Development Mechanism is beyond repair and should be dumped, climate justice campaigners told delegates at the UN ClimateChange Conference in Poznan today. *1
“The CDM is a ´lose-lose´ proposition. Its projects generate windfalls for major polluters in the global South while providing Northern-based transnational corporations and governments a way to buy their way out the responsibility to make their own emissions cuts” says Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environment Network.
The future of the CDM is currently under discussion at the Poznan climate talks. Most of the rule changes and reforms being considered will expand the mechanism. These include proposals to include nuclear power and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects in the CDM. None of the proposals will address the fundamental flaws of ´carbon offsetting´, however.
Read MoreFocus on the Global South supports the call for a human chain in Mumbai on 12 December 2008 by the Mumbai for Peace campaign, as a people’s response to the recent attacks on Mumbai. The tragic and horrific events that unfolded...
Read MoreIn seizing Suvarnabhumi Airport, the People’s Alliance for Democracy has escalated its mass protest to new heights. No one would question PAD’s democratic right to employ the method of direct...
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