[E-rundbrief] Info 1209 - Changing the System and not the Climate - Proposal

Matthias Reichl info at begegnungszentrum.at
Mi Apr 24 16:30:41 CEST 2013


E-Rundbrief - Info 1209 - Facilitators of the Climate Space: To 
Reclaim Our Future, We Must Change the Present. Our Proposal for 
Changing the System and not the Climate.

Bad Ischl, 24.4.2013

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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To Reclaim Our Future, We Must Change the Present.

Our Proposal for Changing the System and not the Climate

By Admin / April 22, 2013

The capitalist system has exploited and abused nature, pushing the 
planet to its limits, so much so that the system has accelerated 
dangerous and fundamental changes in the climate.

Today, the severity and multiplicity of weather changes – 
characterized by droughts, desertification, floods, hurricanes, 
typhoons, forest fires and the melting of glaciers and sea ice – 
indicate that the planet is burning. These extreme changes have direct 
impacts on humans through the loss lives, livelihoods, crops and homes 
all of which have led to human displacement in the form of forced 
migration and climate refugees on a massive an unprecedented scale.

Humanity and nature are now standing at a precipice. We can stand idle 
and continue the march into an abysmal future too dire to imagine, or 
we can take action and reclaim a future that we have all hoped for.

We will not stand idle. We will not allow the capitalist system to 
burn us all. We will take action and address the root causes of 
climate change by changing the system. The time has come to stop 
talking and to take action.

We must nurture, support, strengthen and increase the scale of 
grassroots organizing in all places, but in particular in frontline 
battlegrounds where the stakes are the highest.

System Change means:

     Leave more than two thirds of fossil fuel reserves under the 
soil, as well as beneath the ocean floor, in order to prevent 
catastrophic levels of climate change.
     Ban all new exploration and exploitation of oil, tar sands, oil 
shale, coal, uranium, and natural gas.
     Support a just transition for workers and communities away from 
the extreme energy economy and into resilient local economies based on 
social, economic and environmental justice.
     Decentralize the generation and ownership of energy under local 
community control using renewable sources of energy. Invest in 
community based, small-scale, local energy infrastructure.
     Stop building mega and unnecessary infrastructure projects that 
do not benefit the population and are net contributors to greenhouse 
gasses like, mega dams, excessive huge highways, large-scale 
centralized energy projects, and superfluous massive airports.
     End the dominance of export-based industrial forms of food 
production, (including in the livestock sector), and promote 
small-scale integrated and ecologically sound farming and an 
agriculture system that ensures food sovereignty, and that locally 
grown crops meet the nutritional and cultural needs of the local 
community. These measures will help to cool the planet.
     Adopt Zero Waste approaches through promoting comprehensive 
recycling and composting programs that end the use of greenhouse gas 
emitting incinerators – including new generation hi-tech incinerators 
– and landfills.
     Stop land grabbing and respect the rights of small farmers, 
peasants and women. Recognize the collective rights of indigenous and 
tribal peoples consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of 
Indigenous Peoples, including their rights to their lands and territories.
     Develop economic strategies that create new kinds of ‘climate 
jobs’ – decent paying jobs that directly contribute to carbon 
reductions – in such sectors as renewable energy, agriculture, public 
transportation and building retrofits.
     Recover the control of the public sources to finance projects for 
people and nature like health, education, food, employment, housing, 
restoration of water sheds, conservation and restoration of forest and 
other ecosystems and others and stop the subsidies to dirty 
industries, agribusiness and military industry.
     Take cars off the roads by building clean public transport 
infrastructure that is adaptive to local, non-combustion energy 
sources, and make it accessible and affordable to everyone.
     Promote local production and consumption of durable goods to 
satisfy the fundamental needs of the people and avoid the transport of 
goods that can be produced locally.
     Stop and reverse corporate driven free trade and investments 
agreements that promote trade for profit and destroy the labor force, 
nature and the capacity of nations to define their own policies.
     Stop the corporate capture of the economy and natural resources 
for the profit of Transnational Corporations.
     Dismantle the war industry and military infrastructure in order 
to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of warfare, and divert war 
budgets to promote genuine peace.

With these measures we will be able to achieve comprehensive 
employment for all because built into this systemic change there will 
be more and better quality jobs than currently exist within the 
capitalist system. With these measures we will be able to build an 
economy that serves the people and not the capitalists. We will stop 
the endless degradation of the earth’s land, air, and water and 
preserve the health of humans and the vital cycles of nature. We will 
avoid forced migration and millions of climate refugees.

System change requires an end to the global empire of transnational 
corporations and banks. Only a society that has the type of democratic 
control over resources which is based on workers (including migrant 
workers), indigenous and women’s rights and respects the sovereignty 
of the people will be able to guarantee economic, social and 
environmental justice.  System Change requires a break from the 
patriarchal society in order to guarantee women’s rights in all 
aspects of life. Feminism and ecology are key components of the new 
society that we are fighting for.

We need a new system that seeks harmony between humans and nature and 
not an endless growth model that the capitalist system promotes in 
order to make more and more profit. Mother Earth and her natural 
resources cannot sustain the consumption and production needs of this 
modern industrialized society. We require a new system that addresses 
the needs of the majority and not of the few. We need a redistribution 
of the wealth that is now controlled by the 1%. And we also need a new 
definition of wellbeing and prosperity for all life on the planet 
under the limits of our Mother Earth.

While there will still be a battle inside the international UN climate 
negotiations, the main battlegrounds will be outside and will be 
rooted in the places where there are frontline struggles against the 
fossil fuel industry, industrial agriculture, deforestation, 
industrial pollution, carbon offsets schemes, and REDD-type carbon 
offsets projects, all resulting in land and water grabbing and 
displacements taking place all over the world.

The United States, Europe, Japan, Russia and other industrialized 
countries, as the main historical carbon emitters, should implement 
the biggest emissions reductions. China, India, Brazil, South Africa 
and other emerging economies should also have targets for emission 
reductions based on the principles of common but differentiated 
responsibility. We do not accept that on behalf of the right to 
development several projects for more unsustainable consumption and 
exploitation of nature are being promoted in developing countries only 
to benefit the profits of the 1%.

The fight for a new system is also the struggle against false 
solutions to climate change. If we don’t stop them they will disrupt 
the Earth’s System and deeply affect the health of nature and all 
life. We therefore reject techno-fix “solutions” like geo-engineering, 
genetically modified organisms, agrofuels,  industrial bioenergy, 
synthetic biology, nanotechnology, hydraulic fracturation (fracking), 
nuclear projects, waste-to-energy generation based on incineration, 
and others.

We are also in opposition to those proposals that want to expand the 
commodification, financialization and privatization of the functions 
of nature through the so-called “green economy” which places a price 
on nature and creates new derivative markets that will only increase 
inequality and expedite the destruction of nature. We cannot put the 
future of nature and humanity in the hands of financial speculative 
mechanisms like carbon trading and REDD. We echo and amplify the many 
voices that are urging the European Union to scrap the EU Emissions 
Trading Scheme.

REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), 
like Clean Development Mechanisms, is not a solution to climate change 
and is a new form of colonialism. In defense of Indigenous Peoples, 
local communities and the environment, we reject REDD+ and the 
grabbing of the forests, farmlands, soils, mangroves, marine algae and 
oceans of the world which act as sponges for greenhouse gas pollution. 
REDD and its potential expansion constitutes a worldwide 
counter-agrarian reform which perverts and twists the task of growing 
food into a process of “farming carbon” called Climate Smart Agriculture.

We must link social and environmental struggles, bring together rural 
and urban communities, and combine local and global initiatives so 
that we can unite together in a common struggle. We must use all 
diverse forms of resistance. We must build a movement that is based on 
the daily life of people that guarantees democracy at all stages of 
societies.

Many proposals already contain key elements needed to build new 
systemic alternatives. Some examples include, Buen Vivir, defending 
the commons, respecting Indigenous territories and community conserved 
areas, the rights of Mother Earth – rights of Nature, food 
sovereignty, prosperity without growth, de-globalization, the 
happiness index, the duties to and rights of future generations, the 
Peoples Agreement of Cochabamba and others.

We have all long hoped for the possibility of another world. Today, we 
take that hope and turn it into courage, strength and action – that 
together, we can change the system. If there is to be a future for 
humanity, we need to fight for it right now.

April 2013

Signed by the facilitators of the Climate Space:

     Alliance of Progressive Labor, Philippines
     Alternatives International
     ATTAC France
     Ecologistas en Acción
     Environmental Rights Action, Nigeria
     ETC Group
     Fairwatch, Italy
     Focus on the Global South
     Global Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power and end TNCs’ impunity
     Global Forest Coalition
     Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
     Grupo de Reflexão e Apoio ao Processo do Fórum Social Mundial
     Indigenous Environmental Network
     La Via Campesina
     No-REDD Africa Network
     Migrants Rights International
     OilWatch International
     Polaris Institute
     Transnational Institute

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Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
Spenden-Konto Nr. 0600-970305 (Blz. 20314) Sparkasse Salzkammergut,
Geschäftsstelle Pfandl
IBAN: AT922031400600970305 BIC: SKBIAT21XXX

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