[E-rundbrief] Info 1353 - Lima Peoples Summit 12/14 - change the system, not the climate

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 1353 - In Lima change the system, not the climate. 
Call for mobilization towards the Lima Peoples Summit. Lima, Peru – 
December 9 – 12, 2014.

Bad Ischl, 2.9.2014

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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In Lima change the system, not the climate

Call for mobilization towards the Lima Peoples Summit

Lima, Peru –  December 9 – 12, 2014

     Published on Thursday, 28 August 2014 15:15

Social movements and organizations, trade unions, peasants, indigenous 
peoples’ communities, women and environmentalist organizations, 
gathered in Lima, Peru, on the 12h and 13th of August, invited by the 
Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA), to support the 
organization of the Peoples’ Summit that will take place in parallel 
to the COP 20 of the UNFCCC, from 9 to 12 December 2014. We commit to 
work together and mobilize ourselves in this process. In this sense, 
we emphasize the call to participate in the demonstration organized by 
the Peoples’ Summit on December 10 in Lima.

The climate crisis that affects the planet is a consequence of the 
capitalist system, its extractive model of production and consumption. 
This is a model that destroys nature, privileges the interests of 
transnational corporations, and tramples the rights of peoples.

The climate crisis shows the exhaustion of this system. Confronted 
with its structural crisis, capital now seeks new ways out that allow 
its continuity, in order to produce greater concentration of wealth 
and power, guaranteeing profits for corporations and ruling classes.

As an expression of this strategy of capital, in recent years, 
processes of privatization, commodification and financialization of 
nature, expressed in the principles of the green economy, have been 
intensified. These offer only false solutions to the climate crisis, 
such as: Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Reducing Emissions from 
Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects, GMOs, agro 
fuels, geo-engineering, mega hydroelectric projects, nuclear power 
plants, fracking, climate-smart agriculture, among others.

We also believe that the model of domination and oppression, sustained 
by financial debt, impacts the life and the rights of our peoples. 
Payment of external and domestic debt consumes the already limited 
resources for social investment - resources that could better be used 
to deal with the consequences of climate change. Under the pressure of 
debt, the neoliberal model of capitalist modernization, extractivist 
and privatizer of everything, persists and is further expanded, with a 
strong impact as well on political and legal systems.

Moreover, transnational corporations have developed a web of 
agreements that allow them to ensure their privileges and wealth, 
while violating human and nature rights and making the sustainability 
of life impossible. We reject the architecture of impunity driven by 
large companies and multilateral agencies, in complicity with many 
governments and expressed in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), Bilateral 
Investment Treaties (BITs), the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), the 
Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), and all those that threaten the 
sovereignty and self-determination of peoples. We denounce and demand 
a stop to the processes of persecution and even assassination of 
social activists ordered by corporations in Latin America and around 
the world. We demand an end to the repression and criminalization of 
social protests by numerous governments.

We reject and resist the false solutions to the crisis and propose 
alternatives for Buen Vivir, the sustainability of life, in defense of 
the commons and of Mother Earth. In this spirit, as part of the 
solution to the climate crisis we lift up indigenous ways of living 
and their ‘cosmovision’ in absolute harmony with nature. The climate 
crisis has affected Latin America through extreme events, landslides, 
the melting of the glaciers, floods, droughts, among other forms. In 
Peru, where the Peoples’ Summit will take place, as in many other 
parts of our region and the rest of the world, the survival of 
indigenous peoples, natives and peasants is seriously threatened.

We, organizations and social movements, propose real solutions to the 
climate crisis, based on principles of environmental and social 
justice, and particularly on climate justice. We support territorial 
self-determination and self-government and food sovereignty. We also 
support a global change of the energy matrix that leads to an end to 
the use of fossil fuels and gives way to energy sovereignty 
(renewable, decentralized, and community-controlled energies), and 
solidarity and feminist economies. We fight for an equal relationship 
between men and women.

Furthermore, the defense of the commons involves the guaranteeing of 
human rights and the rights of nature.

System change must involve a just transition, to be built with workers 
and peoples. A just transition implies expanding the concept of work, 
the recognition of women's work and a balance between production and 
reproduction, so that the latter is not an exclusive burden for women 
in their daily lives. This transition also involves the freedom to 
organize and the right of collective association, as well as the 
establishment of a broad social security and social protection system, 
understood as a human right, as well as public policies that ensure 
decent work.

With regard to the UN negotiations on climate change, we demand a 
legally binding, democratic and participatory agreement, based on the 
principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. 
The global temperature should not increase more than 1.5 degrees. Let 
us mobilize to support these demands!

We continue in the direction proposed by the Peoples’ Agreement of 
Cochabamba (April 2010), the Declaration of the Peoples’ Summit Rio + 
20 (June 2012) and the declaration of the Social PreCOP on Margarita 
Island (July 2014). We call on all organizations and social movements 
around the world to join forces and continue this process of building 
collective and unified actions. In this regard, we see the Peoples’ 
Summit in Lima as a key moment of mobilization in 2014. Additionally, 
there are other significant events that can help strengthen our 
networking: the international meeting of social organizations towards 
the COP 21 this month in Paris; the demonstrations in New York around 
the Climate Summit and the UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, 
both in September; the global days of action for decent work 
conditions organized by trade union confederations in October; the 
Social PreCOP on Climate Change in November on Margarita Island, among 
other opportunities of convergence and mobilization.

The organizations and social movements and international networks, 
present here, reaffirm the commitment to support the organization of 
the Peoples’ Summit in Peru. We constitute ourselves as an 
international support group, to be joined by other international 
groups, and regional and national entities.

Lima, August 13, 2014.

Signed initially by: Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA), 
World March of Women, Friends of the Earth Latin America and the 
Caribbean (ATALC), Jubilee South/ Americas (JS/A), La Vía Campesina, 
Belem Letter Group, General Workers’ Confederation of Perú (CGTP), 
Transnational Institute (TNI)

http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/1655-call-for-mobilization-towards-the-lima-peoples-summit


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Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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