[E-rundbrief] Info 1567 - Via Campesina at COP 22 - climate crisis

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 1567 - Via Campesina at COP 22: false solutions to 
the climate crisis may constitute crimes against humanity.

Bad Ischl, 7.11.2016

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Via Campesina at COP 22: false solutions to the climate crisis may 
constitute crimes against humanity

Via Campesina

7.11.2016

Press Release

 From November 7th to November 18th, 2016, the 22nd Conference of the 
Parties (COP 22) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate 
Change will take place in Marrakech, Morocco. It is there that the 196 
signatories to the Paris Agreement will decide upon steps to implement 
the Agreement that they adopted in December 2015. Peasants and 
small-scale farmers from Via Campesina will be in Marrakech for the 
duration of the Conference; they will draw attention to the disastrous 
effects that application of the Agreement could have, both on peasant 
agriculture and on the climate.

Approximately 40 people, from Morocco and all over the world, the 
majority of which are youth, will make up the Via Campesina delegation 
in Marrakech. The international peasant movement has decided to hold a 
training course on climate justice for its membership, with a focus on 
young people, from November 8th to November 12th.  Some close allies 
from NGOs and social movements have also been invited to participate. 
It will serve as a great opportunity for Via Campesina to strengthen 
its links with small-scale farmers organizations from North African 
and Middle Eastern countries and to better understand the reality of 
peasant agriculture in that region. This decision is a clear way of 
stating that forward-looking solutions to the climate crisis are in 
the hands of young peasants and small-scale food providers whose 
farming practices reflect their interest in agroecology and peasant 
agriculture.

Many multinational corporations see COP 22 as an opportunity to 
further introduce carbon sequestration initiatives to the North 
African and Middle Eastern countries that have been particularly 
affected by climate change—with increased greenhouse gas emissions 
resulting from the current intensive model of production. For this 
reason, the Via Campesina delegation will be available throughout the 
COP to present an alternative vision. The delegates will explain that 
the failure to attack the climate crisis at its roots—especially 
regarding the use of pesticides, chemical fertilisers and other inputs 
in agriculture—constitutes a serious threat to food sovereignty and to 
the survival of countless farming families. They will give testimonies 
about peasant practices that help to preserve and regenerate forests 
and are an important counter to the destruction done by multinational 
corporations who plant monoculture for biofuels and other purposes.

The delegates will also explain the risk of increasing land grabbing, 
a phenomenon that is expanding widely. There is tacit support for land 
grabbing in the text of last December's agreement, which reduces 
agriculture to a 'land use sector' in order to highlight its potential 
for capturing carbon.

Payment for Ecosystem Services, REDD, REDD+, and their spin-off 
programs such as climate-smart agriculture , together with the Paris 
Agreement, are underpinned with an approach that places the commercial 
and financial interests of multinational corporations and the world 
economy ahead of respect for human rights. It is encouraging that the 
International Criminal Court in The Hague has recently recognised that 
human rights violations involving environmental destruction and, in 
particular, illegal dispossession of land fall within the domain of 
crimes against humanity. In Marrakech, the Via Campesina will again 
task itself with denouncing the false solutions and initiatives which 
can more properly be considered crimes against Humanity than 
commitments to finding a solution to the climate crisis. The Via 
Campesina will ensure that the voice of its youth delegation is heard, 
and that the solutions that it proposes are evaluated in a way that is 
commensurate with their importance and effectiveness, rather than 
being treated as marginal...

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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,
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IBAN: AT922031400600970305 BIC: SKBIAT21XXX

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