[E-rundbrief] Info - 2021 - UN Climate Conference 2022 - Via Campesina Kritik

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief Info 2021 - Via Campesina: UN Climate Conference of the 
Parties (COP) 2022 - Comments and protests.

Bad Ischl, 3.11.2022

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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(Bagnolet, October 31, 2022) Year after year, one UN Climate Conference 
of the Parties (COP) after another, the global climate crisis only 
worsens. Caused in great part by agribusiness and the destructive 
capitalist system it fuels, today’s crisis is a direct result of an 
economic system that exploits every form of life without recognizing any 
limits to nature. Mother Earth’s intricate systems and life-sustaining 
cycles are broken, with the devastating Covid19 pandemic, and the 
inaccessibility of health care for many, demonstrating just how cruel 
capitalism can be when it comes to inflicting the pain, suffering and 
loss, caused by the destruction of nature. Be it in Pakistan, Palestine 
or Puerto Rico – to name just a few – the once distant threat of 
“climate change” now comes in wave after wave of “catastrophic weather 
events” making climate-fueled tragedies an all-too-frequent part of 
people’s daily lives.  From droughts to floods, through wildfires and 
hurricanes, these extreme manifestations have threatened and even 
destroyed people’s lives and food sovereignty, who are calling for real 
solutions to limit global warming to 1.5°C. As if that weren’t enough, 
wars, occupations and sanctions are dished out by the power-hungry with 
little regard for the UN-recognized rights to Food, Health, Peace and 
Self-Determination, much less the now universal human right to a “clean, 
healthy and sustainable environment” (UN General Assembly, 2022). In 
addition, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI, 
2022) reported that the climate vulnerable and extremes underline rising 
numbers of hungry people, poverty and inequality.

At the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its annual 
Climate COPs, transnational corporations (TNCs) use their control over 
most national governments and multilateral institutions to commodify the 
crisis, deny fossil fuel capitalism has anything to do with it, and 
limit any real possibility of transformative change. Though the 
corporate food system is responsible for more than 50% of all greenhouse 
gasses (GHGs), the Bayer-Monsanto’s of the world offer nothing more than 
profit-hungry proposals packaged into shameful “net zero” schemes. 
Instead of a very real, urgent and necessary reduction in emissions – 
whose main responsibility lies with the elites of historic emitters such 
as the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia – corporate false 
solutions provide a free pass to the dominant colonial core while 
leading a global assault on rural communities, livelihoods and 
territories. So-called “nature-based solutions” (NBS) such as REDD and 
REDD+, “soil carbon for offsetting” and other market-based trading 
schemes, and the corporate takeover of agriculture through patenting, 
“digitalization”, “sustainable intensification” and 
“climate-smart(ation)” are all big wins for agribusiness but terrible 
losses for peasants, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk, forest dwellers and 
others on the frontlines of the global climate crisis. And when the 
great hoax of “net zero” fails to calm the climate, transnational 
corporations promise extremely high-risk geoengineering will somehow 
save the day (or at least their profit margins). This has been the norm 
at Climate COP after Climate COP, and the 27th Annual Conference of the 
Parties (COP27) is unlikely to be any different.

Supposedly “Africa’s COP”, this year’s Climate COP is set to take place 
at the elitist and artificial enclave that is Egypt’s Sharm el Sheikh. 
Far removed from the African and Arab People’s steadfast struggles for 
self-determination, COP27 is leaving very little room for organized 
communities to speak truth to corporate power. For this reason, among 
others, many of our sister organizations of the Africa Climate Justice 
Collective (ACJC) organized the African People’s Counter COP demanding 
real solutions rooted in climate justice, a prioritization of people and 
the planet, and an end to corporate control of the UNFCCC. These demands 
are in line with our hard-fought UN Declaration on the Rights of 
Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP):“States shall 
take all necessary measures to ensure that non-State actors that they 
are in a position to regulate, such as private individuals and 
organizations, and transnational corporations and other business 
enterprises, respect and strengthen the rights of peasants and other 
people working in rural areas..(and)…take appropriate measures to ensure 
that peasants and other people working in rural areas enjoy, without 
discrimination, a safe, clean and healthy environment”.

It is precisely because of this context that La Vía Campesina will be at 
COP27. Delegates from member organizations will make their voices, 
traditions, experiences and solutions heard. We will continue to 
promote, practice and uplift Food Sovereignty as the right of peoples to 
healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically 
sound and sustainable methods and the right to define our food and 
agricultural systems. We will explain once again that peasants through 
agroecological practices and territories cultivate more than 70% of the 
food produced worldwide on less than 30% of the arable lands available. 
We will emphasize that Agroecology is a sustainable path forward based 
on centuries of experience and accumulated real evidence – it is a 
science, a social movement and a lifestyle practised by millions around 
the world through meaningful work, cooperation, strategy and 
organization. We will amplify and share UNDROP, an international legal 
instrument that we helped to create and that defends people’s rights 
over their territories, seeds, waters, forests and that promotes a more 
sustainable way of being and living. We will stand in Solidarity with 
all who struggle for collective rights and reiterate the need for 
“common but differentiated responsibilities” among States – including a 
vibrant Green Climate Fund free of any International Monetary Fund (IMF) 
or World Bank (WB) influence, void of all neo-liberal impositions that 
serve only to further exploit people and the planet, and fully financed 
through climate reparations for the colonial legacies of the past and 
present. We stand in solidarity with and support those in the Climate 
Justice Movement demanding climate just reparations, not simple “climate 
finance”. Finally, we will be in COP27 continuing to expand our arms and 
shoulders building solidarity, action and common strategy with 
grassroots organizations, alliances and social movements from around the 
world fighting for climate and social justice.

While most national governments and multilateral institutions offer 
capitalist solutions that systematically fail to address the climate 
crisis,  we, the organized voice of over 200 million peasants, landless 
workers, indigenous people, pastoralists, fishers, migrant, farmworkers, 
small and medium-size farmers, rural women, peasant youth and 
gender-diverse persons of La Via Campesina, in convergence with a 
diversity of movements for Climate Justice, reiterate here and now our 
real solutions: FOOD SOVEREIGNTY COOLS THE PLANET ! We will build it 
with agroecology and peasants’ rights to ensure a Just Transition rooted 
in people’s power, ecological and social well being, and solidarity at 
the local, regional and international context. Together, in struggle, we 
will win!

PEASANTS RIGHTS’ AND AGROECOLOGY FOR A JUST TRANSITION!

GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE!

GLOBALIZE HOPE!

For media inquiries, contact:

press at viacampesina.org

-- 

     Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
     Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
     Wolfgangerstr. 26, 4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
     fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
     Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at