Indigenous Peoples and allies at the UN Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia protest the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and the related UN REDD Program (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Photolangelle.org (2007)
Originally posted on REDD-Monitor by Chris Lang
18 February 2021
The World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility recently changed its rules to allow governments to sell REDD credits from their Emissions Reductions Programmes before the programmes even started. The FCPF has decided that credits can be back-dated to 1 January 2016.
A presentation at the most recent Carbon Fund meeting in November 2020 explains that several REDD countries asked the FCPF for this change:
Predictably, the Bank doesn’t mention that the FCPF’s Carbon Fund will now be handing over millions of dollars to governments that have done absolutely nothing to reduce emissions.
To read the full article visit REDD-Monitor
Canopy News 17 February 2021
For Immediate Release: February 17, 2021 – As government representatives from 193 countries prepare to discuss “Strengthening Actions for Nature”[1], 188 environmental groups from around the world are calling on them to change the systems that support production of polluting single-use products.
The environmental groups today issued a joint position paper “From Single Use to Systems Change”, to highlight the massive impact that disposable products are having on the natural environment, wildlife, human health, and vulnerable communities.
Single use products, from packaging to food containers, to disposable cups and cutlery, are a key contributor to the 2 billion tonnes of waste that humans produce every year. That number is projected to increase 70% by 2050.
“We’re depleting the very life support systems that we all need to survive, simply for the supposed convenience of single-use products,” said Tamara Stark, Campaigns Director of Canopy, one of the authoring organizations of the joint position paper. “Doing away with disposables will not only reduce waste but help address climate change, protect forests, and stop microplastics from poisoning marine life.”
To read the full press release visit Canopy News
Mike Africa, Jr. is a member of The MOVE Organization, a revolutionary, a conscious hip hop artist and a motivational resilience speaker who pushes his revolutionary message with his stage performances, tackling issues such as mass incarceration, police brutality, environmental protection and systematic oppression.
Global Justice Ecology Project first interviewed Mike Jr. of the MOVE organization during the October 2019 North American Forest and Climate Movement Convergence, which GJEP co-organized, and where Mike was a keynote speaker. In this interview, we catch up with Mike to talk with him about what has happened in his life since that time. In the interview, he discusses his anger over the unjust handling of the Capital riots, a recent HBO documentary that features his work to free his parents from prison, and the apology issued by the city of Philadelphia to the MOVE organization over the 1985 bombing of a MOVE house which killed 11 including 5 children.
Cree elder women during the First Annual Whapmagoostui (Great Whale) Gathering Quebec, Canada 1993 Photolangelle.org
Note: Almost 30 years ago, in 1993, GJEP co-founders Orin Langelle and Anne Petermann traveled to the northern reaches of Quebec, to the Cree towns Chisasibi and Whapmagoostui on James Bay, to document the impacts of the existing Hydro-Quebec La Grande dam complex on the Cree and Inuit People’s as well as the environment and biodiversity.
They met with traditionalist Cree and Cree leadership mobilizing to stop the next phase of HQ’s plans, a series of dams and river diversions called the Great Whale project.
An major multi-state and international campaign put this project “on ice”.
But HQ has never stopped their attack on the peoples and rivers of eastern Canada. The piece below discusses their ongoing campaign of destruction.
GJEP now houses the North American Megadams Resistance Alliance, which is heading up efforts in the US to stop them. Check out more about them at http://northeastmegadamresistance.org/
Bangor Daily News by Lucien Wabanonik
7 February 2021
Hydro-Quebec (HQ) has waged a well-funded PR campaign in Maine to convince voters that their hydropower is “clean,” but the generation of this power has cost my people everything. So as the people of Maine weigh the merits of Central Maine Power’s proposed NECEC corridor project, which will bring power from Quebec to New England, to fulfill a contract with Massachusetts, I implore you to consider the systemic racism my people, the Anishnabegs, as well as the Pessamit Innu First Nation and Wemotaci Atikamekw First Nation, are experiencing at the hands of HQ, and the provincial government, which solely owns the company.
Our people have been connected to our land for more than 8,000 years and for much of that time, we lived in harmony with the land, which sustained our families. In 1763, King George III signed the Royal Proclamation that established the first borders of Quebec as well as the rights of First Nations.
From then, life went on until the advance of hydro-dams, which are now owned and operated by HQ. The company makes billions of dollars in profits each year off their illegitimate occupation and use of our land; profits which are largely passed along to the provincial government to benefit non-Indigenous populations. This profit-sharing arrangement has perpetuated the ongoing violation of our basic human rights.
For the full article visit Bangor Daily News
Founding members of the Durban Group for Climate Justice in 2004 pictured above include Wally Menne of Timberwatch, Tamra Gilbertson of Carbon Trade Watch, Tom Goldtooth of Indigenous Environmental Network, Jutta Kill of FERN, Larry Lohmann of Corner House, Daphne Wysham of Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, Fiu Elisara of O le Siosiomaga Society, Samoa, Ricardo Carrere of World Rainforest Movement and Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project as well as numerous representatives of organizations from Africa, India and Latin America.
Note: Global Justice Ecology Project was part of the group that co-founded the Durban Group in 2004. In his piece linked below, Chris Lang of REDD-Monitor who was present at the meeting, explains,
“In October 2004, about 20 climate and environmental activists met in Durban, South Africa. The aim of the meeting was to discuss the neoliberal false solution to climate change: carbon trading. After several days of discussions at the Glenmore Centre, the meeting produced a statement: The Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading.”
This groundbreaking document, which tore apart the idea that carbon emissions could be bought and sold as some kind of solution to the climate crisis, was used as a foundational document for the formation of future groups including Climate Justice Now! in Bali, Indonesia in 2007 which focused action demanding “system change not climate change” at annual UN Climate Conferences.
REDD-Monitor 15 January 2020
Chris Lang
In October 2004, about 20 climate and environmental activists met in Durban, South Africa. The aim of the meeting was to discuss the neoliberal false solution to climate change: carbon trading. After several days of discussions at the Glenmore Centre, the meeting produced a statement: The Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading.
I mentioned the Durban Declaration to a journalist I was talking to earlier this week. She’s looking into a story about carbon offsetting. The Durban Declaration is well worth revisiting, 16 years later.
The meeting was organised by the Swedish Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation but, as Patrick Bond notes, the idea came from conversations between the late Sajida Khan and Wally Menne about bringing activists and researchers to Durban to coordinate their critiques of carbon trading and the “privatisation of the air”. They wanted to bring activists to Africa’s largest landfill, the Bisasar Road rubbish dump in Durban.
To read more visit REDD-Monitor
Global Justice Ecology Project
