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.
The Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading
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.
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