PlanProtesters at UN meeting in India say ‘World is not for sale’

By Ranjit Devraj

New Delhi, India, Oct. 28 (IPS)— It seemed a world away from the carpeted, perfumed, and air-conditioned halls of Vigyan Bhavan (House of Knowledge), where the fate of the world’s fragile atmosphere is being negotiated under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Here at a rally of fishermen, rickshaw pullers, peasants and activists ending a two-day Climate Justice Summit on Monday, there were no slick brochures and promotional compact discs of the sort being distributed at the UN meeting that started Oct. 23 and ends Friday.

There was also none of the diplomatic thrust and parry, loaded press briefings, incomprehensible jargon and legalese, cocktails and sumptuous dinners attendant on the Eighth Conference of the Parties (COP-8) of the UNFCCC.

Instead, rally participants put forth the unambiguous declaration: “Our World is Not For Sale.” Nearly 5,000 marchers came to the Indian capital for the occasion, hailing not only from distant Indian states but from several countries — developed and developing.

As the rally, which marched from Raj Ghat, the mausoleum of Mahatma Gandhi, who in another age demolished the British Empire dressed in a loincloth, drew close to the Vigyan Bhavan, the armed security ring around the building tightened to prevent the marchers from nearing the venue of the official negotiations.
“We affirm that climate change is a human rights issue — it affects our livelihoods, our health, our children and our natural resources,” was the marchers’ message.

In their prepared message, entitled “The Delhi Declaration,” protesters vowed to “…build alliances across states and borders to oppose climate change inducing patterns and advocate for and practice sustainable development.”

Asked if he had heard of the Climate Justice Summit, European Union representative Thomas Becker said he had not. The broad street in front of the Vigyan Bhvan had been “sanitized” for security, to the point that there was hardly any sign of life.

But Becker is bound to see in Tuesday’s newspapers the determination of the marchers to reject the “market-based principles that guide the current negotiations to solve the climate crisis.” The participants of the Climate Justice Summit may have been shooed away, but what they had to say and how they said it was every bit as well informed as the meanderings and sophistry of the best negotiators from 185 governments at the UN meeting.

Before Monday’s rally and over the weekend, the organizers of the alternative summit, representing such campaigners as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, put together panels and workshops on such issues as alternative energy, food security, community resistance to fossil fuels, clean development mechanisms, carbon sinks, corporate accountability, and ecological debt.

Vandana Shiva, who leads the New Delhi-based Research Foundation for Science Technology and Environment, said there was no need to discuss the science of climate change or whether it exists at all.

“The super-cyclone that hit Orissa, the rapidly receding Himalayan glaciers, the unprecedented droughts and floods and the clear disturbance of the seasonal cycles in recent years are enough evidence of what is happening,” she said.

As for clean development mechanisms and carbon sinks — measures that critics say allow industrialized countries to dodge cuts on greenhouse gases by funding or undertaking green projects overseas — Shiva observed that after attempts to commercialize living organisms, the newest “commodity” to be bought and sold by transnational corporations is the very air that people breathe.

On her way to the summit from her base in Dehra Dun town, in the foothills of the Himalayas, Shiva said she saw herds of camels scampering away from drought-hit western Rajasthan state into the industrial town of Meerut outside Delhi. “What more evidence do you need for climate change?” she asked.

Srisuwan Kuankachorn of the Bangkok-based Project for Ecological Recovery blamed the situation on national governments colluding with the industrial powers. “No one knows what our governments are trading away behind our backs until the damage is done — aquaculture in southern Thailand and eucalyptus plantations in northern Thailand,” Srisuwan said.

Harekrishna Debnath, who leads a federation of fishworkers, left the small island where he is campaigning to prevent an attempt to hand over an island in the Bay of Bengal, used since time immemorial for drying fish, to commercial interests under the guise of forest protection, in order to attend the Climate Justice Summit.

Medha Patkar, who has led India’s longest and best-known environmental movement to prevent the building of large dams across the Narmada river, said it was bitter irony that the negotiations to solve climate change had been hijacked by corporations and the industrialized countries.

“We are in a situation where most of the action to prevent climate change needs to happen in the North due to their over-consumption, while on the other hand, the people who need to prepare most for the impacts are in the developing world,” said Yin Shao Loong of the Malaysia-based Third World Network.

Yin said what was missing in the UNFCCC negotiations were the mass movements against climate change, whose effects are worsened by corporate-led globalization.

“Transnationals do not operate from one place but from the whole world and so we have the power to bring them down once we are organized globally — it’s that simple,” he said.

Bush admin. to overhaul Northwest Forest

Washington, DC, Oct. 22 (ENS)-- The Bush administration has announced it will prepare a plan to stop surveying for rare and uncommon wildlife associated with mature and old growth forests of the Pacific northwest.

The announcement follows a settlement agreement reached in a lawsuit filed by the timber industry against the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

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600 protesters stop Exxon in Luxembourg

Oct. 25— More than six hundred volunteers from around the world spread out over Luxembourg on the morning of Friday, Oct. 25 to shut down the entire Esso operation in the country. The action, organized by Greenpeace, is a protest against the corporation’s continued sabotage of international efforts to fight global warming.

Greenpeace activists block an Esso petrol station in Esch, Luxembourg, on Friday, Oct. 25, 2002.

Esso, which is also known as ExxonMobil and Mobil internationally, denies that burning oil, coal and gas contributes to climate change, despite the opinion of the world’s best scientific bodies and the evidence of severe climate change impacts, such as more frequent and dangerous extreme weather events, the retreat of glaciers and the destruction of coral reefs.

Volunteers from 31 countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, New Zealand, Norway, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom, the US, Turkey, and Yugoslavia were present at every one of Esso’s 28 petrol stations in Luxembourg — including the biggest Esso station in the world on the Luxembourg/German border.

The protest took place as 178 countries meet in India for the next round of talks on the Kyoto Protocol — the only international agreement on protecting the climate. The US is responsible for 25 percent of global greenhouse gases but, with Esso’s backing, will not be participating in the Kyoto talks.

Also on Friday, Greenpeace published a dossier detailing Esso’s “Weapons of Mass Deception.” The evidence presented in the dossier is an indictment on the company’s role in US president George Bush’s war on the climate. Documents presented in the dossier show how Esso:

• Denies global warming is happening
  
• Got Bush to remove the respected head of the United Nation’s global warming panel
• Sabotaged international efforts to tackle climate change
  
• Funds front organizations that influence Bush on environmental matters
  

In a foreword for the dossier reads: “The climate change negotiations have sustained a ten-year, systematic attack by the world’s largest oil company. Esso’s war has resulted in a weak Kyoto Protocol then, under George W. Bush, the ditching of it by the US government altogether. But still, Esso continues in its efforts to sabotage what is left of the process.”

The Luxembourg protesters — some dressed in tiger suits and George Bush masks — blocked vehicle access to petrol pumps, locking on to equipment and handing out information to motorists. At each station banners reading “Esso — No. 1 climate criminal” were hung.

Greenpeace campaigner Rob Gueterbock said, “This company has run a dirty political campaign against our climate, throwing big bucks at its friends in Washington and playing fast and loose with accepted science. But now people are fighting back. Today Luxembourg is an Esso-free zone and the campaign is spreading around the world. It’s becoming clear that if we want to stop Bush, we have to stop Esso.”

He added, “Esso was a major influence in George Bush’s decision to walk away from the Kyoto Protocol. This company is still trying to hijack the climate debate through the use of front groups, flawed science and large political contributions, and refuses to spend any of its billions on clean renewable energy. Some US corporations are cooking the books for profit, but Esso is cooking our planet. The level of support we’ve got today shows how angry people are.”

Luxembourg is known as the fuel pump of Europe for its cheap petrol. Drivers from many countries travel long distances to buy petrol there. The country makes ten percent of its tax revenue from petrol.

Source: Greenpeace UK

ENVIRONMENT BRIEFS

Lawsuit challenges toxic fertilizers

Farm, consumer, and environmental health groups have filed a lawsuit to overturn a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule allowing hazardous wastes to be used in fertilizers.

Under this rule, toxic heavy metals, including lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium may be recycled into zinc based fertilizers. The hazardous waste derived fertilizers would not be labeled as such, and may be applied to farm lands and home gardens without further restrictions.

While industries have long been disposing of their hazardous wastes through fertilizers, the practice was not officially authorized until this rule.

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NAFTA trade
rules trump
environment – again

The Oct. 21 decision to award over $8 million to SD Myers Inc., an American-owned PCB-recycling firm who sued Canada under NAFTA’s Chapter 11 law is one more blow to countries ability to protect the environment under the free trade agreement. Chapter 11 under NAFTA concerns the right of corporations to sue countries whose laws impede its profits in any way.

David Robbins, a trade campaigner for the 100,000-member Council of Canadians, disagreed with Canadian officials’ assertion that the decision was not related to Canada’s ability to adopt laws to protect the environment. He accused the NAFTA Tribunal of “blatant disrespect” for the signed environmental treaties of Canada and the US.

The NAFTA Tribunal’s decision is in direct violation of Article 4.9 of the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, ratified by Canada. The convention states that the movement of hazardous wastes may only take place if the exporting state does not have the technical capacity and the facilities to dispose of the wastes properly. Because Canada does have the necessary facilities for the recycling of PCBs, the Tribunal’s decision violates an international environmental agreement.

This award comes on the eve of the FTAA Ministerial Meeting in Quito, Ecuador, which meets Nov. 1-2. The Council of Canadians is pressing Canadian officials to follow the recommendations of government committees not to include the provisions of Chapter 11 in the FTAA.
(Council of Canadians)

DoD wins exemption from law protecting
bird species

House and Senate negotiators have tentatively agreed to exempt the Defense Department from an international law designed to protect more than 850 species of migratory birds, in response to Bush administration complaints that such treaties hamper military training and bombing exercises. The decision, disclosed Oct. 22 by lawmakers and environmental groups, could effectively allow the incidental bombing of habitats of hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, including a number of endangered species, that fly over 25 million acres of military-controlled land.

The administration earlier this year sought exemptions from numerous environmental laws dealing with endangered species, marine mammals, migratory birds, clean air and hazardous waste cleanup. Officials contended that the restrictions were impeding military training and readiness in the wake of Sept.11, but critics, including environmental groups, governors, and state attorneys general, said the administration was using the Sept. 11 atacks as an excuse to undermine important environmental protections.

Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, which oversees the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), argued that the exemption endangers the country’s wildlife heritage and compromises its international treaty obligations. The MBTA, the oldest conservation law in the US, commits the US to cooperate with Canada, Mexico, Japan and Russia in protecting migratory birds. (Washington Post)

Blacks hurt more by power plant pollution

Blacks are more likely than whites to live near areas polluted by power plants and suffer adverse health consequences as a result, civil rights and environmental activists said Oct 23. Several US health groups, including the Atlanta-based Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda and Washington-based Black Leadership forum, released a study showing that 68 percent of blacks lived within 30 miles of a coal-fired plant, compared with 56 percent of US whites. Thirty miles is the distance within which people experience the maximum effects of smokestack emissions, the study said.

According to Ulla Reeves, regional air director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an environmental group, power plants are some of the most significant contributors to air pollution. She believes that a national policy is needed to clean up coal plant emissions.

A variety of factors influence housing trends. However, a leading reason that blacks, who have higher poverty rates, tend to live closer to coal-fired plants and in areas with poor-quality air is that housing in such places tends to be cheaper. As a result, asthma hospitalization rates are about three times greater for blacks than for whites, and the death rate from asthma among blacks is twice that for whites. (Reuters)

Irradiated food gains foothold in US

The US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) this week made two landmark decisions regarding irradiated food, one allowing imports of irradiated fruits and vegetables, and the other allowing irradiated meat to be served to schoolchildren.

The importation decision became effective Oct. 30 when it was published in the federal register, according to Anna Cherry, spokeswoman for USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Alisa Harrison, spokeswoman for the USDA, said Oct. 25 that schools will be allowed to buy irradiated meat for use in school lunches by the end of the year. She emphasized that doing so will be optional.

Irradiated food is highly controversial because of the fact that the process destroys vitamins and minerals and can cause chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects to develop. Many consumer and environmental groups are strongly opposed to the use of irradiation, while the meat industry has been urging its acceptance, saying it will make its products safer.

The decisions are proving to be a blessing for corporations. Meat companies are already urging the USDA to start a pilot program for buying irradiated ground beef for the nation’s schoolchildren. Importation of exotic fruits and vegetables will likely rise considerably. The decision also helped boost shares of SureBeam Corp., a manufacturer of food irradiation equipment. “This new USDA rule will allow us to expand our patented SureBeam technology into the major agricultural markets around the world,” said Larry Oberkfell, president of the company. (Reuters, NYT)