Are you among those disillusioned with the results of the Climate Summit in Copenhagen last December? Do you fear capitalist solutions to climate change? Can you imagine an agreement that seeks the counsel of those who stand to suffer the most from climate change? Yes? Then you would have been in good company in Bolivia last week.
People from around the world met in Cochabamba, Bolivia April 19th-22nd for the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Called by Bolivia’s president Evo Morales, this conference was essentially a backlash against December’s summit in Copenhagen. Feeling that developing nations were excluded in the development of what he refers to as an “unacceptable compromise,” Morales refused to sign the accord that came out of the summit. “…Bolivia will not accept an agreement reached between the world’s biggest polluters that is based on the exclusion of the very countries, communities, and people who will suffer the most from the consequences of climate change,” Morales said. So, he called the People’s Conference, saying, “…if governments could not come to an agreement because of self-interest or ideology, it is time for the people to decide.”
And while the people have not yet decided, they certainly have spoken. Central to many of the agreements made at this conference were the ideas of climate justice/climate debt—that under-emitting countries ought to be compensated for the damage caused to their ecosystems by developed nations who have collectively emitted a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gases. They framed climate change as a product of the capitalist system and urged a solution that honors and seeks the wisdom of indigenous peoples rather than one that utilizes capitalism (a la carbon compensation schemes, carbon trading, or other profit-based financial mechanisms.) The declarations forged at this conference will be presented by President Morales at the upcoming Climate Conference in Cancun as an alternative to the Copenhagen Accord.
The intent of this conference reminds me of a definition of sustainability, presented in Rees, Wackernagel, and Testemale’s “Our Ecological Footprint”: living in material comfort and peacefully with each other within the means of nature. The over 31,000 attendees expressed solidarity in putting forward a democratic, inclusive, and equitable approach to addressing climate change. And while this approach is far from simple and anything but easy, it is, I think, the only way towards a truly just and sustainable world.
To find out more about the World People’s Conference and to read the People’s Agreement, check out: http://pwccc.wordpress.com.
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