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Not Without Us - Organizing Our Way to Solve the Climate Crisis
Aug 28, 2017
On December 12th, 2015, when the halls of the Bourget erupted in applause with the signing of the United Nations Climate Change Accords in Paris, climate justice activists recognized a different reality.
The Paris Agreement signed by nearly 200 nations was an affirmation that national governments, despite all of the fanfare, were unable to address the roots of the climate crisis. For the international Climate Justice Movement it was yet another reinforcement of what they already knew: the only way to truly address climate crisis is to organize on a local, city and state level if we are to have any hope of real change.
"The only way to truly address climate crisis is to organize on a local, city and state level if we are to have any hope of real change."
Fast forward to the U.S. elections of 2016, the glaring shortcomings of the Paris Accord came into full view. As a filmmaker who followed seven grassroots activists as they organized to have the voices of the people heard at the COP 21, it was bittersweet news, but not without some sardonic retribution. Not that any of the activists have said it, but I have fantasized all of them standing in unison, shoulders shrugging, saying, "We told you so."
Of course, they would never gloat, because many are neck deep on the front lines of the climate crisis and all of its intertwined issues. Nnimmo Bassey of the Niger Delta faces the ravages of oil extraction on a daily basis. Pablo Solon, a former ambassador to the United Nations, who lives in the high Andes region of Bolivia, witnesses the drying of glacial lakes and currently faces trumped up charges for speaking out against injustices.
But none of the activists are shy about pointing out the shortcomings of the acclaimed agreement.
One of the key aspects glossed over by mainstream media is the fact that the entire agreement, driven largely by the United States, was voluntary and non-binding. With no fear of legal ramifications, Trump and his Cabinet of special interests were able to implement their agenda of corporate greed over scientific fact. By denouncing the findings of 99% of climate scientists that the warming of the planet is due to human activity, the U.S., and subsequently the world, bowed once again to the powerful lobbies of Big Oil.
While the COP 21 had aspirations of keeping temperature increases to 1.5 to 2 degrees centigrade, the reality of the aspirational commitments add up to over 3 degrees centigrade. It should be noted that the temperature increase is an average for the globe. For Sub-Saharan Africa it would mean a genocidal 4.5 degree centigrade increase. Aspirations will not stop the heat waves, droughts and massive migration that are sure to come with these non-binding commitments.
Perhaps nothing is more astounding than the revelation that after 21 years of negotiations, painstaking research and countless hours of technical quibbling, there is a glaring omission of two key words: fossil fuels.
No mention of fossil fuels in the entire agreement. Could it be an oversight from negotiating fatigue? Perhaps a notetaking error by scribes? There was plenty of talk about carbon offset trading schemes as well as untested and dangerous geoengineering technologies to cool the planet. But no mention of reducing the dependence on fossil fuels.
Again, Climate Justice activists were not surprised. With the big oil corporations having a dominant presence at the COP 21 Solutions Expo in the glorious Grand Palais in Paris, the hypocrisies were on full display. While touting their clean energy programs, it took activists to point out Big Oil's behind-the-scenes campaigns to block solar energy initiatives and their push for coal fired power plants and fracking throughout Europe.
These, among many other aspects of the agreement, reveal the corporate capture of the U.N. process. The activists are keen to point out that neoliberal economic policies based on infinite growth have driven developed nations to create the greatest inequality in history and at the same time are causing the destruction the planet. Their chants still ring in my ears: "System change, not climate change." It's time.
As with the making of any film, I have learned a great deal. The labyrinthine machinations of the U.N. Conference of the Parties, and their 21 year journey to achieve the Paris Accords was interesting to be sure. And like all of the activists in the film, I recognize the importance of the symbolism of nearly 200 nations agreeing that climate change is real. But how do we get to the actual change that we need?
My greatest revelation in making Not Without Us was far more personal in nature. In getting to know the activists, their personal stories, their struggles, I was most struck by their own moments of transformation. The moments that changed their lives and sent them on this path that brought them all to a cold winter in Paris, to stand up for us all, despite the horrendous terror attack in France two weeks before the climate negotiations were to begin. Their resilience to move forward and continue organizing in the face of a government crackdown on protests revealed to me that organizing for deep systemic change is not for the faint at heart.
More importantly, that the transformation that took place in all of them is possible in all of us. That we all need to find that inspiration, either from hardship, or birth from ignorance, to join the movement ourselves. To organize, get out into the streets, our town halls and into the faces of our political leaders to demand change. Our children, grandchildren and our Madre Tierra are counting on us.
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Green Climate Fund: Where Big Banks Profit Again from Crisis They Helped Create
Letting big financial institutions manage climate adaptation funds 'would pose serious reputational and moral risk' to global body
Mar 07, 2016
As the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the financial mechanism for the UN climate agency, meets this week in South Korea, more than 170 civil society groups are calling on the international body to reject bids from big banks HSBC and Credit Agricole to receive and manage funds to help poorer nations tackle climate change.
Given their role in financing climate pollution and their poor records on human and environmental rights, approving the financial giants' applications would run counter to the Fund's goals, the groups say.
"Creating new business for big banks with large fossil fuel portfolios and poor records on human rights and financial scandal would undermine the very purpose of the Fund," said Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth U.S. on Monday.
"There is no profit to be made in building the resilience of those adversely impacted by climate change," added Sam Ogallah of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance. "Public funds must be used to support local communities in developing countries, not to subsidize big banks."
What's more, "accrediting HSBC and Credit Agricole would be inconsistent with...the Paris Agreement," said Annaka Peterson of Oxfam, referring to the deal hammered out at the COP21 climate talks. "Any private sector partner of the GCF must have a credible strategy in place to make its entire portfolio and operations consistent with keeping global temperature rise to no more than 2 degC, let alone well below 1.5 degC."
Friends of the Earth, Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, and Oxfam are just three of 172 NGOs that released a statement (pdf) earlier this month arguing that offering accreditation to HSBC and Credit Agricole "would pose serious reputational and moral risk to the GCF" due to the banks' historic conduct, including:
- Well-documented involvement in recent money laundering or other fiduciary mismanagement scandals;
- Large exposure to the coal industry and other climate polluting sectors; and
- Poor-quality policies and weak compliance arrangements meant to manage the social, gender, and environmental impacts of their lending, and consequent harm on-the-ground.
For example, a report from BankTrack has shown that HSBC and Credit Agricole provided $7 billion and $9.5 billion, respectively, to the coal industry between 2009 and 2014, "and their coal financing does not show a clear downward trend," notes BankTrack's Yann Louvel.
The Fund's board meeting runs Tuesday through Thursday in Songdo, South Korea. GCF executive director Hela Cheikhrouhou told the Thomson Reuters Foundation last week that she will ask for an increase of between 80 and 120 new staff in order to meet its targets. She also said it was too early to say whether the Fund could meet the board's goal to allocate $2.5 billion in 2016.
This isn't the first time the Fund has engendered criticism from climate justice groups or frontline communities, who say developed nations, despite their role in driving global warming, have been slow to pony up the necessary--and just--financing.
Last year, environmental and social justice organizations expressed outrage when the Fund accredited Deutsche Bank, one of the world's largest financiers of coal, to receive and distribute climate adaptation and mitigation funds.
"We want the Green Climate Fund to succeed," groups wrote at the time. "But for it to do so, it needs to change direction away from accrediting controversial big banks that are heavily invested in fossil fuels and thus actually exacerbating climate change. If the [Green Climate Fund] continues in such a direction, this would reinforce our fears that in the near future we may have to protest an institution we have thus far been supportive of and integral to creating."
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'The Warning Bells are Deafening': Super El Niño Threatening Global Hunger Crisis
Stark warning aimed at those likely to be ravaged by record weather system, as well as wealthy governments indebted to nations most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change
Dec 14, 2015
As many as 50 million people across the world face potential hunger, disease, and water shortages by early 2016 if countries do not act immediately, declared Oxfam International on Monday, addressing those nations predicted to be ravaged by this year's Super El Nino as well as wealthy governments indebted to those most vulnerable to climate change.
"The warning bells are deafening," said Meg Quartermaine, humanitarian manager with Oxfam Australia, which issued the warning on the same day that the powerful Typhoon Melor made landfall in the Philippines, forcing the evacuation of 725,000 people.
The Philippines is among the countries that the global anti-poverty group has previously identified as having a food supply already threatened by the impacts of climate change. The typhoons and other extreme weather events that are being predicted under, what could be "the most powerful El Nino on record" are expected to drive millions of people in the Pacific rim region, and across the globe, into even more dire straits.
Monday's report (pdf) said that Papua New Guinea will likely bear the brunt of this season's "super charged weather phenomenon," with the country's National Disaster Committee estimating that as many as 3 million people are at risk of starvation, "as crop failures force many people to cut back to eating just one meal a day."
While that nation--along with Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, and Tonga--are "experiencing worsening drought, central Pacific countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu will likely see intense rain causing flooding and higher sea levels," the report states.
What's more, the warning comes on top of a recent scientific study which found that heightened greenhouse gas emissions will likely exacerbate the naturally-occurring El Nino phenomenon and drive global temperatures to record highs.
The stark report comes just days after global leaders adopted the landmark Paris Agreement in an effort to stem the growing crisis of climate change. While the COP21 pact made strides in limiting countries' greenhouse gas emissions and capitulated to the demands of small island nations to limit warming to 1.5degC, it failed to hold the world's richest and most polluting nations accountable for their outsized role in driving the global emergency.
"This is a wake-up call for those on the way home from the UN climate conference," Quartermaine said of the Oxfam report. "Emissions targets must be rapidly strengthened if we are to ensure the goal of limiting warming to below 2degC or 1.5degC can be met. And more funding is required for vulnerable communities to adapt to increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather."
The group commends the Australian government for committing $9 million to support Papua New Guinea and other countries in the Pacific in order to prepare for and mitigate the effects of El Nino. However, Quartermaine adds that "it is clear that much more will be needed over coming months as the impacts of this potentially unprecedented El Nino event become greater."
"This is a crisis on a huge global scale," she adds.
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