Durban Climate Talk Debacle: Big polluters sidestep as family farmers push for real commitments

By Michelle Rostampour

The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban closed successfully— that is, for the large carbon emitters seeking to block legally-binding carbon emissions reduction agreements. While the goal of the convention was to advance the implementation of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, the Cancun Agreements, and the Bali Action Plan, the main outcome was little more than a promise from obstructionist nations (led by the United States) to make a future commitment in 2015, which would come into effect in 2020. The Bali Action Plan has been deserted and the Kyoto Protocols abandoned by all but the EU, inspiring little confidence in future promises.

Nnimmo Bassey, the Chair of Friends of the Earth International, stated: “Delaying real action until 2020 is a crime of global proportions. An increase in global temperatures of four degrees Celsius, permitted under this plan, is a death sentence for Africa, small island states, and the poor and vulnerable worldwide. This summit has amplified climate apartheid, whereby the richest 1% of the world have decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice the 99%.”

A decision on industrial agriculture—responsible for up to 40% of all carbon emissions—will now be made in 2012 at COP 18 in Qatar. While the Green Revolution institutions like the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) gushed that this was a “victory for food and farming” others realize that this simply opens the door for industrial agriculture to enter carbon markets (In other words, now the giant monocultural soybean plantations devastating the forests and rural livelihoods across Latin America will get paid to plant roundup ready, genetically modified soy.) This strategy ignores the urgent need for concrete steps to mitigation, remediation and adaptation of agriculture to climate change and according to international peasant federation Vía Campesina, treats agriculture “as a carbon sink rather than a source of food and livelihood.” For these green farmers, “the logic of carbon markets and trading run counter to the system of agroecology and should not be allowed to enter into agriculture.”

The challenge currently facing climate victims is how to be heard.

Steps are already being taken by activists concerned with the outcome of Durban. And the major point of consensus amongst such actors is that global cooperation will be essential. 350.org has posted a piece called Courage in South Africa highlighting the diversity of voices that joined together in Durban during the talks to demand climate justice. The efforts of those in Durban and around the world, while inspiring, will need to be amplified by spreading consciousness, building alliances, and developing effective strategies.

Meanwhile, the food justice and food sovereignty movements have an important contribution to the struggle. In the groundbreaking new book, Food Movements Unite!, Brian Tokar, Olivier de Schutter and La Via Campesina detail the power that agro-ecological peasant agriculture has to cool down the planet by trapping carbon while releasing fewer pollutants, putting agriculture “on a path to sustainability, by delinking food production from our reliance on fossil energy” (235). These methods have also proven to be more suited for the outcomes of climate change already being felt. Industrial agriculture is not only unsustainable on a local level but—as a contributor to climate change— on a global level as well.

Defending and creating just and sustainable food systems has a clear role to play in defending the right of the 99% to live safely. Famine and water issues must be recognized as problems that will only increase in scale as average temperatures increase: estimates predict that crop yields in certain regions of Africa could drop to half of current production within the next generation if emissions are not curbed. The price of food is also expected to rise twofold in the next 20 years, largely as a result of climate change. For these reasons, Pablo Salon, former Bolivian ambassador to the UN, concluded that the outcome of the COP17 (which he dubs “a mandate to do nothing”) amounts to genocide and ecocide . Watch Salon Interview.

As movements around the world are attempting to force governments to care for people over profits, the response of global civil society to the outcome of the COP17—which blatantly favored corporate profit over the public good— will serve as a litmus test for the capacity of global activism. Importantly, we’ve already seen solidarity events spring up such as the Week of Action promoted by Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and La Via Campesina to Stop the 1% from Profiting from Pollution, and to Lift up Community Solutions that Cool the Planet! The urgency of global warming’s predicted outcomes demands large-scale, coordinated efforts, and a holistic approach, bringing together as many movements as possible, will be essential to the creation of a worldwide climate justice movement.

Note:
Farming Carbon Credits a Con for Africa: The many faces of climate smart agriculture by Teresa Anderson, the GAIA Foundation.

"African Agriculture has been ignored by UN Climate Change discussions!" bellowed the South African minister for Agriculture, Tina Joemat-Pettersen at the high-level launch of Climate Smart Agriculture during the Durban climate negotiations. "We need your ideas to over throw this dictatorship of Climate Change! No Agriculture, No Deal!"

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