Citizen Summit Day 2

Other breakout sessions over the weekend included green jobs, disaster preparedness, sustainable cities transportation, SCP, food security; local, state, provincial & regional action; interfaith and nonpartisan action, conservation, energy efficiency, fisheries, education; new indicators, measurement and verification, and "un-conference" proposals from participants. The overall emphasis was on developing citizen advocacy for Rio+20.

Kari Fulton, EJCC. Paul St Pierre-Plamondon, Génération d'Idées

I attended a breakout on climate justice by Kari Fulton of EJCC. Because of the long struggle of an Afro Americans and other minorities against environmental dumping in their neighborhoods, they have much experience to offer. She also urged international solidarity with grassroots Local Justice, Via Campesina, and Climate Justice Now. There is a historic misuse of power by the rich countries, allied with local elites in the poor countries–a situation protested by a Vandana Shiva in Earth Democracy. Evo Morales, the 1st indigenous president of Bolivia, held a world conference of the poor at Cochabamba in 2010. In the US there was almost no press coverage. Wiki leaks showed that the United States blackmailed governments to join the Copenhagen Accord; those that did not, had their aid cut. As a program of action she proposed the 10 principles for just climate policies in the US.

Plenaries in the 2nd day: coalition building for Rio+20 explored reasons for coalition, expanding beyond the local, pulling together resources and ideas, UN prepcoms, reaching new groups. There will be monthly conference calls you. A guide to house parties and other organizing methods is available.

In the afternoon, we heard from David Malone of the American Sustainable Business Council, who called for a combination of citizen and corporate greening, including environmental justice and indigenous stakeholders. Voluntary commitments are extremely important but systemic changes are also needed. How can we connect the indicators? How can we act within the required time? He was followed by Law Prof. John Dernbach of Widener University who said that what he was witnessing here was the merchants of sustainable development movement. I've been teaching this since 1992 and see increasing connections between different experts, you are now moving into citizen action. His new book is titled Acting as if Tomorrow Matters.

A number of other speakers offered visions and comments on the UN process. They are better seen in the live videos (links are to be posted on the Summit site) particularly those of Mexico's rep to the UNCSD, Jorge Laguna-Celis.

For updates and new contributions see:
Yale SFES Sage Magazine's blog from the summit
rio20-social-media@googlegroups.com
rio20.net
mobilize-us.org
citnet.org
earthsummit.ca
sustainus.org

At the US-Canada Citizen Summit, Yale University

  The U.S./Canada Citizens’ Summit for Sustainable Development held at Yale University School of Forestry  Environmental Studies March 24-25, 2012 was organized by Yale students, faculty and staff, with the Citizens Network for Sustainable Development, We Canada, the Natural Resources Defense Council, SustainUS, and the Human Impact Institute. It aims to foster coherent, effective citizen advocacy for the UN Rio +20  conference.

The first day opened with a panel discussion “20 years after Rio–why are we not there yet?”
Dan Esty of Connecticut Department of Energy (former deputy head Rio 1992 US delegation) said the present lack of political will was due to 1. the absence of a firm scientific basis, clearly acknowledging uncertainty and trade-offs; 2. absence of policy choices that appeal to  business e.g. Stephen Schmidthemy's energy efficiency; 3. politics of moral righteousness which are insufficient to gain wide support.

Jacob Scheer of NDRC lauded Rio 1992 for laying the foundations of Agenda 21, two treaties and forest commitments. 150 countries set up policy institutions, 86 established plans, thousands of cities joined in, corporations accepted the idea of a “triple bottom line”. 1992 was a climax of 1950s activism, with top-down, one-size-fits-all planning. This faded due to lack of leadership on emissions cuts and direct aid to poor countries. The public was not engaged we can learn from the last 20 years. There are no 1.2 billion more humans, 40 500 million emerging from poverty, coal use has doubled and climate change is now an immediate crisis–not one for the grandchildren. Other changes: we are crossing planetary boundaries, globalization has eroded state power e.g. Walmart has more income than 100 countries, Gates foundation is bigger than WHO; digital revolution has given us 6 billion cell users, 2 million on Internet, engaging people directly. Hopes to mobilize public opinion and generate commitments from the bottom up.

Yale Forestry & Env. Studies Kroon Hall

For J.L."Kimo" Goree of IISD's Environmental Negotiations Bulletin, Rio 2012 is no 1992.  The enabling resolution would not be possible today. The 1992 deal was never fulfilled -- no technological transfer and no direct aid to poor countries; doomed by globalization (1994 WTO, emphasis on trade not aid) and the loss of the peace dividend; never-ending negotiations. See his new book The Road from Rio. The correct Zero Draft is a dog's breakfast, lacking ambition and vision, showing loss of enthusiasm for international agreements, and infighting between UN agencies. Unlike 1992, UN DESA is currently underfunded, understaffed and unable to do the necessary preparations. In 1992 there were 400 pages. In 2012 there are only 2 themes: the green economy and sustainable development. No binding commitments. Where is the “should”? Where are best practices? Where are the means of getting there? For instance at the recent Rio+2.0 conference at Stanford http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/rio20-conference, entrepreneurs, corporations and practitioners enthusiastically discussed how IT could help.
Esty: the US rejected the idea of reining in consumption and finance; Agenda 21 was part of the problem, lost focus with too many priorities, social priorities swamped sustainable development.
Scheer: civil society can provide the lost vision, focus on action plans and accountability. If each country and each corporation said here's what I'm doing, here's where I need help. We have to escape from the situation where everybody is promising and no one is responsible. We hope for a social media wave starting on Earth Day 2012.
Goree: IEAWG commitments were made in 2009. I support a call for commitments so we can monitor compliance. There were at Rio 1992 specific promises to reaffirm  0.7% GNP for direct aid  -- rich countries failed. Weasel words. The US omitted itself in this text because it had never "affirmed" this level of aid.
Esty: Degrowth and reducing consumption will fail in the USA. Those values are too alien. We need to harness the market, create incentive structures.

Gail Karlsson and Michael Dorsey

I attended the morning session on energy, and the afternoon breakout session on interfaith activity (one of many). A huge range of actions and hopes, difficult to summarize. Lots of useful contacts.

Afternoon plenaries:
The UNGA High-level Panel on Global Sustainability was discussed by Prof. Ben Cashore of Yale, Georgios Kostakos of the GS panel, and Jim Balsillie of RIM/BlackBerry, who called it a new paradigm for growth, choice and resilience. He challenged us to use social media to construct visions, and to avoid righteousness and top-down solutions

John Matuszak of the US State Department said it will not treat Rio +20 as an environmental negotiation but operate under presidential order 1000 (??) ; it will challenge civil society to create voluntary commitments, partnerships with business, and find an integrating principle. The Zero Draft is a voluntary document, trying to be all things to all people. Everybody is committed to everything, but there is no responsibility for anyone. Civil society can use social media to hold parties to their commitments. Rio can reset the UN process to focus on development as well as the environment, involving all parts of society [especially business]. The US wants to scale back the Zero Draft, cutting it down to a short document that identifies a few goals. Could be accompanied by an Internet "compendium of commitments" with civil society acting as watchdogs, and web-based geospatial data.

Prof Ben Cathore noted the launching of GEM: Government, Environment and Markets initiative at Yale.

Dianne Dillon-Ridgley

Dianne Dillon-Ridgley closed the session by thanking her ancestors and her grandchildren, and quoting Maya Angelou: One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, fruitful, generous, or honest.

The illusion of a "Green Economy" -- Leonardo Boff

Reprinted from the Rio+20 People's Portal (which is worth checking regularly) Boff's critique of the UN Green Economy proposal to sell the world's commons to raise money for climate action and MDGs (because rich countries have for decades denied direct aid), comes from Brazil's leading liberation theologian. Similar protests from poor countries and ecojustice NGOs will be heard at next week's World Social Forum Thematic Social Forum preparing for Rio+20, in Porto Alegre, Brazil and the New York City Global Civil Society Workshop on the Rio+20 “Zero Draft” and Rights for Sustainability. Meanwhile, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at Davos, and UNCSD in its pre-Rio meetings, have aligned themselves with the Business Action for Sustainable Development corporate lobby for public-private partnerships, carbon finance and corporate offsets.

Boff, The Tao of Liberati

Everything we do to protect our living planet, Earth, against forces that upset her equilibrium and therefore cause global warming, is valid and must be supported. But the very expression "global warming" masks phenomena such as the extended droughts that decimate the grain harvests, the great floods and hurricanes, water shortages, soil erosion, hunger, impoverishment of 15 of the 24 services numbered in the Evaluation of Ecosystems of the Earth (UNO) and which are responsible for the sustainability of the planet (water, energy, soil, seeds, fibers, etc..) The central question is not even that of saving the Earth. The Earth takes care of herself and, if necessary, she will do so by expelling us from her womb. But how are we to save ourselves and our civilization? That is the real question, to which the majority responds by shrugging their shoulders.

Lower carbon emissions, organic products, solar and wind power, reducing our intervention in nature’s rhythms, seeking to replace the resources used, recycling, everything that falls under the rubric of green economy is sought after and disseminated. And this mode of production should prevail. 

Even so, we must not be deluded and lose our critical awareness. Green economy is discussed to avoid the issue of sustainability, because it is contrary to the present mode of production and consumption. But deep down, the green economy utilizes measures within the paradigm of dominating nature. The green and the not-green do not exist. There are elements that are toxic to the health of the Earth and society in various phases of the production of all products. Through the Analysis of the Cycle of Life we can demonstrate and monitor the complex interrelations between the different phases: extraction, transportation, production, use and discharge of each product, and its environmental impact. It is clear that the so-called green is not as green as it sounds. The green only represents a phase of processing. Production is never eco-friendly.

Take as an example ethanol, considered to be clean energy, and an alternative to fossil fuels and dirty energy from oil. Ethanol is clean only at the mouth of the fuel pump. All the processes of its production are highly polluting: the chemical products applied to the soil, the burnings, the transportation in big trucks that release gasses, the affluent liquids and the chaff. The pesticides kill bacteria and expel the earthworms that are fundamental to the regeneration of the soil; they only return after five years.

To ensure production of the goods necessary for life, in a way which neither stresses nor degrades nature, something more than the search for the green is required. The crisis is conceptual, not economic. Our relationship with the Earth has to change. We are part of Gaia, and through our careful actions we can help her become more conscious, and create a greater opportunity for assuring her vitality.

The Earth Charter

I see no path to saving ourselves other than that defined by the Earth Charter [final section]: "Our common destiny calls us to search for a new beginning; this requires a change in the mind and in the heart; it demands a new awareness of global interdependency and of universal responsibility".

Change of mind: adopt a new concept of the Earth as Gaia. She does not belong to us, but to the [web] of eco-systems that serve the totality of life, regulating her biophysical base and the climates. She created the entire community of life, not just us. We are her conscious and responsible segment. The hardest work is done by our invisible partners, a true natural proletariat, the microorganisms, the bacteria and the fungi, of which there are thousands of millions in each tablespoon of Earth. They have effectively sustained life for 3.8 thousand million years already. Our relationship with the Earth should be like our relationship with our mothers: one of respect and gratitude. We should gratefully restore that which she gives us, and maintain her vital capacity.

-- Leonardo Boff

See also the post-Durban Proposal of Bolivia to Rio+20 on the PWCCC website, Federico Fuentes' Bolivia Rising, and the Andean Buen Vivir and Minga movements; Asian reactions in Preliminary comments by Third World Network on the Zero Draft of Rio+20 and subsequent updates on TWN.org.sg

A Call to Integrate Faith, Ecology and the Global Economy

Last week at its annual meeting in Chicago, Quaker Earthcare Witness approved sending to UNCSD as a statement of goals for Rio+20:

A Call to Integrate Faith, Ecology and the Global Economy by over 100 faith groups (signatories below) -- this 12 Nov 2009 declaration comes from the Faith Economy Ecology group in the USA started by Maryknoll, joined by Quakers and others. In Canada, Faith and the Common Good and Kairoscanada have made similar statements. See also the June 2010 declaration from the Interfaith Summit in Winnipeg, the 2004 World Alliance of Reformed Churches’ (WARC) Accra Confession, and the Oct 2010 World Council of Churches' Budapest Call for Climate Justice.

***

As hope-filled people, we stand in awe of Earth’s goodness and its capacity to provide abundant life for all God’s creation. We recognize our interconnection with Earth — with air, water, land, plants and other creatures. We recognize the dignity of the human person as an individual and as part of a community. We embrace our power and responsibility to create a human economy that fits within Earth’s ecological boundaries, more authentically serves human needs and builds community.
We envision:
    •    A new economic model that embodies social and ecological values bound by Earth’s biophysical limits.
    •    A sufficiency-based economy where all people, regardless of gender, race or other characteristics, equitably share access to Earth’s gifts that nourish and sustain them: nutritious food, clean water, suitable shelter; where “development” is measured by a society’s success in increasing human well being while preserving ecological balance rather than by its gross domestic product.
    •    A just global distribution of resources, knowledge and technology such that well-being flourishes in communities of less industrialized nations that have experienced “underdevelopment” – and “de-growth,” or downsizing occurs in communities in industrialized nations that use a disproportionate share of Earth’s resources.
    •    A world where all have secure, meaningful, and ecologically responsible livelihoods and where human activity, based on cooperation, promotes ecological regeneration, the preservation of beauty and the restoration of previous damage.
    •    A “closed loop” real economy where recycling and reuse are maximized.
    •    People with sufficient resources, opportunities, freedom, and time to care for one another, engage in civic life, expand their creativity, and deepen their spirituality.
    •    Communities living in peace with sufficient public resources and freely shared knowledge to ensure health and wholeness for Earth and all its inhabitants.
    •    Governance that is participatory and transparent, through which policy decisions are made as locally as possible, consistent with the reality that every locality is part of a global society.
Yet we witness:
    •    The destructive power of a growth-driven economic model that ignores Earth’s limits and its need to rest and regenerate.
    •    The valuing of money and material goods more than humans and ecosystems.
    •    The inherent violence of an economy that grows along with the wealth of a few individuals and corporations while the natural world and human well being – the clearest signs of God’s bounty – suffer and deteriorate.
    •    The use of international financial institutions, corporate lobbying and marketing, think tanks, major media and military force to secure the wealth and power of a small part of society while a great many others, especially women and people of color are often excluded.
    •    “Free trade” and economic globalization that increase ecological depletion and leave masses of people vulnerable through deeper poverty and insufficient access to food, water, education and health care.
    •    The loss of people, cultures, species and traditional knowledge forced aside as our lives are dominated by a world view that seeks economic growth regardless of the consequences;
    •    Soul-deadening over-consumption and the endless quest for “more” that paralyzes far too many people in wealthier societies.
We also witness the sheer increase in throughput of material and energy in the economy due to expanding consumer demand and economic growth that contribute to climate change, species extinctions, loss of biodiversity, depletion of freshwater and other resources, ocean dead zones, topsoil degradation, deforestation, dying coral reefs and the decimation of ocean fish stocks.
We stand firm in our commitment to a new way of life and a different economy, based on the integrity and dignity of all creation, the common good, ecological health and resilience, sufficiency, equality, solidarity, caring for the most vulnerable and impoverished, and decision-making at the most local level possible. This will require innumerable inter-related changes; among them, the four that follow will serve to guide our work:
1) Paradigm Shift in Mindset and Values: An essential shift from an ethic of exploitation to an ethic of right relationship is essential for individuals and for society. This will entail change from a focus on material goods to holistic well-being; from excess to sufficiency; from exclusion to inclusion; from competition to cooperation; from pursuing privilege to serving the common good; from the pre-eminence of humanity to the reverence for all life.
Toward this end we will be guided by the wisdom of our sacred scriptures and religious traditions, especially Sabbath traditions of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and the inclusive table of Jesus, which
    •    provides enough for everyone, with no one storing up more than is needed;
    •    cares for the widow, orphan, stranger and traveler;
    •    honors a weekly Sabbath, providing rest and human restraint from busy, frenetic economic activities;
    •    allows the land to rest every seven years;
    •    decrees a Jubilee every 50 years, when slaves are freed, debts cancelled and families have their land restored to them; and
    •    models the breaking of bread, by creating strong communities built on care for one another.
2) Public policies for an Economy of Right Relationship: Starting from the deep recognition that the economy must fit within Earth’s limits – where resources are not used faster than they can be regenerated and wastes are not deposited faster than they can be safely assimilated. Policies must change to move toward a steady state economy in overdeveloped industrial countries and sustainable development in impoverished countries. Current institutions and rules must change so that individuals, communities and whole societies can participate equitably in the economy and share in Earth’s bounty. Financial institutions should embrace the principle of subsidiarity, allowing decisions to be made at the most local level possible. Priority should be given to policies that distribute wealth widely and decentralize economic power.
Toward this end we will seek to understand more fully what transformations are required to attain economic right relationship. We will promote a serious reorientation of the global economy away from growth and toward human development. We will pursue changes in laws, policies, international agreements, and institutions to create a more durable, resilient and fair economy. We will examine our lifestyles and decrease consumption. We will advocate for sustainable levels of resource use and safe quantities of waste production, including equitably assigned reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
3) An Economy of Thriving and Resilient Communities: In living the new paradigm and strengthening its hold on society we will shift from a perception of ourselves as independent individuals to ourselves as interdependent members of thriving communities. All have something to contribute as we give and receive gifts and talents among neighbors through barter systems, cooperatives and worker-owned businesses. Community-based investment and economic development will help individuals to deepen their connection with the place where they live and will keep resources circulating locally. This will build community assets and strengthen social ties. We will embrace subsidiarity – decisions will be made at the local level by the very people whose lives are impacted most.
Toward this end we will learn more from the sustainable community-level examples known well by indigenous peoples and already functioning in our local communities in the United Sates and around the world, spread those ideas, participate in them ourselves and express our solidarity by supporting their efforts.
4) Return of Corporations to their proper place in society: In order to achieve the changes described above, it is clear that we must decrease the amount of influence that corporations wield in government and society in general. The reigning forces in our world should serve the interests of the common good, rather than the private interests of a wealthy few. Corporations should be accountable not only to shareholders, but also to, their workers, regulatory bodies, the communities in which they are embedded, and the natural world.
Toward this end we will study the history and design of the corporation to better understand its proper role in a just world. We will declare a separation of corporation and state and work for initiatives to decrease corporate influence in government, the media and our lives. We will work to stop reckless financial practices that exploit natural resources and people. We will help cultivate financial institutions that respect Earth’s limits and ensure economic participation with dignity for all people.
Our call to others: Grounded in our faith and speaking from our core principles and values, we call on people of good will to join us in re-examining the false panacea of a development model dependent on over-consumption. We seek a new understanding of the proper place for humans in the created world and right relationships within the human community and between the human and Earth communities. We place our hope in God’s grace and the human capacity to face all these challenges with innovation, faithfulness, and creativity and to ensure the common good so that all living things might flourish.
November 12, 2009
Signing Organizations
Adorers of the Blood of Christ, United States Region; 
Bartimaeus Cooperative
; Bernardine Franciscan Sisters; 
Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
; Center of Concern
; Collaborative Center for Justice; 
Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach
; Congregation of Divine Providence, Leadership Council
; Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes – Fond du Lac, WI; 
Congregation of the Humility of Mary
; Daughters of Charity, St. Louis, Provincial Council
Dominican Sisters, Grand Rapids, MI
; Dominican Sisters of Springfield Leadership team
; Dominicans of Sinsinawa Leadership
; Faith and Money Network, Inc.; 
Franciscan Action Network; 
Franciscan Sisters and Associates of Little Falls, Minnesota
; Franciscan Sisters of Allegany; 
Holy Cross International Justice Office; 
Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters JPIC, USA; 
International Presentation Association of Presentation Sisters (IPA)
; Leadership Conference of Women Religious; 
Leadership Council of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary – Monroe, Michigan
; Leadership Team Sisters of the Most Precious Blood, O’Fallon, MO; 
Loretto Community; 
Loretto Earth Network
; Maryknoll Affiliates
; Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
; Medical Mission Sisters Alliance for Justice; 
Medical Mission Sisters, Sector North India
; Mercy International Association
; National Catholic Rural Life Conference
; NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
; Pax Christi USA; 
PLANT (Partners for the Land and Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples); 
Presentation Peace and Justice Center
; Provincial Council of School Sisters of Notre Dame—Milwaukee Province
; Quaker Earthcare Witness; 
Racine Dominican Sisters
; ROAR (Religious Orders Along the River)
; ROW (Religious on Water); 
School Sisters of Notre Dame Shalom North America Coordinating Committee
; School Sisters of St. Francis, Milwaukee, Wisconsin – International; U.S. Province Leadership Teams
; Servants of Mary (Servite Sisters), Ladysmith, WI
; Sisters of Charity Federation
; Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati Leadership Council; 
Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth; 
Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Central Leadership
; Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul
; Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine Leadership Team
; Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary; 
Sisters of the Humility of Mary; 
Sisters of Mercy Mid-Atlantic Justice Office; 
Sisters of Mercy Northeast Community Justice Office
; Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
; Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross – USA Province
; Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur Justice and Peace Network
; Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Ohio Province Leadership Team
; Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, US National Team
; Sisters of the Presentation, San Francisco; 
Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, IN Leadership Team
; Sisters of Providence, Holyoke, MA Leadership Team; 
Sisters of St Joseph of Chambery/West Hartford, Justice and Peace Committee; 
Sisters of St. Francis leadership team, Tiffin, Ohio; 
Sisters of St. Francis of Dubuque, Iowa Leadership Team; 
Sisters of St. Francis, Clinton, Iowa Leadership; 
Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia Leadership; 
Sisters of St. Francis of Rochester, MN; 
Sisters of St. Francis, Savannah, MO
; Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet
; Sisters of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia
; Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester, NY
; Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield, Leadership Team; 
Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis Leadership; 
Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres District USA
; Sisters of the Divine Compassion
; Sisters of the Divine Savior, North American Province Leadership Team
; Sisters of the Holy Cross- Congregation Justice Committee; 
Sisters of the Holy Family, Fremont, California
; Sisters of the Presentation – Dubuque Leadership Team
; Spirituality and Ecological Hope
; St. Joseph of Cluny, Province of USA and Canada
; United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society
; Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland
; Ursuline Sisters of the Roman Union, Central Province

Individual Endorsers:
Anita Fearday; Anne Hablas; Joe Holland, Ph.D.; David Kane; Diane Guerin, RSM, Ph.D.; Frances O’Neill; Jeanne Clennon, CSC; Kathy McNeely; Marie Dennis; Marilyn Zugish; Maureen Walker; Fr. Paul Vaz, S.J., director, Loyolo Institute of Spirituality,Ecology & Leadership (LISEL); Peter C. Hinde, O.Carm; Sara Schley; Sister Emily Demuth,C.S.C.; Sister Janet Gardner, OSF; Sister Mary Walz – Daughters of Charity; Sister Sandra Lyons, OSF; Sr. Anne Frawley, PBVM; Sr. Janet Gottschalk, PhD; Sr. Marge Wissman; Sr. Rose Therese Nolta, SSpS; Bro. Brian McLauchlin, SVD

***

See also Oct 2011 statements by African churches in We Have Faith - Act Now for Climate Justice, the Vatican's condemnation of economic inequality and the unreformed world financial system, and Stakeholder Forum's Principles for the Green Economy reminding the UN of its previous commitments made at various conferences. The 15 principles are: equitable distribution of wealth; economic equity and fairness; intergenerational equity; precautionary approach; the right to development; internalization of externalities; international cooperation; international liability; information, participation and accountability; sustainable consumption and production (SCP); strategic, coordinated and integrated planning to deliver sustainable development, the green economy and poverty alleviation; a just transition; redefining well-being; gender equality; and safeguarding biodiversity and preventing pollution of any part of the environment.

Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature -- a campaign for Rio+20

On Earth Day, April 22, the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature launches an international campaign for the Rights of Nature to be recognized at the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit in 2012.

Global Alliance partners include the US Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF); Ecuador's Fundación Pachamama and its supporters in the Pachamama Alliance; Cormac Cullinan's EnAct International; Maud Barlow's Council of Canadians; Global Exchange, and many other NGOs; its Advisory Council includes Vandana Shiva.

Reference books:

Cormac Cullinan, Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice (2nd ed. 2011); The Rights of Nature (2011); Does Nature Have Rights? (2011) online with the full article by the co-founders of Pachamama Alliance; what follows is an excerpt.

The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature

By Natalia Greene and Bill Twist, co-founders of Pachamama Alliance in Ecuador

On the first days of September 2010, conscious individuals and organizations, with the background of having worked to promote the recognition and guarantee of Rights for Nature, met in Patate, Ecuador, in Hacienda Manteles, at the foot of the Tungurahua Volcano and gave rise to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.

Recognizing that exploitation, abuse, and contamination have caused the destruction, degradation and disruption of Mother Earth (1), putting all life at risk through phenomena such as climate change; the Global Alliance [warns of] a multi-dimensional crisis and collapse of an unsustainable system based on accumulation and disrespect for nature.

The Global Alliance, convinced that we are an interdependent living community, and recognizing that ancient native communities have always defended Mother Earth’s rights because those rights are innate to their cosmovision (2), recognize that nature is not an object or commodity, but a subject of inalienable rights to exist, maintain and integrally regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.

Its objective is to encourage the recognition and effective implementation (3) of the Rights of Nature through the creation of a world network of individuals and organizations that through active cooperation, collective action and legal tools, based on Rights of Nature as an idea whose time has come, can change the wrong direction towards which humanity is taking our Planet.

In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to include this recognition in its National Constitution. In the United States, more than 100 communities have included this recognition in their local ordinances. In April, 2010, Bolivia hosted the first Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba. The Global Alliance… encourages the UN adoption of the Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights….

The Global Alliance, aims at becoming a platform to share the experience and expertise of its
By driving Rights for Nature into law and creating global, national and local jurisdiction and cases that guarantee these Rights, will serve as a starting point to reproduce this concept virally though the world, invading systems of thought and juridical systems. The world could be a different place if crimes against Nature could be dealt internationally in an International Rights of Nature Court, if humans understood that they we are part of nature and whatever we do to the planet we do to each other.

The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature calls upon all organizations and people of the Earth to join in the Rights of Nature as an idea whose time has come. Mother Earth (3) and we, her children, are in extreme peril; we must unite and ACT NOW!

references to aboriginal traditions:
1 Pachamama: (Kichwa) Mother Earth, only broader, i.e. Mother Cosmos
2 Cosmovision: world view, philosophy of life
3 Minka: (Kichwa) collective community work for the betterment of all

Universal Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth

at April 22, 2010 World People’s Conference on Climate Change
 and the Rights of Mother Earth, Cochabamba, Bolivia

Preamble

We, the peoples and nations of Earth:

• considering that we are all part of Mother Earth, an indivisible, living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny;
• gratefully acknowledging that Mother Earth is the source of life, nourishment and learning and provides everything we need to live well;
• recognizing that the capitalist system and all forms of depredation, exploitation, abuse and contamination have caused great destruction, degradation and disruption of Mother Earth, putting life as we know it today at risk through phenomena such as climate change;
• convinced that in an interdependent living community it is not possible to recognize the rights of only human beings without causing an imbalance within Mother Earth;
• affirming that to guarantee human rights it is necessary to recognize and defend the rights of Mother Earth and all beings in her and that there are existing cultures, practices and laws that do so;
• conscious of the urgency of taking decisive, collective action to transform structures and systems that cause climate change and other threats to Mother Earth;
• proclaim this Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and call on the General Assembly of the United Nation to adopt it, as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations of the world, and to the end that every individual and institution takes responsibility for promoting through teaching, education, and consciousness raising, respect for the rights recognized in this Declaration and ensure through prompt and progressive measures and mechanisms, national and international, their universal and effective recognition and observance among all peoples and States in the world.

Article 1. Mother Earth
(1)  Mother Earth is a living being.
(2)  Mother Earth is a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.
(3)  Each being is defined by its relationships as an integral part of Mother Earth.
(4)  The inherent rights of Mother Earth are inalienable in that they arise from the same source as existence.
(5)  Mother Earth and all beings are entitled to all the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as may be made between organic and inorganic beings, species, origin, use to human beings, or any other status.
(6)  Just as human beings have human rights, all other beings also have rights which are specific to their species or kind and appropriate for their role and function within the communities within which they exist.
(7)  The rights of each being are limited by the rights of other beings and any conflict between their rights must be resolved in a way that maintains the integrity, balance and health of Mother Earth.

Article 2. Inherent Rights of Mother Earth
(1)  Mother Earth and all beings of which she is composed have the following inherent rights:
(a)  the right to life and to exist;
(b)  the right to be respected;
(c)  the right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free from human disruptions;
(d)  the right to maintain its identity and integrity as a distinct, self-regulating and interrelated being;
(e)  the right to water as a source of life;
(f)   the right to clean air;
(g)  the right to integral health;
(h)   the right to be free from contamination, pollution and toxic or radioactive waste;
(i)    the right to not have its genetic structure modified or disrupted in a manner that threatens it integrity or vital and healthy functioning;
(j)    the right to full and prompt restoration the violation of the rights recognized in this Declaration caused by human activities;
(2)  Each being has the right to a place and to play its role in Mother Earth for her harmonious functioning.
(3)  Every being has the right to wellbeing and to live free from torture or cruel treatment by human beings.

Article 3. Obligations of human beings to Mother Earth
(1)  Every human being is responsible for respecting and living in harmony with Mother Earth.
(2)  Human beings, all States, and all public and private institutions must:
(a)  act in accordance with the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;
(b)  recognize and promote the full implementation and enforcement of the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;
(c)  promote and participate in learning, analysis, interpretation and communication about how to live in harmony with Mother Earth in accordance with this Declaration;
(d)  ensure that the pursuit of human wellbeing contributes to the wellbeing of Mother Earth, now and in the future;
(e)  establish and apply effective norms and laws for the defence, protection and conservation of the rights of Mother Earth;
(f)   respect, protect, conserve and where necessary, restore the integrity, of the vital ecological cycles, processes and balances of Mother Earth;
(g)  guarantee that the damages caused by human violations of the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration are rectified and that those responsible are held accountable for restoring the integrity and health of Mother Earth;
(h)  empower human beings and institutions to defend the rights of Mother Earth and of all beings;
(i)    establish precautionary and restrictive measures to prevent human activities from causing species extinction, the destruction of ecosystems or the disruption of ecological cycles;
(j)    guarantee peace and eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons;
(k)  promote and support practices of respect for Mother Earth and all beings, in accordance with their own cultures, traditions and customs;
(l)    promote economic systems that are in harmony with Mother Earth and in accordance with the rights recognized in this Declaration.

Article 4. Definitions
(1)  The term “being” includes ecosystems, natural communities, species and all other natural entities which exist as part of Mother Earth.
(2)  Nothing in this Declaration restricts the recognition of other inherent rights of all beings or specified beings.

Sign up in any of four groups on Facebook. All are linked to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. Also Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. See videos of Maude Barlow (Council of Canadians), Vandana Shiva (Earth Democracy), and Shannon Biggs (Global Exchange) on Democracy Now 22 May, and GRIT-TV 20 May. 

Carbon Trading: how it works and why it fails -- by Oscar Reyes and Tamra Gilbertson

Carbon trading lies at the centre of global climate policy and is projected to become one of the world’s largest commodities markets, yet it has a disastrous track record since its adoption as part of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) administered by the UN.

Carbon Trading: how it works and why it fails (2009), by Oscar Reyes and Tamra Gilbertson, in Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation's Critical Currents series, shows the limitations of climate action within the assumptions of neoliberal economics. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the world’s largest carbon market, has failed to 'cap' emissions, while the Kyoto CDM routinely favours environmentally ineffective and socially unjust projects. Examples are given from CDM projects in Brazil, Indonesia, India and Thailand.

Cancún, the UN "green economy" and Rio+20 campaign, all propose ways of expanding the trading experiment -- with Copenhagen Accord pledges, REDD+, and PES. This report says it should be abandoned. There are many ways forward without carbon trading – subsidy shifting, energy efficiency, regulation and an FTT tax on financial speculation -- but there are no "market" short-cuts if climate change is to be addressed in a just and fair manner.

"Anyone who still thinks that creating a carbon casino can solve our climate crisis owes it to themselves to read this book. The most convincing and concise challenge to the green profiteers yet."Naomi Klein, author, The Shock Doctrine.

"Carbon markets are less about reducing emissions than making carbon cuts as cheap as possible for large corporations." – Maud Barlow, Blue Planet Project.

"The Copenhagen Accord effectively kills Kyoto, replacing it with voluntary commitments –- ineffective and dangerous. The Cancún text systematically excludes Cochabamba proposals of the World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change: full recognition of indigenous rights, rights for nature, an appeal tribunal. It gives a green light to REDD, rewarding those responsible for deforestation while dispossessing indigenous and forest dwellers." – Nick Buxton, Transnational Institute (TNI)

 ***

See also Asian NGOs' 27-point Platform for Climate Justice (2009),  and the Biodiversity justice declaration (Oct 2010).

Global changes -- indigenous peoples tell their stories

Poodwaddle earth clock: click on graphic for full screen
Indigenous elders tell stories of climate change. United Nations University's Traditional Knowledge Initiative has interviewed natives in Australia, Malawi, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Iran, Papua New Guinea, Tajikistan, Kirghyzstan, Ethiopia, Japan, Panama, Bolivia, Madagascar, Kalimantan, the Russian Altai and the Canadian Arctic. Here are two examples:

Tajik women


Kyrgyz pastoralists


See the previous post, and other videos at UNU Our World 2.0; and UN Foundation videos including Catastrophic Climate Change (7 min 2007) if UNFCCC negotiations fail. The sites Conversations with the Earth, Project Word, SIDS Many Strong Voices, and Indigenous Peoples’ Biocultural Climate Change Assessment Initiative (IPCCA) also have eyewitness stories. Report by the Sami indigenes of Norway.

Interfaith summit for Climate Justice

Interfaith leaders from all over the world met in Winnipeg 20-23 June, calling on their members, the public, and G8 governments to support MDGs and climate justice for the most vulnerable people of the world, and for Earth itself.

A Time for Inspired Leadership and Action

The second decade of the 21st century is upon us and 2010 will be an important year for our collective humanity. It is a year when decisions and actions on climate change and peace and security issues will be critical. In June, Canada hosts an expanded global summit in Huntsville, Ontario, where world leaders will have a unique opportunity to provide the political leadership required to address the challenges before us. As well, we will have reached the two‐thirds point for the deadline to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals – eight goals that, if achieved, would bring hope to millions and be a major step toward a more sustainable global future.(1)

Through the 2010 Interfaith Partnership(2) people in faith communities across Canada and around the world are calling for inspired leadership and action at this critical moment in history. In our diverse faith traditions we have rich histories of addressing poverty, caring for the earth and being peace‐builders. While we confess our own shortcomings and inadequacies, we commit to continuing these life‐giving actions. We urge our government representatives to set aside short‐term agendas and work together for a future that allows all citizens of this planet to thrive.

Power and economic dominance are the basis for inclusion in a G8 and G20 global leaders’ summit.(3) In our faith traditions, power and money are instruments to be used for the good of all. At the summits in 2010, we expect leaders to put first the needs and values of the majority of the world’s population, of future generations and of Earth itself. From our shared values we call on leaders to take courageous and concrete actions:

• to address the immediate needs of the most vulnerable while simultaneously making structural changes to close the growing gap between rich and poor;
• to prioritize long‐term environmental sustainability and halt climate change, while addressing its impacts on the poor;
• to invest in peace and remove factors that feed cycles of violent conflict and costly militarism.
  

1. The eight Millennium Development Goals were agreed to by 192 UN member states, to be achieved by 2015. The goals respond to the world's main development challenges.
2. The 2010 Interfaith Partnership is a multi‐faith, Canadian and global movement for action on pressing issues of our day. It involves faith communities around the world, dialogue with decision‐makers and a gathering of faith leaders prior to the June 2010 Huntsville Summit. It is the sixth such gathering held in conjunction with G8 summits.
3. Not represented in these summits are 172 members of the United Nations where proposals to address structural causes of poverty and ecological devastation are currently under discussion.

Responses to this statement have come from First Nations, various Christian denominations, Jews, Bah'ai, Buddhists and a number of civil society organizations including Kairos. They are worth reading. A resource kit may be downloaded; it includes multifaith texts, suggestions for interfaith dinner and dialogue. Materials in other languages.

A turnabout speech for Stephen Harper -- by Geoff Garver

Geoff Garver co-authored Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy (Berret-Koehler, 2009). This is his imaginary turnabout speech for Canada's PM, who has so far opposed all action to meet the environmental crisis. Keith Helmuth wrote a similar speech for Pres. Obama.

"We Canadians must recognize that the economic and financial crisis we are facing is coupled with an ecological crisis that has been longer in the making and is ultimately more serious. If we do not address the ecological crisis with urgency, even as we face economic difficulties, the growing cost to ecosystems, through global warming, loss of firefighters and other global ecological threats, will be overwhelming. The time for foresight and action to prevent catastrophe is now. And in acting, we must recognize that much of the consumption in countries like Canada in the last century is driven by fossil fuels. Therefore the government of Canada commits itself to the Earth Charter, and to a drastic reduction in Canada's per capita and collective ecological footprint. The government will do its utmost to show the world that Canada can indeed live within its ecological means."

If only it were true...

*****

Additional references:
Prof. David Boyd's 40 unanswered questions to Harper -- still unanswered two years later.
GBO3 (10 May 2010) scientific report shows catastrophic decline in world biodiversity.
Canada's tarsands policy.
James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore, Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.

The great carbon credit con -- by Nadene Ghouri

Excerpts from Nadene Ghouri's investigation for UK Daily Mail Live Magazine 1 Jun 09. Photos: Ash Sweeting. Gujarat Fluorochemicals (GFL) website boasts that it exports to 75 countries, and has a branch plant in China. With World Bank approval, foreign investors have poured $12 billion into Gujarat's 175-mile chemical corridor between Mehsana and Vapi, one of the world's 10 worst-polluted places. Political pull has spared prosecution of polluters. Gujarat's chief minister says carbon credits are "a good business opportunity".

*****

In the fields around this giant chemicals factory in Gujarat, the barren soil smells of paint stripper and the water from the well makes you gag. Radha, a tough, sinewy widow and the only female farmer here, says that the well, which draws from deep groundwater, used to adequately supply the village and surrounding farms. ‘We have plenty of water – but water is the problem,’ she says. As the bucket returns to the top, we can make out a white, almost oily-looking film on the surface of the liquid, which has formed little snowflake shapes.

She scoops up some water and asks us to smell it. It has an odour so acrid it catches in the back of our throats, making us cough. ‘We can’t irrigate our crops with it,’ she says. ‘It’s the water of death. It kills most crops we put it on. A few years ago, I grew spinach, potatoes, lots of different crops. Now… look at my plants. Weak, useless.’

We’re in a field of cotton that should be ready to harvest. But there’s nothing to reap – just a few little tufts that blow mockingly in the breeze. Radha picks up a handful of soil. The surface has a faintly visible white crust, as if talcum powder has been sprinkled over it. Hold it close and it has the same caustic smell as the water, a bit like paint stripper.

Overlooking the fields like a hulking metal skeleton is the factory the villagers claim has polluted their water and land. The plant, owned by Gujarat Fluorochemicals (GFL), produces refrigerant gases for air-conditioning units and fridges. A by-product is a greenhouse gas [one of the worst] called HFC23.... one ton of it is equivalent to 11,700 tons of carbon. Under the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), GFL installed new technology to capture and recycle HFC23.

The technology was provided in 2005 by the UK’s largest chemical and oil corporation, Ineos, formerly part of ICI [Imperial Chemical Industries]. Both GFL and Ineos benefited handsomely. By installing the technology, GFL made €27 million in the last quarter of 2006 – triple its total earnings for the same period the year before due to carbon credits. Ineos was also given a substantial number of credits for helping a company in the developing world cut its emissions, [to "offset" Ineos emissions exceeding] UK government limits....

polluted well in Ranjitnagar

GFL is part of a worldwide carbon-trading scheme, centred in London, which is supposed to be helping to save the planet from global warming. On paper the scheme, which was ratified under the Kyoto agreement and supervised by the UN, looks like an efficient way to cut global carbon emissions. However, a Live investigation has exposed a series of major failings and loopholes in the scheme.

The great carbon credits merry-go-round
-- Daily Mail (click on image to see details)

As you dig below the surface it would appear that the UN programme – with backing and finance from Britain – is as polluted as the questionable companies it chooses so generously to reward. In the middle of the City of London is a large anonymous-looking building, home to the European Climate Exchange (ECX). About 98 per cent of the carbon-emissions trading in Europe is done in this office, with more than 25 million tons of carbon traded daily. Last year this market was worth £80 billion worldwide, and it’s set to grow to £97 billion this year, despite the recession. Here traders sell our planet’s future in the form of carbon credits... each credit represents a ton of CO2. Chief executive Patrick Birley meets us in the glass-panelled reception. He points out where climate protestors camped on the doorstep during the G20 protests in March. ‘I care just as passionately about saving the planet as they do,’ he says. ‘But the difference is that I believe environmentalism and capitalism can converge.’

Companies that cut their emissions gain credits. If, on the other hand, they exceed their [pollution cap] quotas, they have to acquire credits... trading involves Europe’s biggest banks, including RBS and Barclays. Until the global slowdown, carbon was one of the most profitable ‘commodities’, nearly doubling in value between 2007 and 2008.

But concerns are now being raised about this market approach to controlling emissions, with heavily polluting companies seemingly being financially rewarded. The hulk looming above Radha’s fields was the first factory in the world to profit from the UN scheme, and is something of a flagship project. Yet for the villagers, the scheme is rewarding the very factory that’s brought them misery.

Narendra Modi

We arrive in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to meet Gujarat’s controversial right-wing chief minister, Narendra Modi. ‘You can have big industry and be green' ... but he admits carbon credits can be a ‘good business opportunity’. ‘It’s a typical Western capitalist system, cash- and profit-based. In the East we think differently; caring for nature and the environment is something that comes naturally to us. But of course we’ll take the carbon-credits money if it is offered to us. Why wouldn’t we?’

8 year old Nita, born without an elbow joint

In a village near GFL, scores are sick with joint aches, bone pains, unexplained swellings, throat and nerve problems and temporary paralysis. The farmers can’t put any names to their illnesses and, as low-caste dalits (or untouchables), most of them are too poor to access proper medical services.

Dr Alison Doig, senior climate-change advisor at Christian Aid, says, ‘Live’s investigation highlights exactly what’s wrong with this flawed system, which is focused only on exchanging carbon credits globally, with no accounting for other environmental or social damage. All carbon credits are doing is making some companies rich, while doing nothing to prevent global pollution. It needs either abolition or total reform.’

‘The carbon-credits business operates rather like the financial-services industry did,’ says Kevin Smith of campaigning watchdog Carbon Trade Watch. ‘Insufficient scrutiny and transparency, dodgy projects getting money when they shouldn’t be. And we all know the consequences of what happened in financial services. But this is potentially much more serious, because unlike the Government, nature doesn’t do bailouts.’

*****

This report is quoted in a new study by United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) Climate Justice for a Changing Planet: A Primer for Policy Makers and NGOs (Dec 2009), fourth in a Climate Justice series: Nick Dearden and Tim Jones, Developing Nations Unite Around Justice In Barcelona Talks; Richard Sherman, Climate and Development Goals: Is there need for a post-Copenhagen Framework?; Natalia Cardona, Placing the Right to Development and Justice at the Heart of the Response to Climate Change.
See also World's Most Polluted Places 2009; Enron's toxic coverup in India by corrupt officials -- Enron was the biggest US corporate lobbyist for carbon-trading; the infamous Summers Memo of 1991 by the World Bank's chief economist, who now heads the US Board of Economic Advisers; criticism of CDM credits for HFC23 by Carbon-Finance Online 15 Feb 07.

Indigenous voices on climate change -- COP-15 film festival online

Citt Williams and Ivan Golovnev film a "medicine circle" in the Altai

The festival, which can be viewed online, is a 4 hour program of videos based on the collaboration of the UNU Traditional Knowledge Initiative with communities in Australia, Malawi, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Iran, Papua New Guinea, Tajikistan, Kirghyzstan, Ethiopia, Japan, Panama, Bolivia, Madagascar, Kalimantan, the Russian Altai and the Canadian Arctic. Indigenous people tell their stories about the impact of climate change.

It was organized by an Australian woman, Citt Williams. See her blog Traveller's Teacup and her CV. She has been a CAAMA producer of Aboriginal films and made docs of her own throughout Asia. She is now based in Tokyo, collaborating with the United Nations University Media Studio on Our World 2.0 webzine and video briefs.

You can also view online videos Voices of the Chichinautzin (Patricia Sims & Luis Patron, Mexico 2007, 45 min); Journeyman Pictures' Two Bolivias (Bolivia 2007 23 min), India Hots Up (2009, 21 min), and Death of the Nile (2009, 16 min). For more info see the United Nations University Traditional Knowledge, Initiative and The Indigenous World 2009 report published by IWGIA , the International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs (ISBN 978-87-91563-57-7). A basic explanation of aboriginal rights is in a 2009 Canadian video with Paul Joffe, international lawyer, Béatrice Vaugrante, of Amnestie Internationale Canada en français, and Ganesetake's Ellen Gabriel for Quebec Native Women.

Environmental networking: groups and strategies

Click on the illustration for the full document.

This is an attempt to map many recent trends. I welcome your comments and criticism. Feel free to share the document with others. It may help to clarify discussions about cooperation or joint action with other civil society or faith groups. If you want to find which category a group is in, open the doc in a word processor, CTRL+F and insert the name to search. The web links in the document and "further reading" will lead you to details about that group.

For a review of current Copenhagen negotiations and US climate policy, see my previous post, which includes updates.

The need for ecojustice: Wall Street, the City, Zurich take food out of the mouths of babes

MDG 2005 in Grid-Arendal. The 2009 report turns many more squares red. Click to see details.
Gains since the 1990s have been wiped out in one year, says the recent UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2009. Careful reading (summary below) suggests the need for a world social movement combining faith and aid groups, human rights, and environmental NGOs. Join the Quaker discussion on QEWnet.ning.com.

The following analysis cites the UN statistics, but goes beyond its polite phraseology.

• Hunger which had dropped by 16% since 1990, reversed course during the 2008 food crisis -- largely due to commodities speculation and the ethanol craze. East Asia was particularly hard hit. This means 20 years' of gains under the Washington consensus "globalization" were lost in one year to the vampires of Wall Street, the City and Zurich.

• Longterm trends to hunger [not in the MDG report]: Scientific data show other tipping points have been passed: peak fish in the 1990s, peak fertility for food crops a few years ago, peak water in the next decade, peak oil which raises cost of fuel and fertilizer

• In 2009 global unemployment will reach 6.1-7 % for men and 6.5-7.4% for women, reversing slow gains in gender equality. (See summary of 2007 ILO report)

• The fight against poverty has stalled. In 2009, an estimated 55 million to 90 million more people will be living in extreme poverty.

• Child nutrition will fail to meet the 2015 MDG target. Even before the food crisis, more than 1/4 of children in poor countries were underweight for their age.

• Rich countries have cut aid for family planning since the mid-1990s, on a per woman basis, despite the undeniable contribution of such programmes to maternal and child health. (See also ECOSOC and WHO criticism.)

• Poor countries are unable to finance their own programmes. The debt service to export ratio has suddenly increased, as exports have fallen. But the World Bank will insist on its pound of flesh. Despite promises, its SAP policies (renamed PRSP) have changed little but the name.

• Rich countries have broken their aid promises in NEPAD 2001 and Gleneagles 2005. Even if the promises were kept, actual aid (because it is calculated as a percentage of national income) would fall as a result of the financial meltdown. Remember the bailout bonuses and golden parachutes! Taking food out of babies' mouths.

Before the 2008 food and finance crisis

• the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day had decreased from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion.

• Primary education had reached 88%

• Child deaths under age 5 decreased; even in sub-Saharan Africa, malaria nets and measles immunization had made dramatic progress.

• The rate of infection by HIV (and of AIDS deaths) had peaked and declined. However, the provision of retroviral drugs to poor countries is once again in doubt due to Big Pharma lobbying and fewer donations.

In his introduction to the MDG report, UN Sec-Gen Ban Ki-moon puts the best face on it: if we act,there is hope. "We cannot allow an unfavourable economic climate to prevent us from realizing the commitments made in 2000. The global community cannot turn its back on the poor and the vulnerable. Now is the time to accelerate progress towards the MDGs. The goals are within reach, even in the very poor countries, with strong political commitment and sufficient and sustained funding."

Those who have been following the climate negotiations will recognize a familiar pattern. When corporations make money, the rich nations are generous -- at least in promises. Otherwise, nothing.

Could a new church-led Jubilee movement, this time in combination with climate NGOs, put enough pressure on our governments to change this? There has been talk of repaying ecological debt.

On June 24 Ban Ki-moon begged the G8 meeting (which turned deaf ears to him and to the Pope)

1. to remedy its $20 million annual shortfall in promised aid to Africa,
2. to make "ambitious and firm commitments" to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent, the levels the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says are required on the part of industrialized countries to ward off the worst effects of global warming" and
3. to "commit to a specific timetable and modalities to deliver the billions of dollars needed during the next few years to assist the poorest and most vulnerable to adapt to climate change."

Peace concerns also coincide with eco-justice. The theme of the UN's 9-11 September 2009 DPI/NGO Conference in Mexico City is "For Peace and Development: Disarm Now!”. Launching this campaign, Ban Ki-moon said, "We must disarm to save lives. We must disarm so that we can redirect precious resources to health, education and development."

Further references (an incomplete list)
For more details and campaigns:
Jubilee Research UK
Third World Network Singapore
Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP): coalition of over 100 NGOs incl One.org (USA), Make Poverty History (UK, Canada), Global Poverty Project (Australia). Their demands: trade justice, drop the debt, more and better aid
Kairoscanada info in English and French

Youth actions
The Trade to Climate Caravan in Europe Nov-Dec 2009: details in QEWnet Forum - Drewery
Quaker Right Sharing of World Resources USA
The Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) New York
UNICEF Voices of Youth
Oxfam International Youth Partnerships
CARE youth corps

Graphs, statistics, research
UNEP /GRID Arendal graphs, newsletter Environment and Poverty Times
IFPRI Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture (Sep 2009)
John Breen's Poverty.com and FreeRice
Anup Shah's Global Issues raises questions about poverty, inequality, environment, militarism
Poverty mapping for researchers - includes environmental factors
Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) research
World Bank PovertyNet tends to be technical and self-congratulatory; its research section is better.