Copenhagen 2009: Call for “system change not climate change” unites global movement.

*Call for “system change not climate change” unites global movement
*Corrupt Copenhagen ‘accord’ exposes gulf between peoples demands
and elite interests

Copenhagen, December 2009

The highly anticipated UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen
ended with a fraudulent agreement, engineered by the United States
and dropped into the conference at the last moment. The
"agreement" was not adopted. Instead, it was "noted" in an absurd
parliamentary invention designed to accommodate the United States
and permit Ban Ki-moon to utter the ridiculous pronouncement "We
have a deal."

The UN conference was unable to deliver solutions to the climate
crisis, or even minimal progress toward them. Instead, the talks
were a complete betrayal of impoverished nations and island
states, producing embarrassment for the United Nations and the
Danish government. In a conference designed to limit greenhouse
gas emissions there was very little talk of emission reductions.
Rich, developed countries continued to delay any talk of deep and
binding cuts, instead shifting the burden to less developed
countries and showing no willingness to make reparations for the
damage they have caused.

The Climate Justice Now! coalition, alongside other networks, was
united here at COP15 in the call for System Change, Not Climate
Change. In contrast, the Copenhagen climate conference itself
demonstrated that real solutions, as opposed to false,
market-based solutions, will not be adopted until we overcome the
existing unjust political and economic system.

Government and corporate elites here in Copenhagen made no attempt
to satisfy the expectations of the world. False solutions and
corporations completely co-opted the United Nations process. The
global elite would like to privatize the atmosphere through carbon
markets; carve up the remaining forests, bush and grasslands of
the world through the violation of indigenous rights and
land-grabbing; promote high-risk technologies to restructure the
climate; convert real forests into monoculture tree plantations
and agricultural soils into carbon sinks; and complete the
enclosure and privatisation of the commons. Virtually every
proposal discussed in Copenhagen was based on a desire to create
opportunities for profit rather than to reduce emissions, and even
the small amounts of financing promised could end up paying for
the transfer of risky technologies.

The only discussions of real solutions in Copenhagen took place in
social movements. Climate Justice Now!, Climate Justice Action and
Klimaforum09 articulated many creative ideas and attempted to
deliver those ideas to the UN Climate Change Conference through
the Klimaforum09 People's Declaration and the Reclaim Power
People's Assembly. Among nations, the ALBA countries, many African
nations and AOSIS often echoed the messages of the climate justice
movement, speaking of the need to repay climate debt, create
mitigation and adaptation funds outside of neoliberal institutions
such as the World Bank and IMF, and keep global temperature
increase below 1.5 degrees.

The UN and the Danish government served the interests of the rich,
industrialized countries, excluding our voices and the voices of
the least powerful throughout the world, and attempting to silence
our demands to talk about real solutions. Nevertheless, our voices
grew stronger and more united day by day during the two-week
conference. As we grew stronger, the mechanisms implemented by the
UN and the Danish authorities for the participation of civil
society grew more dysfunctional, repressive and undemocratic, very
much like the WTO and Davos.

Social movement participation was limited throughout the
conference, drastically curtailed in week two, and several civil
society organizations even had their admission credentials revoked
midway through the second week. At the same time, corporations
continued lobbying inside the Bella Center.

Outside the conference,the Danish police extended the repressive
framework, launching a massive clampdown on the right to free
expression and arresting and beating thousands, including civil
society delegates to the climate conference. Our movement overcame
this repression to raise our voices in protest over and over
again. Our demonstrations mobilized more than 100,000 people in
Denmark to press for climate justice, while social movements
around the world mobilized hundreds of thousands more in local
climate justice demonstrations. In spite of repression by the
Danish government and exclusion by the United Nations, the
movement for system change not climate change is now stronger than
when we arrived in Denmark.

While Copenhagen has been a disaster for just and equitable
climate solutions, it has been an inspiring watershed moment in
the battle for climate justice. The governments of the elite have
no solutions to offer, but the climate justice movement has
provided strong vision and clear alternatives. Copenhagen will be
remembered as an historic event for global social movements. It
will be remembered, along with Seattle and Cancun, as a critical
moment when the diverse agendas of many social movements coalesced
and became stronger, asking in one voice for system change, not
climate change.

The Climate Justice Now! coalition calls for social movements
around the world to mobilize in support of climate justice.
We will take our struggle forward not just in climate talks, but
on the ground and in the streets, to promote genuine solutions
that include:
- leaving fossil fuels in the ground and investing instead in
appropriate energy-efficiency and safe, clean and community-led
renewable energy
- radically reducing wasteful consumption, first and foremost in
the North, but also by Southern elites
- huge financial transfers from North to South, based on the
repayment of climate debts and subject to democratic control. The
costs of adaptation and mitigation should be paid for by
redirecting military budgets, progressive and innovative taxes,
and debt cancellation
- rights-based resource conservation that enforces Indigenous land
rights and promotes peoples' sovereignty over energy, forests,
land and water sustainable family farming and fishing, and peoples' food
sovereignty.

We are committed to building a diverse movement – locally and
globally – for a better world.

Climate Justice Now! www.climate-justice-now.org

In Solidarity and support:
Rising Tide - UK www.risingtide.org.uk
Camp for Climate Action UK - www.climatecamp.org.uk

More organisations and individuals are invited to endorse this statement.

For more on Copenhagen click here.

photos by C. Liliendahl