Today launched the United Nations climate summit in Cancún, Mexico (COP16). While the world needs decisive action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the outcome of this two-week conference promises to be something less revolutionary.
Nnimmo Bassey, board member and West Africa advisor for Global Greengrants Fund, laid out his thoughts on the Friends of the Earth blog in Commodifying Nature in an Age of Climate Change. “The world appears deaf to the need for real actions to curb climate change, and the focus remains on money,” writes Bassey. Programs like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and other carbon trading schemes will likely top priorities of high-level negotiators. Such programs hardly address the causes of climate change. Instead, they allow rich nations to continue business as usual while threatening the rights of millions of forest-dependent communities. Still, Bassey believes in grassroots action:
However, social movements and other civil society groups are set to push up the voices of the people. The environmental justice movement that took first serious steps in Copenhagen is sure to take firmer steps on the streets of Cancún… The message in Cancún, if we must expect motions towards real actions to tackle climate change, is that governments must pay attention to what the people are saying, to the real challenges faced by vulnerable peoples around the world.
And grassroots action in Cancún is full of momentum. The Global Greengrants-funded South-South Summit on Climate Justice and Finance also began today. More than 40 participants from the Global South are gathering to raise awareness about policy and develop “a common and united position of the Southern climate movement.” Mahabat Murzakanova, with Citizens Against Corruption in Kyrgyzstan, will be blogging often on her experiences at the Summit and throughout COP16.
Similarly, TckTckTck’s Pyramid of Hope was a visual reminder of the need for climate action. Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary for the UNFCCC, stopped by the Pyramid to declare what she sees as the most necessary values in this year’s climate negotiations: “Commitment and Compromise.”
It remains to be seen what exactly will come out of Cancún by mid-December, but grassroots activists will not let this opportunity slip. We can expect to see a remarkable showing of thousands of community leaders, indigenous peoples, and climate activists—all fighting for climate justice.