Global Greengrants Fund’s CEO, Terry Odendahl, Blogs on the Events, Energy, and Familiar Faces in Cancún
I’ve been in Cancún to follow the COP16 climate negotiations for four days now. While not credentialed, I have kept myself busy attending funder and civil society side events, as well as meeting up with Global Greengrants Fund advisors and grantees. You’ll see interviews with several of them here.
Cancún is a resort. It doesn’t seem like the Mexico where I traveled in the past, but more like a North American enclave to the south. I hear this is typical of these types of international meetings. Traveling to where I’m staying, which is far from the action, I recognize the high-end hotel, restaurant and retail chains. This is not the real Mexico. I feel a disconnect. This low-lying area with all its vestiges of wealth could be under water in my lifetime. Yet, most people I talk with here have low expectations for any binding deal to reduce carbon emissions at these meetings.
We’re All Part of the Same Movement
From the beginning, I have experienced a dilemma. We are supporting so many people to be here whose voices really need to be heard. Our grantees are on the front lines of climate change. But where do I belong? Shall I knock elbows with the activists or the funders? Which am I?
The Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) delegation has kindly added my name to their list. GGJ is a national coalition of grassroots organizations building a popular movement for peace, democracy and a sustainable world. They support each other’s local struggles and collaborate with international allies who share a vision to build a transformative social justice movement beyond borders. GGJ has kindly helped me find a hotel to stay in, and I’m blogging right now out of their media room. Each day they offer important activist activities I might choose to attend. When I’m back at the hotel, which hasn’t been much, I feel welcome as an ally and a part of something bigger.
On Friday I attended a workshop organized by CLUA, the Climate and Land Use Alliance, a coalition of four big funders: ClimateWorks and the Ford, Packard, and Moore Foundations. We have been following CLUA’s work closely over the last year. In Indonesia, they’re doing re-granting to grassroots communities for REDD readiness through our funding partner, the Samdhana Institute.
CLUA hosted a reception that evening, which turned out to be a sit-down dinner. I have an invitation to the event, but assist eleven of our partners to crash (with permission): Samuel Nnah Ndobe, an advisor from on our International Financial Institutions board, co-founder of the Accra Caucus, and one of our main advisors on climate issues; his colleague from the Center for Environment and Development, Dr. Jean Marcial Bell; and Brian Keane, Executive Director of Land is Life, who brings eight indigenous leaders from around the world with him. I felt I did some good work there.
Grassroots Momentum from Across the Americas
Saturday I decided to join meetings organized by La Via Campesina (LVC), the international movement of peasants, indigenous people, the landless, rural women, youth and agricultural workers. They are an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, with 150 members from 79 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
At the LVC encampment, I met up with Diego di Risio, an Argentinian grantee with Oil Observatory South. He had been on the three-day caravan with LVC across Mexico and has come to understand how similar the environmental problems are across Latin America. I was also happy to run into Lucia Ortiz, of Friends of the Earth, Brazil, who is also Chair of the CASA board, our partner in Brazil. Lucia has been in Cancun a week already. She looks tired from the countless meetings, but smiles to say this has been her favorite day. We are surrounded by indigenous people and peasants, those who will be most affected by climate variability. These people have organized themselves into a strong movement.
I also attended a planning meeting organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Norwegian Forestry Group regarding training courses on the monitoring necessary for implementing REDD+. Very informative, but it left out the forest peoples and grassroots groups as decision-makers.
Next stop, another hotel, where Agriculture Day is taking place. There I met up with adviser Gilbert Sape, Director of the Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific. After his interview, I headed back out to my hotel, ate dinner, and prepared for another few days with the many inspiring fellow activists from across the globe.