-
The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights in Cochabamba, Bolivia (20-22 April) has now ended and the final declaration is now available as is a submission from Bolivia to the UN process.
According to the final conference press release, over 31,000 people from more than 140 countries attended including representatives from 48 national governments.
The conference resulted in proposals for:
- a world referendum on climate change
- the protection of the rights of Mother Earth
- a climate justice tribunal
- genuine ways forward at the UN climate talks
Arthur Girling has been in Bolivia for Climate Radio and his report for ResonanceFM, “The Bolivian Climate Revolution” is now available below. You might also be interested to check out the coverage on Democracy Now! and OneClimate.net plus Naomi Klein‘s comment piece in The Guardian.
Conference Main Site: http://pwccc.wordpress.com/Conference Blog: http://peoplesconference.wordpress.com/Conference Live Webcast Site: http://envivo.cmpcc.org.bo/?lang=enDemocracy Now! Daily Broadcasts from Cochabamba: http://www.democracynow.org/OneClimate.net coverage: http://www.oneclimate.net/bolivia -
The World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights started today in Cochabamba in Bolivia (20th April) and runs until 22 April. The idea is to give a voice to all those members of civil society that were eventually excluded from last December’s UN conference in Copenhagen where national governments failed spectacularly and disastrously to solve the climate crisis. There are also representatives from 70 national governments – mainly those from the Least Developed Countries who are already suffering the impacts of climate change.
The objectives of the conference as listed in the original conference call are as follows:
-
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
Highlights from the second week of broadcasts selected and compiled by Ed Baxter.
About Copenhagen Daily. Climate Radio had a team of five people in Copenhagen: two inside the conference itself; two out on the streets reporting on the protests and covering the parallel People’s Summit or “Klimaforum”; and technical support from the award-winning comunity radio station ResonanceFM in London. The programmes have a running time of 60 minutes and were made by Phil England, Frederika Whitehead, Tom Besley, Arthur Girling and Ed Baxter. Read more about the team here. For other independent coverage try: What is COP15?, Democracy Now!, Climate Chronicle, Earthbeat Radio, YourClimateTV, Indymedia Climate Radio, New Internationalist, MCJ Newswire, ECO, Reel News, Climate Slamdown, Ecolabs and Indymedia Danmark.
Copenhagen Outcome: The rich world failed to come good on its obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Cimate Change which they signed up to in 1992. Instead President Barack Obama turned up to try and force everyone to sign up to a weak deal that was not worth the paper it was written on. The UNFCCC Secretariat and Ban-Ki Moon have been complicit in perpetuating the fiction that there was a deal when the conference merely agreed to note Obama’s “Copenhagen Accord” and to continue negotiating into next year. Another year passes and the world is still waiting for the rich world to put deep domestic cuts on the table (at least 45% by 2020 compared to 1990 and without offsets) as well as serious money to enable poor countries to adapt and develop in a low carbon way. Decisions adopted at COP15, Earth Negotiations Bulletin Summary (PDF).
-
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
This is a permanent plug for Climate Camp Radio, TV and Indymedia coverage. Much respect! The audio for this post is Dissident Island Radio’s 60 minute compilation of their Climate Camp Radio coverage for ResonanceFM’s Clear Spot broadcast on 11 September 2009. Here’s what they have to say about it:
-
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
Climate Radio presents the last in our series of four talks recorded earlier this year at the Soil Association annual conference looking at the impact of peak oil on agriculture.
This week the founder of the Transition Town movement, Rob Hopkins, relates how he has been turning to challenges of peak oil and climate change into action now for a better future. If you’ve not heard Rob speak before, I’d highly recommend it as he is hugely inspirational. Here he describes the thinking behind the community-led process of designing Energy Descent Action Plans and the Transition Town model which is helping ‘unlock the collective genius of the community’. The original Transition Town in Totness is buzzing with creative energy and positive projects:
- an awareness raising programme (film screenings and talks)
- community “open space” days which brainstorm solutions and ideas for action
- oral history interviews – finding out what life was like with less fossil fuel from older people
- specific action groups on food, psychological aspects of change, medicine & health, the arts, energy, economics and local government
- evening classes
- bulk community purchase of solar water heating
- formation of a renewable energy services company
- local food directory
- oil vulnerability auditing for local business
- nut tree planting project
And that’s after just four months…
At the end of the programme we find just enough time to squeeze in a live recording of a lightbulb moment from the Boycott Coca Cola Experience. “Everybody Suddenly Got Real” was recorded live at Club Integral in Brixton earlier this year. Many thanks to the Soil Association and Tim Siddall (aka BCCE) for their kind permission to broadcast this material.
-
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
Climate Radio presents the third in a series of four talks recorded earlier this year at the Soil Association annual conference looking at the impact of peak oil on agriculture. This week urban architect Andre Viljoen discusses the potential for urban centres to transform themselves into food producing regions. This would help make urban spaces more self-sufficient lower their carbon footprint. In particular he draws lessons from the experience of Cuba – a country which underwent a transformation when it lost access to oil imports after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
Since this talk runs slightly short, we are able to squeeze in an extract from a performance by author and comedian Rob Newman on the subject of peak oil at the very end.
-
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
Climate Radio presents the second in a series of four talks recorded earlier this year at the Soil Association annual conference. Author Richard Heinberg talks us through the challenges that peak oil poses to the way we produce our food today. Much of our agriculture relies on fossil fuel intensive inputs such as nitrous fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides as well as the transportation of food huge distances around the globe. Should we be relocalising food production and using more traditional methods of small-scale, labour intensive, mixed farming? Is this the most sensible response to the multiple challenges – of peak oil, climate change and an expanding population – that we now face?
-
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
Climate Radio presents a series of four talks recorded earlier this year at the Soil Association Annual Conference, which was devoted to the challenge that peak oil poses to food security.
Much of today’s agriculture relies on fossil fuel intensive inputs such as nitrous fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides as well as the transportation of food huge distances around the globe. The logic and stability of this way of producing our food is seriously brought into question by the likelihood of rising oil prices and the urgent need to cut our emissions of greenhouse gases. A relocalisation of food production that uses more traditional methods of small-scale, mixed farming is one possible response to the multiple challenges – of peak oil, climate change and an expanding population – that we now face.
This first presentation is from Colin Campbell founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil who gives a potted overview of the energy depletion issue.
Many thanks to the Soil Association for giving their kind permission to broadcast this material.
-
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
90 minutes
- What are the latest scientific developments?
- Is there a level of climate change that we should aim not to exceed in order to avoid the worst impacts?
- What should the government be doing at the national and international level during this critical year to help achieve this?
We ask:
- David Griggs – Director, Hadley Centre, The Meteorological Office’s Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
- Peter Ainsworth MP – Chair, Environmental Audit Committee
- Tony Grayling – Associate Director, Institute of Public Policy Research
-
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
We ask John Nicholson of the UK Bio-Power Network about the potential for reused vegetable oils to power UK road transport.
We also explore the role of campaigning in an interview with the head of Friends of the Earth’s climate campaign, Bryony Worthington:
- What is the current status of Kyoto?
- What is the EU doing?
- How can the UK’s remaining coal-fired stations be shut down?
- Should the UK taxpayer be supporting new oil developments?
- What is the potential for litigation cases against fossil fuel companies?
- Switching to green energy.
- How to get involved.