“Carbon Pricing Report” Released by Indigenous Environmental Network and Climate Justice Alliance at COP 23
Groundbreaking “Carbon Pricing Report” Released by Indigenous Environmental Network and Climate Justice Alliance at COP 23
In-depth Analysis By Grassroots Exposes Carbon Trading Markets as False Solutions to the International Climate Crisis
**Link to live stream of Press Conference**
Bonn, Germany -- While city, state, and national leaders gather at the UN Climate Talks to launch and implement platforms and agendas that promote carbon trading, carbon offsets, and REDD+, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Climate Justice Alliance take a bold stance to reject and challenge these so-called innovative solutions by releasing the “Carbon Pricing Report: A Critical Perspective for Community Resistance.”
This report provides in-depth context to why carbon market systems will not mitigate climate change, will not advance adaptation strategies, will not serve the most vulnerable communities facing climate change impacts and only protect the fossil fuel industry and corporations from taking real climate action.
Furthermore, the publication is the first of its kind to be released in the United States and will help frontline communities and grassroots organizations articulate crucial points to challenge carbon markets and climate change. It is a tool in building a carbon market grassroots resistance.
On Wednesday November 15, Tom Goldtooth, co-author of the report, and members from communities who are impacted first and worst by climate change spoke at the UN Climate Change Talks to challenge nations, cities, and businesses who are promoting carbon markets as they violate Indigenous Rights and make way for more fossil fuel extraction near Indigenous, Black, and Brown communities.
Key points of Carbon Pricing Report:
- Carbon trading, carbon offsets and REDD+ are fraudulent climate mitigation mechanisms that help corporations and governments to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels.
- Revenues distributed to communities from carbon trading or carbon pricing never compensate for the destruction wrought by the extraction and pollution process required to obtain that revenue.
- The injustices, racism and colonialism of carbon pricing schemes have worldwide effects that require international resistance.
This publication will help communities and organizations articulate crucial points to resist carbon pricing and climate change.
**Digital Version of Carbon Report**
The following is a statement from the co-authors of the report:
"The linking of carbon markets across the United States and the World is a tool that fossil-fuel companies have shaped and built to continue to extract and dump on frontline communities. Carbon pricing is a slap on the wrist, a reward really. History shows that, it does not have the ability to move us away from oil addiction, or reach our targets for climate justice. The only true way to reach our goals of 1.5C is to stop the fossil fuel machine at source, to provide stricter regulations, and to hold polluters accountable for their legacy of pollution. We need this Just Transition to survive! This report demonstrates through a historical and international lens the mounting threats these markets have wreaked on frontline communities across the world. It is a call to action for community resistance and resilience." -- Angela Adrar, Executive Director of the Climate Justice Alliance.
"Our Indigenous Peoples and people of color climate justice alliances saw a need to put together a publication that demystifies the carbon market regimes constantly being pushed upon our communities by environmental and climate organizations. Under the rubric of carbon pricing, these cap-and-trade, carbon offsets, carbon tax systems are false solutions that do not cut emissions at source, create toxic hot spots, and result in land grabs and violations of human rights and rights of Indigenous peoples in the forest regions of developing countries. People have a right to know the truth about these national and global initiatives that are nothing but the financialization of nature, the privatization of Mother Earth.” -- Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network
“First of all if we are here it’s because we have a problem. I came here with a mission from my community to bring messages to the cop. These carbon trading mechanism are being implanted in the state of Acre Brazil and they are also implementing carbon offsets in Acre. The first thing that these carbon offset projects cause is division in our communities and when indigenous people and indigenous leaders are divided, there are very adverse social impacts. Everywhere I’ve gone I’ve seen that carbon trading and carbon offsets are not a solution to climate change , it does not reduce pollution, it does not reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the Brazilian amazon we are seeing a lot of carbon offsets projects with very adverse impacts for our peoples. What’s happening is that Indigenous Peoples are being criminalized by these carbon offset projects. We’re not destroying the forest. We’re the ones who protecting the forest. Now they are offering our communities money in exchange so that the big polluting companies can use our forests for sponges for their pollution. I am saddened to be here at COP23 because this is just one big carbon trading convention. The government and industries are not defending life on earth, they are doing business, they are figuring out ways to make more money. They don’t care about what is happening in our communities, they don’t care about what we’re suffering. All they care about is their profits. Furthermore, climate change is not going to end or be reduced by their solutions, it’s just about a bunch of lies. People don’t know what’s happening with these false solutions in my community and that's why I’m here, so I really hope that my message is heated and heard, we must not forget that life itself is at stake and we must not believe the lies of industries and governments.” -- Ninawa Inu Huni kim, Chief and President of the Federacao Huni Kui People of Acre
“I think this is a very significant event today launching this Carbon Pricing Report: A Critical Perspective for Community Resistance because the future of the planet will depend on communities standing strong against false solutions. COP is nothing but a carbon stock exchange because what is really being discussed on the negotiation floors are deals, who can buy what and sell what, who has the rights to keep polluting, whether it’s trees in Nigeria or Kenya or Cameron or Uganda...The polluters don’t want to change from the pattern that has brought us to where we are at today and this is the sickening and the sad thing about the COP. How can we pretend that fiction will solve reality. Carbon Pricing is fiction, selling the price of air, of carbon, and doing anything to stop the pollution but instead they keep pumping the toxic stuff into the atmosphere. I think this report is so vital because it shows that the time to stop green-washing is now.” - Nnimmo Bassey, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, No REDD in Africa Network, , Oil Watch, Nigeria, Africa
White House Event at UN Climate Talks Overshadowed by Indigenous, Black &, Latinx Water & Land Ceremony
White House Event at UN Climate Talks Overshadowed by Indigenous, Black and, Latinx Water and Land Ceremony
Delegates from North, South and Latin America uplift Climate Change Impacted Voices in Civil Disobedience Action at COP23.
Bonn, Germany - On November 13, 2017, The Trump Administration will held it’s only event, “The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation”, at the UN Climate Talks (COP23) to promote coal and nuclear as a solution to climate change.
The event, hosted by the White House, featured speakers from Peabody Energy and NuScale Power, who promoted fossil fuels as a way to cut emissions and who claimed these industries will benefit “poor communities” globally.
In response, Indigenous Peoples from across the world who represent both low income communities and communities impacted first and hardest by climate change, led a demonstration of song and prayer at the White House event to send a clear message: Keeping coal and nuclear in our energy mix is in complete contradiction to any meaningful climate action plan. The promotion of coal and nuclear power by the United States has serious global impacts and is not an acceptable solution to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
With this event, the Trump Administration is revealing its lack of cooperation with the global community, is promoting dying industries, and is putting more people, especially Indigenous and climate-vulnerable communities at even more risk.
Participant Quotes:
“As Indigenous Peoples with a close relationship to nature, the expansion of fossil fuels extraction and combustion will cause further disruption to the harmony of life as we know it. The dangers and risks of creating a nuclear chain reaction, splitting of atoms and from this so-called nuclear energy, is the creation of nuclear waste that could end up being dumped in sacred Indigenous Peoples treaty lands. The White House policy is rooted in environmental racism and objectifies Mother Earth to no end”, - Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director, Indigenous Environmental Network.
“The current leadership in the United States is extremely disconnected from communities on the frontlines. We suffer every day because of the decisions made in closed rooms without our feedback and participation. The solutions that American people need are solutions that are built by the community. My community, for example, is already doing this work. We are transitioning our community to end systematic dependence on the hydrocarbon industry, we are creating a new democratic economy centered around sustainable methods of productions, distribution, consumption, and recycling, which is locally and cooperatively owned.” - Monica Atkins, Cooperation Jackson.
In Response to America’s Pledge, Californians Ask Governor Brown: Still In for What?
In Response to America’s Pledge, Californians Ask Governor Brown: Still In for What?
As California Governor Jerry Brown arrives to UN Climate Talks to Promote His Climate Agenda, Californians and Frontline Groups Put Pressure on the Governor to Take Bolder Climate Action to Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground
Bonn, Germany - Today, Californians and those on the frontlines of climate change disrupted Governor Jerry Brown at the American’s Pledge event at the UN climate talks to confront his support of fossil fuels in his state of California.
Governor Brown, deemed ‘America’s Climate Hero,’ has come to the climate talks to promote California as a global model of climate leadership. However, Indigenous Peoples, frontline communities, environmentalists and climate activists held this non-violent direct action to expose his ties to big oil and false solutions such as carbon markets.
In a newly released report, the Center for Biological Diversity found that three-quarters of the oil produced in California is as climate-damaging as Canadian tar sands crude. Moreover, many of California’s oilfields and refineries operate next to homes and schools, particularly in communities of color already overburdened by toxic pollution.
From refusing to ban fracking to letting oil companies dump toxic waste into underground water supplies, Governor Brown promotes policies that incentivize oil and gas production in the state. His cap-and-trade extension includes provisions written by oil lobbyists that prevent state and local agencies from directly limiting carbon emissions from oil refineries. He has also failed to shut down the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility, where the largest methane leak in U.S. history forced thousands to flee their homes in 2015.
The groups are calling on Governor Brown to ban new drilling and fracking, phase out fossil fuel production, and commit to a just transition to clean energy for all.
Participant Quotes:
“Northern California has five refineries stretching along our Bay on the North East side of San Francisco. Those living along this Refinery Corridor experience continuous negative health effects such as respiratory problems, birth defects, leukemia and cancers. California's answer to our global climate crisis, the Cap and Trade extension (AB 398), will continue allowing refineries to expand, pollute, and ultimately destroy life. The Phillips 66 Refinery in Rodeo, CA plans to expand their marine terminal to increase crude oil imports by water from 30,000 barrels a day to 130,000 barrels a day. We will not let this happen. Decision makers around the world need to understand that Governors Jerry Brown’s carbon market scheme will continue killing our people and poisoning our water, air, and soil. We will not accept the false solution of carbon trading that increase pollution in our hometowns while violating indigenous rights and human rights around the world. We must keep fossil fuels in the ground.” - Daniel Ilario, Idle No More SF/Bay Area
"I wanted to leave a message here, for humanity and all of planet, that the peoples need to join to defend Mother Nature, the soil, water and air because they are being threatened. And humanity needs Nature to survive. So I want to say that Nature and the air are not a means of commerce for anyone and it's every human's right to live in peace. Jerry Brown’s “American Pledge” will lead to the displacement of my people and the destruction of my territory. We need to respect the rights of Nature and humans beings that need her to survive.” Ninawa Nuneshuni Kui, President of the Huni Kui People of Acre, Brazil.
“Californians have been asking Governor Brown for years to step up and be a true climate leader. If he is going to be celebrated by the world as a climate leader, he needs to commit to the communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel extraction. Real climate leaders don’t frack. This isn’t just about Californians. The world needs Jerry Brown to do more in his own state.” Eva Malis, Young person from Valencia, CA
Contact:
Jade Begay, Media Coordinator, Indigenous Environmental Network, [email protected]; whatsapp +1-505-699-4791