While this year's 40th anniversary of Earth Day in the U.S. was fraught with equal parts horror at the escalating oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and equal parts disappointment with Congress's failure to produce a strong climate and clean energy bill, hope sprung from a normally sleepy town nestled thousands of miles away in the Andes.
In Cochabamba, Bolivia, more than 35,000 participants from 150 countries around the world--ranging from environmental justice groups to indigenous rights organizations to governmental representatives, United Nations officials, and heads of state--converged for the first World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth from April 20-22. Not even a burgeoning Icelandic volcano could stem the droves convening en masse to develop grassroots solutions to the global climate crisis.
This week and next week, delegates from across the world are meeting in Bonn, Germany for the first major U.N. climate negotiating session since December's Copenhagen talks ended in resounding failure. The inclusive process and proposals that emerged from Cochabamba offer a hopeful alternative framework for picking up the pieces and making progress toward a strong and just climate treaty.
Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed hosting the Cochabamba conference after December's U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen resulted in a toothless, sham agreement. The Copenhagen Accord contains no real requirements for any countries to reduce their global warming pollution. It also allows the rich countries responsible for fueling the climate crisis to shirk their responsibility to provide funds so developing countries can deal with its impacts.
In Copenhagen, I and other Friends of the Earth delegates were locked out of negotiations during the last few days of the climate summit, despite the fact that we were holding all the official U.N. badges, as well as secondary admission passes. On the last day, a paltry twelve passes were proffered to our delegation of over 100. We refused them in solidarity with our member groups from around the world and other non-governmental organizations representing the millions of voices for climate justice that had been denied access and agency.
The eco-imperialist agenda was alive and well in Copenhagen. On the inside and the outside, all the rules seemed to have gone out the window. While organizations such as Friends of the Earth that support peaceful action were barred, developing countries' concerns were trampled in the plenary. Rich countries led by the U.S pressured poorer nations to ditch the UN process, bullying them with the threat of withholding climate aid they pledged to compensate for climate impacts the rich countries themselves caused.
In stark contrast, in Cochabamba, civil society representatives were invited to meet with Bolivian government officials at the end of each day of the conference to discuss the working groups' daily successes and challenges.
And as important as any policy point that could have been borne of the long and arduous working group discussions and wonky debates that comprised the People's Conference, it is the inclusive, transparent process of the summit in Cochabamba that was a far cry from the surreptitious, backroom arm-twisting that occurred in Copenhagen.
Perhaps it is altogether fitting that the first inclusive climate summit that truly addresses the role of civil society and that respects the power and knowledge of autonomous peoples' movements was convened by Bolivia's first indigenous president and a true climate champion.
Unfortunately, the negotiating position that the Obama administration has put forward heading into the Bonn talks is poles apart from the type of constructive multilateralism that's essential to addressing the climate crisis.
The U.S. refuses to negotiate its targets at all and continues to submit that developed countries should be able to "choose" and announce their own reduction targets, and not to negotiate them with other countries. And while the U.S. claims to support a legally binding outcome, its proposals are substantially non-binding. There is no mechanism to ensure that countries comply with their declared reduction targets, as there are no penalties for failing to meet a target.
The U.S. refuses to show appropriate leadership or responsibility. It is proposing an approach that would lower standards applicable to developed countries and threatens to undermine the work of all countries since the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change's inception.
We cannot afford to allow the U.S. to lead a race to the bottom any longer. We must rally behind the real solutions proposed in Cochabamba, not the hardball threats made in Copenhagen. The only way for an international climate agreement to become politically, economically, and ecologically feasible is for rich countries to resolve their ecological debt.
Drastic commitments to greenhouse gas reductions and financing to enable developing countries to address the impacts of climate change and transition to clean energy economies are imperative. Equity is the only way to break the climate stalemate between the Global North and South.