The second major conference calling for an alternative to the COP process convened yesterday in Montreal, with Bolivian ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solon, reigniting the flame of concensus that last year's Cancun Agreement represented a step backward in the quest for binding resolution to tackle the climate crisis.
Setting the table for next November's COP17 in Durban, South Africa, Solon called for a unified effort between developing countries and international social movements to put the heat on industrialized countries to cut their domestic emissions by 40 to 50 per cent to prevent a catastrophic increase in global warming.
Cochabamba + 1: Justice climatique et alternatives écologiques is a three-day panel discussing mobilizing against the effects of shale gas exploration and the tar sands; transitioning towards a carbon-free economy and industrial conversions; and Ecological crises and people's alternatives.
Today’s events focused on deciphering how lessons learned from Canada’s vigorous protests against fossil fuel economy can be transferred to the broader Climate Justice movement. Topics included the North/South divide on the issue of Ecological debt and how to effectively fight the false quick fix solutions of geoengineering, nuclear enegery, uranium mining and carbon currencies.
Speaking in this afternoon's plenary, Fighting Fossil Fuels: The Tar Sands In Alberta And Shale Gas in Québec, IEN's Ben Prowess depicted the fossil fuel economy as "a war against mother earth."
Tomorrow’s closing plenary Multiple Networks and Convergence of Struggle: Building The Movement is a moderated ‘group think’ to ‘agitate’ the merging of the numerous networks, activists and struggles into a unified Climate Justice movement.
The conference is live-streaming (in English and French) here.
And what's the real life down home impact of this Montreal Conference -- after all, it's way up there in Canada, discussing events to influence the outcome of yet another official UN event scheduled for next winter on the 'lost continent' -- on US?
Well, let's think about it for a minute. As today's PowerShift events provide an inkling of inspiration regarding the impact of the youth movement in influencing government policy on climate and clean energy, Salon's Justin Elliot today publishes Is this the real NAFTA Superhighway? Elliot presents a startling and 'fossil-fueled' twist on the mid-2000's "North American Union," suggesting that the real superhighway between Canada and Texas just might be Keystone XL, a pipeline designed to pump tar sands extracted fuel down to the Gulf Coast.
"All of the major oil companies are up in Canada going after an unconventional fossil fuel called tar sand," Elliot writes. "It gets changed into gasoline and diesel eventually but it starts out as this heavy, thick, almost coal-like substance that goes through a lot of processes that use up a lot of energy and water. What the oil companies want to do is pipe it down to the U.S. Gulf Coast. So they want it to travel through a brand-new pipeline called . It would go from Alberta, Canada, down through Montana, and all the way to the heartland of the United States across the Ogallala Aquifer -- which is a major source of freshwater for eight states -- and down to the Gulf Coast refineries."
Check back here for updates over the weekend on the Montreal Conference over the weekend and stay tuned for a wrap up on Monday's Ecojustice.
Background
Fueling Climate Injustice
Over half of Alberta’s tar sands oil goes to the US, making Canada the single largest foreign supplier of oil to the United States. As popular uprisings unfold across the Middle East, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is trying to facilitate oil exports to the US by making them tax-free, arguing that the US needs “secure” oil from its stable northern allies. Over the past forty years, exploration and production of crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands have spiked in tandem with various wars and occupations involving Canadian and US military.
“[Former US Vice-President Dick] Cheney’s National Energy Policy identified expanding Canadian tar sands production as critical to US security,” says Ricardo Acuna of the Parkland Institute, an Edmonton-based progressive think tank. “Reduced tar sands production would force the US to reduce growth in energy consumption, including for their military.”
Dispatches from Dakar: Desmond D'Sa from the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance speaking on grassroots organizing currently taking place in Durban, South Africa to protest the UN summit on climate change to take place between November 28th & December 9th 2011.
Myths for Profit
Canada the global good guy? Lets examine that claim. Essential intro to geopolitics and profits, from NATO to Afghanistan via Kosovo. 'Myths for Profit: Canada's Role In Industries of War and Peace' takes a different approach to peacekeeping, the military and development, raising all sorts of questions along the way. An entertaining, well argued documentary.
MYTH 3) 'Canada's aid is helping people around the world' investigates how various government agencies and ministries have specific agendas they are implementing around the world. The active role taken on in regional development banks, to the policies pushed by Export Development Canada are designed and carried out to ensure a free market neo-liberal agenda in different countries, regardless of the negative effect they may have on the communities and environment they impact. This includes how Canada’s development agency’s (CIDA) tied and phantom aid function in post and present conflict zones.
And, finally, from rabble.ca's Weekly Mulch: Cost-cutting at the environment's peril:
Endnote: In a study released last week, Cornell University scientist Robert Howarth determined that the GHGs released through natural gas production, specifically gas from shale, contributs 30 per cent more pollutant emissions than conventional natural gas and significantly more than coal production. A follow-up study detailing even more damning information of the environmental devastation caused by fracking, tar sands extraction, and other fossil fuel production is scheduled for release later this month. Stay tuned.
Photocredits:
Alternatives: Logo
Fueling Climate Injustice. Photo by Jesse Purcell
