On the Way from Cochabamba to Durban

By Elizabeth Peredo Beltran

There is a rebellious movement growing across the planet protesting the unfair impacts of climate change. We must listen to the voices of peoples and listen to the voice of nature herself reminding us that something is really very wrong in how we do inhabit the planet. The crisis reflects the harmful results of greed and over-consumption, and the dominant paradigms for human life on this planet. This situation has led us to a juncture between life and death. We have never made such an important choice before. There is no doubt.

This global rebellion explains why the "Cochabamba's People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth" in April 2010 was so successful. It gathered more than 35,000 people from 142 countries and some official national delegations. Cochabamba gave us the possibility to challenge the "walls" built around the climate negotiations. All that force and emotion came from the grassroots. Cochabamba was the most serious attempt in the last years to show that such a debate needs to take place between people to build a global transformation agenda. And we addressed not only those very technical issues discussed in climate negotiations, such as a shared vision, the Kyoto Protocol, finance, and technology, but also new concepts such as climate justice, indigenous rights, structural causes, and the idea of a Tribunal on Climate Justice.

The Cochabamba agenda formed the basis of a real political bridge between two currents of movements: social and environmental. The results are beginning to be discussed in different fora, including the proposal to codify the Rights of Mother Earth. This agenda is now a big challenge. We need to begin to apply it whenever possible all over the world. It brings many possibilities that must be measured at the local and concrete levels. The proposal of building the Rights of Mother Earth confronts our traditional values and forces us to rethink whether our current system of human rights is able to stop destruction of the planet. It also allows us to realize that we live a kind of schizophrenia in which all those nice values and agreements resolved in the UN system are, in fact, less binding than the neoliberal system that reigns over our lives. Reinventing our governance systems to stop both environmental destruction and human injustice is urgent. Both the new Bolivian and the new Ecuadorian constitutions have begun to recognize the concept of "living well", calling for an end to over-consumption and recognizing the finite limits imposed by nature on "limitless" growth.

The People's Agreement of Cochabamba reflects the inputs and struggles of social movements. There are many other initiatives and statements that are contributing to a new vision. But we have to go beyond rhetoric, because declarations are insufficient to create real change. To go beyond rhetoric requires a political vision and to be more focused at the local levels, recognizing the efforts that the people are already making to defend themselves and the planet, like the struggles of indigenous peoples in the Amazon region against dams, or the daily struggle of women everywhere to take care of life. But at the same time, going beyond rhetoric needs deep personal and cultural changes. And probably this will not be possible until we are able to construct supportive social structures and policies.

In this sense it is particularly important to put into practice the concept of "living well" (which basically means that nobody has the right to over consume the planet) in the growing urban centres. Another challenge is the unity of social movements: A civil society expressing their visions and demands in Durban forcing the richest countries to realise that their decisions are condemning people and ecosystems to death.

We have to be strong enough to demand that the UNFCCC process must produce an outcome that respects the climate debt. It is really frightening to see how all the tragedies that are caused by global warming do not touch the heart of the negotiations. Since Copenhagen we have seen: Pakistan, Brazil, Central America, Andean Nations, the Philippines, Russia, Australia, and now the US with dreadful tornadoes. But the affliction of amnesia is all-powerful. Developed countries and big corporations forget their responsibilities for historical emissions and instead even want to change the base-year for their commitment on green house gas reductions.

Besides giving our solidarity, we must take the Fukushima tragedy very seriously, because it is a metaphor for the global climate and environmental crisis. We all are living the "Fukushima syndrome": how far neoliberal greed can go in hiding the truth and in forgetting to seriously take care of life. Those who decided and invested in nuclear power plants know the truth but they confide in business, they know the dangers but they condemn their workers to death, they know the harmful impacts, but they hide them from the people and remove regulation from the people's control. The most powerful don't want to respect our right to life.

Climate justice struggles are bringing to us some vital signals of hope for a harmonious life on earth. They are bringing up great ideas like the Tribunal, an initiative from the people highlighting those responsible for this crisis, giving a platform to the most vulnerable and pushing the powerful for change. But change will come from the bottom up, from our daily lives. Real change will come combining the global and the local, the public and the private, the personal and the collective. It is the people who will give their strength for this transformation.

* World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, April 22nd, Cochabamba, Bolivia, Peoples' Agreement, http://pwccc.wordpress.com/support

** The next Climate Change Summit will be held in Durban, South Africa, 28 November - 9 December, 2011.

Elizabeth Peredo Beltrán, writer and activist, is director of the Solon Foundation, an institution in Bolivia working on human rights, integration and culture. This text is an abridged version of her speech presented in the closing plenary at the international conference "Cochabamba + 1" in April 2011 in Montreal.