Climate Summit Day 8: Protests, Rural Women’s Assembly and TimberWatch analysis

The two-week UN Climate Conference taking place in Durban is at mid-point and its prospect for success is not looking bright.

The political leaders have started to arrive to confront a range of problematic issues. It is likely that compromises will be worked out and a few successes will be claimed. The reality is that they won’t be enough to tackle the worsening climate situation on the ground.

On the ground over the weekend there were numerous protests held, including one outside the US Embassy in South Africa. At that protest, people confronted the US on its role as the primary polluter and policy maker that is the major obstacle to climate justice.

“We won’t let the U.S. off the hook,” says Ahmina Maxey of the East Michigan Environmental Action Coalition, a lead organization of GGJ. “As members of communities disproportionately affected by U.S. pollution and land grabs, we will be holding dirty U.S. corporations and the State Department accountable for the global mess they have made.”

The major protest involved a march of roughly 12,000 people, a march led by the Rural Women’s Assembly. The Rural Women’s Assembly released a statement about rural women in Africa and climate justice that people in the US need to read. The statement says in part, “Women produce 80 per cent of the food consumed by households in Africa. Seventy per cent of Africa’s 600 million people are rural. Financial support for women farmers must be commensurate to their numbers and crucial role.”

On Sunday, there was an educational forum hosted by TimberWatch. The forum was entitled Fake Forest Day and featured numerous sessions that critiqued both plantation style tree-planting programs and the idea of a green economy, which is the ideological justification for tree plantations and agro-fuels.

Lastly, here is a follow-up interview with the former Bolivian Ambassador to the Un, Pablo Solon with his assessment of the Climate Summit so far.