All Images ©Robert vanWaarden

Images ©Robert vanWaarden

Story by Kari Hergott,  Fort Providence Métis

“Climate Change is a Human Issue. Our lives have already been altered by the impacts of the climate crisis. Climate change has affected our health, our food security and our cultural identities”

Excerpt from the Declaration of the Young Leaders’ Summit on Northern Climate Change, August 2009

I am not an activist, nor am I an environmentalist. I am an Indigenous person whose culture and livelihood is distinctly and completely connected to the land, environment and animals around me.  I am Métis, and I belong to one of the three constitutionally recognized Canadian Aboriginal groups.  I live on the banks of the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories, Canada.  The river, North America’s longest river, is an intricate part of Aboriginal culture and livelihood.

Question, how did a small town Métis girl from a community of 800 people end up in Copenhagen? And on the front lines of the December 12th march to the Bella Centre? Why am I here?  I am Aboriginal, Indigenous to Canada and extremely proud of it so it is my responsibility to ensure my voice is heard.  My ancestors have fought long and hard to allow me to live my life the way I do today.  In many ways, my involvement at the COP15 and Climate Change discussions allow me to honour their hard work, and ensure that there is a bright future for my own unborn children.

The tar sands are becoming one of the loudest and strongest concerns by Canadian youth, Indigenous peoples of the world and activists alike.  Canada has a long and cruel history of condemning the fate of our Aboriginal people, the Tar Sands and their support of it is another item to add to the list.  I am concerned about the Tar Sands, not only because of the environmental damage it is, and will continue to cause but also because of the direct impact it has on human lives.  Fort Chipewyan, Alberta is a community directly impacted; their people, their animals and their cultures are at stake.

The deadly chemicals in the air, the deadly chemicals in the water are horrific and stealing lives.  Not only are the Aboriginals of the affected communities, friends and relatives, they are fellow Canadians who deserve all the help in the world to ensure they survive.  Cancer is an awful disease, I am sure we all know someone who has been affected by this horrible disease.  The residents of Northern Alberta, around the tar sands development and those lives downstream are suffering from alarming cancer rates.  No one deserves that fate, no one!

My small community though is starting to show alarming rates of stomach cancer.  In the past year we have had 6 Aboriginal community members diagnosed, and sadly 3 of our Elders have passed on and now watch us from above.  It is such a tragedy that a highly respected elder from my community at 95, was diagnosed and passed on within a month of diagnosis.  Where is the logic that people who have survived some of biggest hardships in life (Residential School, Flu Pandemics, Colonization to name a few) end their lives not peacefully but in pain?  Why are my Elders, our Elders becoming so ill?

My community and region is at this weird “middle” state.  To our south and to our North our fate is being lived out in front of us.  The horrific realities our friends in Northern Alberta are facing, are terrifying me that if our country does not move forward and change its policy and their reliance on the Tar Sands, my community will be the next to suffer that fate.  Not only mine, but the entire Mackenzie River watershed that in turn will affect all of our communities.  Our neighbours to the North in the Arctic have been dealing with the changing environment and face the daily effects of climate change.  Traditional practices are being affected, for example if the ice is not freezing the way it has for hundreds of years, the ability to travel is limited and can become dangerous.  There are so many factors affecting human lives, and cultures.  It has been an honour to be surrounded by people who share the vision of protecting human lives, and cultures before non-renewable resource development.  Let us hope that our efforts will be heard throughout the walls of the Bella Centre, and into the hearts and consciousness of our leaders!

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What young people demand

From the Canadian Youth Delegation to Copenhagen

• Shut the tar sands down – we call for an immediate moratorium on all tar sands development
• A just transition for workers must be assured – all tar sands workers must be retrained and given support to thrive in a new, green economy
• Respect indigenous rights – respect and protect traditional territory
• Acknowledge the health concerns of impacted communities and take immediate action to address themYouth action inside the climate negotiations expressing solidarity with impacted communities

Youth action inside the climate negotiations expressing solidarity with impacted communities

Noting the degree of consciousness shifting society around us, our media focused on what people are doing for the movement toward sustainability: activism, alternative energy, and green jobs. Everyone on our team agreed that it was more productive and inspiring to look at solutions rather than listen to dooms-day predictions, and that made the pursuit of our stories charged with excitement. It was a lot of fun to work hard with a group of people driven by meaningful purpose, and the result of our efforts was very rewarding.

We used borrowed gear, shared our skills, and supported one another in jumping hurdles along the winding way between idea and product. It wouldn’t have worked just fifteen years ago– our team was spread across the Eastern United States, brought together by virtual technologies like Skype and Google Docs. To move large video files across distances, we used Wistia media server technology, with an account donated by the good folks at Animal LLC, a digital media design studio in Providence, Rhode Island.

I’m proud of what we have accomplished so far, but I also feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more stories that need to be told, and the urgency of learning to grapple with the effects of climate change is increasing daily. In the quest for a sustainable civilization we need to work together, harness technologies, share our resources, and survival will be our profit. Project Survival Media is a prime example of people doing that, and I’m grateful for having been a part of it.

Larry Lohmann seems to think he has an answer, and he elaborates on it in his very interesting paper called Climate as an Investment where he states that the future of the world lies in locally produced energy using sustainable methods.

In order to make this transition, our notion of industrialization has to completely change, which in turn means that we must move further and further away from fossil fuels as well as fossil fuel substitutes such as agrofuels. Why are agrofuels included in this category, you might ask? Two reasons: Firstly, they have a massive impact on food productivity since they will end up eating a lot of our land (yes the pun was intended) and secondly (and more importantly), they provide security to the fossil fuel infrastructure which many view as a crucial hindrance to our future.

His proposal might seem radical to many, but this idea isn’t new. In fact it has been put to practice for over 2 decades in a tiny village in rural Rajasthan called Tilonia in an establishment called the Barefoot College. Barefoot College, and it’s founder Bunker Roy, have received immense praise for the work they have been doing. Apart from a college for the poorest of the poor, it is also a self-sufficient community which produces its own energy using the ample sunlight that it receives. It maintains its own water supply through rain water harvesting which is stored in hundreds of underground tanks and recycles its own waste to create fodder. The 100,000 people who are taking part in this probably don’t realize that they are leading by example for the whole world to see.

Tilonia is a stunning example for 2 reasons:

Firstly, the location is far from paradise, at least not in the conventional sense. When the project first started out, it was a wasteland, a desert. But now, through their energy and water systems, they are getting some of the green cover back.

Secondly, necessity is the mother of invention. As Seth Godin says, today being innovative isn’t a luxury, its a necessity. And that’s what Bunker Roy has been doing for the last thirty years. He didn’t wait for the government to help him. He took matters in his own hands for his community’s survival depended on it.

So while such a project can work in developing nations and small communities, for a city things can quickly begin to look very different.

As Lohmann puts it:

[Decentralized energy production] can only happen through a process that involves ‘taking over the City’. These include campaigns to reduce the overwhelming influence of Wall Street in Washington; increase workers’ and farmers’ participation in management; disallow banks’ claims about the value of the ‘toxic’ assets they hold; roll back limited corporate liability; challenge shareholder primacy; halt public handouts for CCS and nuclear development; force the World Bank to obey its review panel’s recommendations to stop investing in fossil fuels

I am not saying that this is the only solution to the climate change problem. What I am saying is that with more and more nuclear reactors being set up (and that waste isn’t going to get disposed on its own), with more and more people with less land at our disposal, with Big Oil working overtime to ensure that the laws won’t be giving them a real deal, with geo-engineering suggesting that we send sulphur-packed rockets every now and then to prevent global warming, we need to start having more discussions and weigh our options. We need to really consider whether out if our leaders’ plan for our future is really going to make it better, for our survival depends on it. Perhaps investing our time in what some communities have already been doing to support themselves might be answer to some of the developing worlds’ climate problems.

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I have listened to so many divergent ideas about what is really happening inside BC. It is surprising to see some official delegates not understanding the real game being played here. Unfortunately, some African delegates, especialy from Francophone, Africa, fall into this category.

In Thursday’s negotiations of the proposed amendments to the Kyoto Protocol, small island developing states were supported by China and other G77 parties. This has made evident that the reported ‘developing country’ split has been overstated.

The real deadlock in these negotiations is that developed countries are refusing to commit to the necessary emission reductions required by science and their historical responsibility in causing climate change. Developed countries are refusing to enshrine these responsibilities in a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.  Russia’s withdrawal of its emissions targets from a new commitment period under Kyoto provides clear evidence of this.

Instead of the procedural differences among developing countries, we should understand their common cause for ensuring developed countries take the legal cuts they are bound to, as well as ensuring new and additional finance is made available to support the necessary emissions reductions and adaptation in developing countries.

Wednesday’s suspension of negotiations at the second meeting of the Conference of the Parties reflected a difference between countries on one procedural issue.

This week Tuvalu proposed to form a new contact group to discuss its proposal for a new ‘Copenhagen Protocol’ under the Convention. The difference of opinion on this procedural issue has been mischaracterised by the media as a “split” in the G77. This is inaccurate for a number of reasons.

First, Tuvalu is not a member of the G77 but is an active member of the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS) which cooperates with G77 and China.

None of Tuvalu’s proposals include mandatory binding emission targets (Kyoto Targets) for any developing countries (including China and India).

Secondly, the issue is principally one of process and its implications. Some members of the G77 and China expressed concern that Tuvalu’s proposed process could endanger the survival of the Kyoto Protocol.

India, China and many other G77 countries fear a formal contact group will give rich countries a forum to discuss the removal of Kyoto and to start a new protocol. These countries do not want this door officially opened and thus opposed formal discussions in the LCA.

What Wednesday’s dispute was about was the way in which developing countries can ensure that Kyoto stays in tact and is built upon.

The replacement or termination of the Kyoto Protocol would allow rich countries to shed their existing legally-binding obligations to implement a second commitment period (from 2012) for binding emission cuts.

As developed countries came to this conference with very low pledges on emission cuts and finance, this concern is an understandable and legitimate one.

The US does not want any international system for setting science-led targets or any legal penalty system for failure to comply with their obligations, which would severely weaken the international climate regime, which has the Kyoto Protocol at its core.

Thirdly, developing countries remain united in the key substantive issues at the negotiations: to achieve an ambitious, fair and binding Copenhagen outcome, including the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol. Differences on some issues do not imply a split or a breakdown in their cooperation.

The deadlock in these negotiations is developed countries refusing to honour their commitments under Kyoto, their promise to negotiate a second commitment period under Kyoto in good faith and their refusal to commit to an agreement based in science, equity and justice

Keep that in mind, dear colleagues in CPH. The world is watching. The children of Togo, Negal, China, Bangladesh too…

In West Oakland, California, people are dealing with food insecurity issues because of a corrupt food system, the same food system that is contributing to global climate change. People in West Oakland face challenges because of their food disenfranchisement, but they are also finding creative solutions.

Featuring Mandela food Co-operative, Planting Justice, the OFPC, and appearances by Michael Margolin’s elementary school class, a part of the Oakland Based Urban Gardens project. Credit also goes to Jake Schoneker and Paul Zink for help with filming and editing.