Statement
of Nongovernmental Organizations To
The
Informal Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change 24-26
October 2007 (Bogor, Indonesia) Honourable
Ministers, distinguished delegates, Ladies and gentlemen
We,
representatives of some Indonesian NGOs, including a coalition of NGOs in Bali
concerned about climate change issues would like to share our concerns about climate
justice. Indeed Indonesia is an example of a country is already and will be a
victim of climate change. We have been accused of damaging our forests that are
important for the global community, yet Indonesia is being eyed as a long-term
source of raw materials for the aggressive growth of the global industrial complex
with no due regard to the recurrent catastrophes and threat to ustainability of
our communities.
Many developing
countries face the same situation. Who is going to ameliorate the sufferings of
these affected countries and people? Clearly, there is a need for a fund for reconstruction,
which goes beyond that for adaptation. This is an issue of development and human
rights, and that of humanitarian assistance, which goes beyond the charity notions
of aid. The answer to this question is that those countries with the greatest
responsibility for historical and continuing greenhouse gas emissions who have
sufficient wealth that defines their capacity to act.
Hence,
for a post 2012 regime, there has to be agreement on the “burden-sharing” principles
between the North and South in avoiding climate catastrophe.
Action
between now and then must also be governed by the principles of historical responsibility
and the capacity to act.
An important
issue is whether and how we can find a sustainable development pathway for developing
countries that includes not only a climate protection pathway, but also a pathway
to improve the living standards of our people and to alleviate poverty within
an ecological
framework, and enables new policies for agriculture, industry,
trade and finance.
For this, mitigation
efforts must be integrally linked to the design of the development pathway. Hence,
the following issues are critical ?
* The need for coherence in policies at both the international and national levels.
In relation to the international level, policy coherence is critical in the WTO,
IMF and the World Bank with the fulfillment human civil, politics, economics,
social, and cultural rights as well as with the climate change regime and sustainable
development. Coherence should be around sustainable development and climate change
and not around trade. This also requires coherence in developed country policies
as well.
Instead of advancing
such coherence, mercantilist policies are being pursued through the international
financial institutions with aid conditionalities, and in the WTO and Free Trade
Agreements to open up the economies of the developing countries that undermine
sustainable
development.
*
How can developing countries put priority in integrating climate change into national
policies when international policies and measures exacerbate poverty and inequity,
including through the displacement of small farms and firms and loss of access
over natural resources to powerful foreign corporations? Such so-called ‘free
trade’ policies enhance climate vulnerability as the poor lack the resources to
adapt or be resilient to climatic changes.
* There is a need to solve
the problem of odious debts of developing countries. The payments of these debts
have long been done by damaging natural resources and social support systems of
communities leaving them vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
* Moreover, for developing countries to undertake a mitigation pathway that enables
the rapid domestic deployment of climate friendly technologies, requires changes
to the way in which technology transfer is managed and governed. Many of us in
the south, believe that there cannot be a strict requirement to comply with intellectual
property rights thatprofits monopolies if we are to succeed. We must find a way
to breakdown the barriers to rapid deployment of clean technologies that the poor
can afford.
* It is also fundamental to undertake lifestyle changes especially
in the North and among the elites of the South at the expenses of natural resources
and majority of poor populations. We cannot afford to maintain the position that
the lifestyles of the rich are not up for negotiation. We have to live simply
so that others can simply live!
* In relation to the technology options
for mitigation, we have very serious concerns over nuclear energy, genetically
modified trees, carbon capture and storage and biofuels for environmental and
safety reasons. We consider that these are not ways out to combat global warming,
but endangering environment and poor populations.
Finally,
some final last words. Bali is just a few weeks away. We have reasonable expectation
that all of the delegates present at this informal ministerial meeting are going
to return to Bali with the least NIMBY/egoistic position of the individual states.
Nevertheless, we should remind
ourselves that with our all-out efforts up to COP13 in Bali, we are still using
an extremely narrow language of policy and action, way beyond the grasp and imagination
of the ordinary people. Beyond the procedural and global action scheduling grids
of the UNFCCC since COP13, we must confront the new social and ecological externalities
that the fuel-switching and other technological fix formulas we currently are
pushing will impose unevenly across the globe, of which we in the South are going
to absorp most of the brunt.
The
post-2012 is contingently depending on your stance: whether you want to maintain
the BAU economic expansion model, or whether you really care to our people back
home. The most critical front for Bali and beyond remains whether we care to realize
a thorough and meaningful political, economic and fiscal reform in our own country.
Thank-you.
Read
by Farah Sofa/Chalid Muhammad Friends
of the Earth Indonesia (Walhi) On Behalf of Walhi National
Executive Office,
Bali Climate Change (collaboration of Bali Organic
Association, PPLH, Walhi
Bali Chapter, Yayasan Wisnu, Yayasan Pelangi.
Etc).
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