I recently participated in a community report back in Oakland on the recent United Nations COP16. We represented various sectors of the work at the COP including media, youth, international, action and local grassroots. Our collective conclusion? We’ve got to keep going! Focusing on grassroots community visioned solutions while holding governments and corporations accountable for a healthy Mother Earth.

Onward for Climate Justice!

Cancun Climate Justice Report Back in Oakland from Melia's Papa on Vimeo.

Hey y’all!

It’s been a while since I have been able to write and A LOT has happened! It’s been hard to blog while things are moving and changing so quickly around the negotiations. Frankly there have been alot of late nights and early mornings and just not enough coffee to go around! So I’m going to do my best to give a short recap of what has been going on here in Cancun while folks are rocking things back home.

Thursday December 2- SHUT DOWN THE TAR SANDS

An action was staged outside of the main building in the Moon Palace where official UN Negotiations are taking place. A human banner was deployed and Indigenous People from TarSands impacted communities from the United States and Canada highlighted the impacts of TarSands extraction and processing on communities.

Thursday December 2- RESPECT INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS

That’s right- we rocked two actions in one day. We must just be cool like that. This was an action from the Indigenous Peoples Caucus (Indigenous Peoples are recognized stakeholders in the UN process) to remind the UN to Respect Indigenous Peoples Rights. Indigenous Peoples from around the world came together under the same message, shared culture, songs, and their perspectives on the solutions that are being brought here to the UN by their peoples.

In general UN Security is paranoid about disruptions or protests in the UN space. It is clear that they are poised and instructed to minimize voices of dissent. This action pushed the paranoia button a bit when we closed the action with a friendship dance! As a result of this action the UN changed the rules around the permitting of actions!! Didn’t know realize that friendship dances were acts of resistance, but in the UN you never know!

Sunday December 5^th: Marching with La Via Campesina. Welcome to Cancun

We marched with our comrades of La Via Campesina and Grassroots Global Justice in a “NO REDD’S” block. One strategy here in Cancun is to combat the pro-REDD agenda that is being pushed here as a solution to climate change by governments like the United States and Mexico, but also by some environmental NGO’s. So at every turn and opportunity we are talking about why REDD’s is a false solution.

Tuesday December 7^th: LA VIA CAMPESINA CREATES THOUSANDS OF CANCUNS

We had the honor of being invited to participate with La Via Campesina in creating thousands of Cancuns right here in Cancun!! Thousands marched together on the streets of Cancun from all over the world. On the inside of UN negotiations a press conference, followed by a walk out was staged. It got a bit hairy! Check out the reports from Democracy Now! But, you can’t stop people power, and ultimately those who were ejected joined their friends in the streets for a peoples assembly, highlighting community solutions to climate change as we see them.

Wednesday December 8^th

Today I feel like I have a bit of a hangover, maybe it is from inhaling paint fumes from the visuals we have been working on! Today, the United States held a side event at the UN on its strategy for the REDD’s program. We saturated the audience with climate justice activists from communities throughout the United States who at every opportunity raised questions about financing for such programs (which gets funneled to organizations and most communities never see a dime), Free Prior and Informed Consent from Indigenous communities, and transparency of US engagement in other countries and at home. This made the US representatives very nervous! As expected, they dodged all of our questions, but we aren’t going anywhere so, see you next time!!

I encourage you, if you haven’t already to visit www.redroadcancun.com. The IEN media team is doing daily live shows, posting videos and photos from actions and workshops happening and sharing the perspectives from our brothers and sisters in the South.

It’s not over yet!!! Talk soon!

Thousands of community activists around the world take action to promote Local Solutions to the Climate Crisis

The tone inside the conference center at the U.N. Climate Negotiations in Cancun has been a bit dismal this past week. Yet despite the reduced expectations inside, this morning the international peasant movement La Via Campesina gave us a new injection of hope and vision with a vibrant march of thousands of small farmers, Indigenous peoples and community activists through the streets in Mexico. It kicked off today’s international day of action – “1,000 Cancuns” – where grassroots organizations across the world demonstrated local resiliency and real solutions to the climate crisis. 30 coordinated events took place in the U.S. and Canada today, anchored by the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance.

Here in San Francisco, more than a dozen local community organizations joined forces to help convert a Mission District parking lot into a community garden and park with affordable housing units. Click here for photos.

“This action demonstrates a tangible solution to the climate crisis by promoting local food production, challenging our dependence on automobiles and strengthening bonds within the community,” explained Teresa Almaguer of People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights (PODER) “The climate crisis requires community-based solutions and an end to corporate influence within the UN climate negotiations.” In addition to planting vegetables, participants enjoyed live music, theatrical performances and speakers all focusing on solutions to the climate crisis. A common theme at the event was increasing local food production in the fight against climate change, in contrast to the corporate-driven false solutions being put forth inside the U.N. negotiations.

“Industrial agriculture is one of the top three sources of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan of Movement Generation. “Agribusiness corporations profit from everything from fertilizer and pesticide sales to control of what goes onto supermarket shelves. The people are left paying the true costs in polluted water, depleted soil, diet-related diseases, and climate disruption. Meanwhile, U.S. agribusiness harms small farmers, farm workers and consumers – in the U.S. and around the world.” (more…)

Starting next week all eyes will turn towards Mexico as the UNFCCC gathers in Cancun to begin another round of Climate Negotiations, the COP-16. Thousands will travel to Cancun by land, air and sea to influence the international negotiations where forests, water, and Indigenous Rights (among others) are commodified and waged like poker chips on the global card table.

Allied movements from the Global South and North are coming to the United Nations this year with our own People’s Agreement towards an ecologically just future that embodies not just the rights of humans, but the rights of Mother Earth and all her creations.

Last year at COP15 in Copenhagen, Ruckus took a stand with our friends from the Indigenous Environmental Network to create actions that brought voices of Indigenous Peoples to the forefront of world media and posed direct challenges to our world leaders.

This year in Cancun we stand ready to link arms with our friends again to challenge destructive policies like REDD (so-called “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation”), which are being pushed down our throats as false solutions to climate change, but in actuality cause even more problems while doing nothing to curb climate change. (Want to know more about why REDD is a false solution? Read up here).

I landed in Cancun this morning, and the rest of our Ruckus Action Team is arriving over the next few days to hit the ground running prepping for actions over the next two weeks of COP-16 negotiations.  Don’t miss out on the action! Stay virtually connected throughout the negotiations and peoples mobilization by following us on Facebook and Twitter and here on our blog for all the latest action updates from COP-16.

And while some of us are in Cancun, Ruckus is also joining our allies at home in the U.S. to respond to La Via Campesina’s call for actions this Dec 7th to create ‘thousands of Cancuns’. We encourage YOU to hit the streets with your neighbors this December 7th and practice bold acts of resilience and community sustainability.

Remember, actions speak louder than words, and they start at home!  Local Organizing Cools the Planet!

In Solidarity from Cancun,
Sharon