Jack Daw’s COP15: Getting to Copenhagen, Indigenous Rights and a post oil Cuba?

After a sleepless but free nights travel to Copenhagen I ended up at Klimaforum in the DGI-BYEN complex. The people at the info point were useless, not wanting to help me find where the free accommodation was. They are part of a less radical faction of climate activists and don’t seem to want anything to do with those who are more radical even though they are supposed to be “the alternative summit.” Corporate environmental propaganda and talks are some of what fills their programme. They just told me that one of the free places – Ragnhildsgade – had been raided by the police the night before!

I ended up at Teglholmen, after asking many people, to find a large warehouse with pallets laid out to sleep on. It’s a well organised and collectively run space with a peoples kitchen to feed us and rotas for us all to volunteer for different responsibilities. They told me that they had been raided by the police a few days before, put everyone in handcuffs and held them in one room while they think the police bugged the place with microphones and cameras. The police repression feels like it could get worse here.

Back at klimaforum, I come into a “declaration plenary session presentation of the 3rd draft of the declaration and informal adoption of the declaration”. I find various people discussing, around an overhead projector, some kind of ‘ultimate’ document on peoples desires of what a ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ world would like and how to achieve it. It felt like a total fantasy and a waste of time. It felt like activists from around the world writing yet another wish list which will never happen. An effective use of time and energy? I don’t think so.

Disillusioned, I go into a talk on ‘Indigenous Perspectives on forest and climate change’ organised by the International Alliance of Indigenous Tribal Peoples of the tropical Forest and Global Forest Coalition. Representatives from different indigenous communities talked about how they are being oppressed in various ways. Land grabs, deforestation, dams, conservation areas and ‘clean’ development mechanisms have all evicted indigenous people across the world from their land bases. A lot of focus was put on how ‘clean’ development mechanisms or carbon ‘storage’/markets – including through the REDD mechanism – were actually very destructive because they often target indigenous peoples lands, cover them with monoculture tree plantations and evict the people who are living there, all in the name of “carbon sinks”. It makes me feel like crying when the people who have had contributed the least to the climate crisis are being treated in this way in an attempt to alleviate the guilt of the richest in the world.

The speakers also talked about how indigenous peoples are marginalised by international treaties and climate negotiations. Apparently the Kyoto Protocol doesn’t mention indigenous people at all. There are no official indigenous representatives at the official climate negotiations in Copenhagen. There is the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of indigenous People and the ILO Convention 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples but both are not binding! ILO convention 169 has not been ratified by many countries and is frequently ignored.

As was pointed out again and again, indigenous peoples rights have ignored and suppressed for hundreds of years. Indigenous people have won many battles in courts and got many governments to sign treaties but their rights and these rulings are mostly ignored. Indigenous people across the world have lost control of their lands and resources so that governments, the civilised and the corporations can benefit.

One speaker talked about how one tribe – I forget the name, but it might have been the Naso – had been evicted a week ago in Panama by police with guns. The speaker said that members of the tribe had wondered if they should throw stones to defend themselves. When the speaker was asked what we should do in solidarity about all of this, I was deeply disappointed that we were told to go on the protests in Copenhagen and write letters to the Panama government as well as lobbying government in general.

Bearing in mind that indigenous rights have mostly been ignored by states and the general ineffectiveness of protests in the North to actually change things (more on this later), why do people continue to recommend these tactics?

I finished the day, after meeting many old friends, by watching ‘The Power of Community - How Cuba survived Peak Oil’ followed by a discussion with Cuban experts on the topic. It was interesting to see how Cuba adapted when 80% of its imports and exports and almost half of its oil disappeared almost overnight when the special period with Russia ended in 1990. Although many of the solutions are state led, I’d recommend watching it if you are interested in seeing what can be done when people are faced with oil or other resource shortages.

There was a large redistribution of land, a big rolling out of organic agriculture using oxen instead of tractors and compost and manure instead of fertilisers, millions of bicycles were imported and produced, training programs were introduced, the list goes on. I do have to wonder if they were able to adapt so quickly because they have: a relatively small population on an island; a highly centralised state with a lot of power which came out of a guerilla revolution; a people with a long history of resisting oppression; an older generation which still remembered how to do agriculture without fossil fuels which could teach the younger generations how to do it once again.

How would England, Sweden or other rich countries adapt if such a situation happened to them now? How would London, a city of between 12-14 million people, adapt to this kind of scenario? I’ve read that the people of North Korea suffered terribly when faced with resource shortages. Apparently, in Korea, “Modern, industrialized agriculture collapsed without fossil fuel inputs. It is estimated that over 3 million people have died as a result.”

I could write a lot more about this but need to sign out. Watch the film and read about it to find out more. The Cuba example is very interesting and inspiring. It shows us how much we can change over a short period of time if we really put our hearts and minds (and stomachs) into it.

/Jack Daw, COP15, 10 december 2009

~ av iamhampus den 10 december 2009.