"NO CLIMATE AND PUBLIC FUNDS FOR DIRTY ENERGY"
Dear GAIA Members and Friends,
A Sign-On Statement to be Sent to the Transitional Committee of the Green Climate Fund and Other Concerned Local, Regional and National Governments
We are releasing today, September 12, the first day of the third Transitional Committee (TC) meeting of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in Geneva, Switzerland a sign-on statement that will inform governments about our objection to the misuse of climate funds and public monies for incinerators and other polluting technologies that are exacerbating the climate crisis. The TC, as you may know, was created out of the Cancun climate negotiations and given the huge task of designing a new global climate fund. GAIA, along with other climate action and justice groups, is participating in civil society efforts to influence the design of the GCF.
In this regard, we invite your organizations to endorse the statement, and invite other concerned civil society groups and individuals to sign on as well (please respond not later than September 23, 2011).
We plan to send the statement to the 40 governments comprising the TC, as well as to other concerned governments, on September 30, 2011 in time for the Global Day of Action against Waste and Incineration.
Thank you very much for your support and solidarity.
From the GAIA Coordination Team
"NO CLIMATE AND PUBLIC FUNDS FOR DIRTY ENERGY"
"Fund Community Solutions - Not Dirty Energy"
To the Co-Chairs and Members of the Transitional Committee of the Green Climate Fund and Other Concerned Local, Regional and National Governments,
Industrial society is making unsustainable demands upon the Earth. We are depleting her arable soils, exhausting her aquifers, felling her forests and mangroves, overfishing her seas, destroying her land for mineral plunder, and polluting her air, water and soil with toxic and climate-changing emissions. Industrial and nuclear “sacrifice zones” dot the planet, and some toxic chemicals are now omnipresent, reaching the most remote and unindustrialized human communities and animal species. We are also feeling the early effects of the climate crisis: droughts, floods, storms, and sea level rise are just a few of the harbingers of climate instability.
Governments have made few efforts to restrain industrial destruction and pollution. Of late, there has been much talk of coordinated action on climate change. Yet the funds and resources dedicated to solving the climate crisis are not only inadequate in scale but often misdirected.
Carbon credits often support projects which not only fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but often increase them. Renewable energy subsidies support technologies that are often toxic, not renewable, hence starving many proven climate solutions of necessary support. Overseas development aid is re-labeled “climate aid” and given to corporations and consultants instead of the communities that need and deserve it.
In this situation, it is imperative that we do everything possible to stop the worst industrial polluters while supporting the most affordable, equitable and local community-based solutions. That can begin by ensuring that our public monies are devoted exclusively to programs and projects which do, in fact, reduce the largest industrial footprints.
Our current mismanagement of our waste is both a travesty and an opportunity. A travesty because it is polluting itself, and drives increased consumption and destruction of natural resources, benefitting private corporations and draining wealth from communities. But it is also an opportunity: community-led Zero Waste offers the opportunity to reduce pollution, reduce demand for energy and raw resources, and increase local employment and community resilience.
We therefore demand the cessation of public subsidies for all kinds for waste incineration and landfill gas projects.
These include:
-carbon credits
-renewable energy credits
-below-market loans
-tax incentives
-concessional electricity rates
-use of public land etc.
-overseas development assistance (bilateral and multilateral)
-support from climate funds such as the new Green Climate Fund and emerging national climate funds
Instead, climate and development aid in the waste sector should be re-oriented towards
community-led Zero Waste programs, including:
-waste prevention and reduction
-eliminating toxics in products and packaging
-source separation of discards
-grazing, composting and biogas for source-separated organics
-full social and economic inclusion of informal sector recyclers
-Extended Producer Responsibility
Public money must be used for public good and benefit: in waste management, as in every other field, it is past time to adopt practices that build a healthy society and just economy within the ecological limits of the Earth.
Signed,
127 total signers.
