THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MOMENT

The planet is experiencing a climate crisis of catastrophic proportions. Disruptions in weather patterns have severely damaged the environment and with it the destruction of lives and livelihoods, especially of the poorest and most vulnerable. Unprecedented increase in human generated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particular from the budding of fossil fuels for industry, commerce, transport and militarism continue to contribute to dangerous climatic changes.

While the latest centuries have been heralded for great strides in technology, production and human progress, these advances have precipitated global ecological disasters. On one hand the privileged global elite continue to engage in reckless profit-driven production and grossly excessive consumption, while conversely on the other hand the mass of humanity is mired in underdevelopment and poverty with merely survival and subsistence production or even less. The world’s largest Trans-National Corporations (TNCs) based mainly in the global north and with ever-expanding operations in the global South have long been at the forefront of these excesses.

This pursuit of growth and profit are at the core of exploitation, structural poverty and global warming. Climate change expresses, on a world scale the fundamental contradiction between capitalist development and ecological sustainability, which has now critically undermined the foundation of human survival.

WHY DO WE NEED YOUR VOICE URGENTLY?

As climate change continues to fuel poverty, magnify inequalities between the global north and southern countries, societies and between men and women as well as other categories, developed countries seek to dismantle the existing rules that apply to them (end Kyoto Protocol or a binding commitment regime), shift the burden to developing countries (currently the heaviest polluters), and fundamentally alter the balance of rights and obligations in the UN climate regime.

Developed countries seek to limit or minimize their responsibilities to provide finance and technology to developing countries for mitigation and adaptation by, among other things repackaging old finance commitments as new; double counting their existing official development assistance (ODA) as “additional” climate finance; conflating private sector investments as a contribution towards meeting their public finance commitments; including carbon market finance (which actually funds emission reduction commitments of developed not developing countries);

It is now 21 years since international efforts to develop strategies by all States to respond to the climate change crisis. To date instead of a legally binding global climate agreement that is more preferable over mere pledges and reviews, there is continued sidelining of this focus, year in year out thanks to the international climate negotiations.

Progressives need to heighten the demand for developed countries that have contributed the most to the climate crisis and who have a historical responsibility to take the lead in cutting emissions, as well as to providing finance and technology to developing countries (and their peoples) who are suffering from the impacts of climate change.

We need to raise more fundamental issues such as:

• How are the current politics of climate change negotiations be fundamentally challenged?
• What would a new global climate deal among countries mean for the lives and livelihoods of farmers and peasants, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, workers, women and children, migrants, and other vulnerable sectors?
• Will these international agreements be translated and implemented at the regional and country levels or it will be yet another framework that’s States ignore?
• What voice or how much influence do marginalized communities have at international, regional and national processes?
• Why do the voices of communities most affected by the impacts of climate change, and who are therefore most in need of immediate and thoroughgoing policy reforms remain at the margins of these high-level conversations and decision-making?
• How can CSOs ensure equitable and ambitious post-2015 international climate architecture is realised?

Pambazuka News Editorial Team invites articles on these and related questions for a special issue on Climate Justice: Is a New Ambitious Climate Regime a Possibility? For December 2015.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ARTICLES is: Thursday, 3rd December 2015.

LENGTH OF ARTICLES:

Articles should be written in Microsoft Word, Font: Times, size 12 and be between 1000-3000words

Please submit a biography of two lines at the end of your article and send it to:[email protected]