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As world leaders meet for the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), people's groups in different countries including the Philippines hold protest actions to demand a people-centered response to the global climate crisis.
Protest activities have started since last week as run-up to the UN conference in countries like Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Hongkong, Egypt, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Thailand and China. People's assemblies will continue during the week-long UN conference in Canada, Lebanon, Indonesia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.
The protests are part of the campaign of the Peoples' Movement on Climate Change (PMCC), which organized a parallel Peoples' Assembly in Copenhagen to give a platform for poor nations to voice out pro-people solutions to climate change.
According to PMCC spokesperson Theresa Lauron, countries in the South especially the poor are bearing the worst impacts of climate change, but do not have a say in the climate negotiations.
The Philippines for instance has recently proven its vulnerability to climate change after typhoons ravaged the country in September. This vulnerability to the harsh effects of climate change has been made worse by the wanton plunder of natural resources by foreign and local corparations and continued government neglect. Yet corporate plunder in the Third World remains excluded in the agenda of the UN climate talks, said Lauron.
In Manila, various environment and cause-oriented groups led by Bayan and Kalikasan People's Network for the Environment held a picket in front of the US embassy to register their opposition to false solutions of First World countries and corporations led by the US. According to the groups, measures promoted by these countries only continue to severely harm the environment and communities in the Third World, provide new and greater opportunities for corporate profit, and reinforce and expand corporate control over natural resources and technologies.
The groups said that the protest actions around the globe demonstrate the seriousness of the people's demand for ecologically sustainable, socially just, pro-people, and long-lasting solutions to the global climate crisis.
A video streaming of these protest activities will be webcasted in the PMCC website on 9 December (www.peoplesmovement.net).
For reference:
Ms. Theresa Lauron
+63.918.902.8320
Ms. Maitet Ledesma
+31.6.14659558
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