Communities Affected by Global Warming Speak Out
For Immediate Release
For more information contact:
Nick Berning, 202-222-0748
Friends of the Earth issues new report prior to UN global warming meetings in Bali
WASHINGTON — A new report released today by Friends of the Earth provides nine testimonies from community members around the globe who have dramatic first-hand experience of the devastating impacts of climate change.
The report, “Voices from Communities Affected by Climate Change,” is available at http://www.foei.org/en/publications/pdfs/climate-testimonies/ and is being launched ahead of key United Nations climate talks that will take place from December 3 to 14 in Bali, Indonesia. It was compiled by Friends of the Earth-International (www.foei.org).
In this report, indigenous peoples, women, local authorities, farmers, small business owners and small-scale fisherfolk speak out about their experience of climate change from Honduras, Peru, Brazil, Mali, Swaziland, the UK, Australia, Malaysia and Tuvalu. These community members highlight strategies that they have developed to attempt to adapt to the radical transformations that climate change has meant for their territories, lifestyles and ecosystems.
Elizabeth Bast, International Policy Analyst at FoE-U.S. and a member of the executive committee of FoE International who will be negotiating in Bali, said:
“This report shows why it is so important that we develop a roadmap at the UN climate talks in Bali this December that will get us to a post-Kyoto agreement in 2012. The countries that have done the most to cause global warming must now do the most to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These countries must also do their part to help poorer communities and nations adapt to the changing climate.”
Tatiana Roa Avendaño, Director of CENSAT Agua Viva/ Friends of the Earth Colombia, and a contributor to the report, said:
“We are on the brink of a global climatic catastrophe and poor, vulnerable communities – who are the least responsible for climate change – are already being hit. Climate change is socially and environmentally disruptive, causing displacement, disease, and the destruction of livelihoods and ecosystems. This drives home the need for a global, diverse movement to tackle climate change and demand climate justice. This can only be achieved by halting unsustainable consumption and production while promoting genuine solutions including clean renewable energy and energy sovereignty, a moratorium on fossil fuels extraction, the funding of adaptation, mitigation and forest conservation that protects land rights.”
Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), wealthy countries are obliged to finance developing country adaptation. [1] The costs of climate adaptation in developing countries will amount to many billions of dollars per year. [2]
[1] Article 4.3 of the UNFCCC commits Annex II countries to providing ‘new and additional resources to meet the agreed full incremental cost of implementing measures…’ including ‘preparing for the adaptation to climate change’. In addition, Article 4.4 states that Annex II countries ‘shall also assist the developing country Parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting costs of adaptation to those adverse effects.’
[2] According to Kermal Dervis, head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), donors will need to provide 50 to 100 per cent more finance over and above current aid – equivalent to $50–100 billion annually — to cover the impacts of climate change. See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/43af1a4a-c817-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html
Friends of the Earth International (www.foei.org) is the world’s largest grassroots environmental federation with 70 national member groups in 70 countries and 2 million individual members and supporters. Friends of the Earth-U.S. (www.foe.org) has over 100,000 members and supporters and is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
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