Posts Tagged ‘g20’
Oil, civil liberties, and the G20 Summit
July 28th, 2010
A statement from Climate Justice London, Ontario -
Members of our group took to the streets around the G20 Summit in Toronto with concerns about climate change, the Alberta tar sands, assaults on native sovereignty, and other environmental injustices. The Summit police in Toronto threatened, searched, arrested, and detained Climate Justice London activists, while other local climate justice activists stayed away from Toronto to avoid the G20 police regime. Our dissent was not permitted at the Summit. In fact, anyone who was outdoors in downtown Toronto was a potential target for the snatch squads, the riot cops, the mounted horse brigades, and thousands of other police at the Summit. Our allies and our friends were pulled into this ‘security’ sweep, and all of us are left wondering which of the local police officers we encounter have brought their G20 summit training and hostility back to our cities.
Because we condemn this trampling of civil liberties, and because we always will call for democracy and social justice, members of our group have taken on leading roles in preparing a statement about police conduct and detention conditions at the G20 summit in Toronto. People for Peace (London) activists helped to develop that London-specific version of the original statement from Toronto. We hope that more Londoners will sign on to communicate their support.
Threats to our civil liberties will make it even more difficult to continue campaigning against environmental injustices — in a non-violent manner, without destructive sabotage tactics.
More than anyone, the people who need more freedom and more capacity to resist are residents of the front lines of water pollution, oil refineries, and other unjust environmental devastation — in native communities near the Alberta tar sands, in Sarnia, in Nanticoke, in southwest Detroit, and elsewhere, in far too many other areas of the world. The rest of us also will need more (not less) ways and more resources to support those victims, by challenging the industries, policies, and oppression behind the Alberta tar sands, and other fossil fuel systems.
Tags: Alberta, big business, Big Oil, Canada, g20, government, London Ontario, Ontario, tar sands, toronto | 
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PLANET OR DEATH! | G8/G20 Communiqué | Rejection of Failed System that Places Profits over Mother Earth and People
May 28th, 2010
PLANETA O MUERTE!
PLANET OR DEATH!
G8/G20 Communiqué | Rejection of Failed System that Places Profits over Mother Earth and People
Sign the Petition HERE
May 28, 2010
Joan Russow, Global Compliance Research Project
Cory Morningstar, Canadians for Action on Climate Change
Gordon Brown, in his press conference, arrogantly equated the G-20 states as being ‘the world” when he made statements such as “now the world has agreed” [the same arrogance has been present for years with the self anointed G7and G8]. In June, statements from the G8 and G20 will be released; it will be presumably nothing more than tinkering with the economic system. If the current global situation is to be changed, there must be more than status quo measures to prop up the current capitalist system. Instead the G8 and G20 could reverse the years of contributing to war and conflict, of violating human rights, of denying social justice, and of devastating the environment, and could draft the following communiqué:
We, the G20 and above all the G8 states recognize that we have for years been part of the problem and have contributed to a state of global urgency.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it” – Albert Einstein. No self-anointed group of 20 countries can solve the urgency of the global crisis.
We now commit to do the following:
1. Reduce the global military budget and security by reallocating military security expenses and transferring the savings into global social justice as undertaken through numerous UN Conference Action Plans and UN General Assembly Resolutions.
2. Abandon the pre-emptive/preventive attack policy that has resulted in aggressive attacks on sovereign states and that has been in violation of the UN Charter Article 2 and international law as being the ‘supreme’ international crime of war of aggression.
3. Withdraw immediately from any military involvement and occupation of sovereign states, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
4. End the practice of mollifying public opposition by couching aggressive acts in euphemistic “operations” such as “Operation Just Cause”, Operation Iraqi Freedom, “Operation Enduring Freedom”, etc.
5. Undertake to sign and ratify all Geneva Protocols, including Protocol V, which requires the removal of remnants of war.
6. No longer perceive justice in terms of revenge through military intervention and to instead seek justice through the International Court of Justice.
7. No longer misconstrue Art. 51 (self-defence) of the Charter of the United Nations to justify premeditated non-provoked military aggression, or to use various such pretexts for invading other sovereign states.
8. Not engage in and to oppose any attempt to undermine the international resolve to prevent the scourge of war; this would include not engaging in intimidation or in offering economic incentives in exchange for support for military interventions.
9. Be willing to be judged by an international tribunal for any actions that might be deemed to violate international law, to be crimes against the peace, to be war crimes, or to involve genocide.
10. Not misuse UN “peacekeeping” forces to clean up aggressive acts of destruction and occupation of other states.
11. Close and convert to peaceful purposes all foreign military bases in sovereign states around the world.
12. Undertake to respect the mandatory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, and to abide by its decisions.
13. End the production and circulation and berthing of nuclear powered or nuclear arms-capable vessels throughout the world.
14. No longer engage in “war games” or “military exercises” such as Exercise Trident Fury.
15. Discontinue propping up and financing military dictators. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: capitalism, g20, G8, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, militarization, offsets, REDD |
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The Fire This Time: Burning Bridges
May 23rd, 2010
Steve D’Arcy and Syrah Canyon in The Bullet
“Respect Indigenous Rights” banner at this year's May Day rally in Toronto.
Across Canada, activists have been reacting to the May 18 arson attack on a bank in Ottawa by a group claiming to be politically motivated. The group – calling itself FFFC – set off a fire bomb inside a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) branch in the Glebe residential neighbourhood near the city’s downtown, and then posted a video of the attack on the internet.
Along with the video, the group issued a ‘communiqué’ in which they suggested that RBC was targeted because of its sponsorship of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver earlier this year, on stolen Indigenous land, and the bank’s role as the leading financier of the environmentally destructive Tar Sands megaproject in Alberta, which has led to elevated cancer and death rates in First Nation communities living downstream along the Athabasca River, while contributing massively to climate change.
Few amongst the Left could disagree, of course, with a strong condemnation of RBC, Canada’s most profitable and most notoriously immoral financial institution. RBC fully deserves to be challenged, with determination and militancy, whenever possible. However, there is debate on the action taken by the FFFC against RBC. The crux of this debate turns on questions of tactics and strategy.
Political Arson?
Many people have been sharply critical of the arsonists’ use of a tactic that endangered the lives of both nearby residents and the emergency workers who had to deal with the fire (there was also the possibility of there being night workers in the bank cleaning). The actions of the arsonists were irresponsible and reckless. Anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of being in a fire, fighting a fire or treating a fire victim can tell you just how dangerous a fire can be. Fire is very powerful and unpredictable and, even if it was not the intention of the arsonists to do so, it was within the realm of possibility that people could have been seriously injured and/or killed (as occurred in the Greek anti-austerity protests when a bank was firebombed, workers killed, and a huge setback to the momentum to the protests followed). We expect such disregard for human life from the major corporations themselves, not those who oppose them. It is delusional to think that any pain brought on by this action would be borne by the system of capitalism, the state, or even the RBC. You can’t burn those things down. It is business as usual for all of them. In fact, this action has served their interests.
Read the rest of this entry »
AN INVITATION: FROM COPENHAGEN TO TORONTO
December 24th, 2009
The Group of 8 Leaders and the Group of 20 Leaders are meeting in Ontario,
from the 25th to the 27th of June, 2010.
Following the collapse of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, they will be
discussing the global economy, development and climate change.
These gatherings are about trying to fix capitalism, a system that cannot
be fixed; about creating unsustainable market responses to ecological
catastrophe that reinforce systems of oppressions; about ensuring the
continued exploitation of people of color and the South and about
celebrating war as a means to create puppet allies to maintain imperialist
power. The so-called leaders at these gatherings do not represent us.
In opposition and with a will to transform, people across Turtle Island
are organizing community-based days of action in Toronto, Canada. The
days of action will be led by Toronto-based organizations of people of
color, indigenous peoples, women, the poor, the working class, queer and
trans people and disabled people.
Read the rest of this entry »
Taking Care of Business: How Big Business Has Hijacked Climate Talks
November 24th, 2009
Published on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 by The New Internationalist
A new realism has emerged. Climate change is no longer rejected as a bogus theory the economy can ill afford. Instead, it’s a business opportunity
A flower blooms under a floodlight. It is projected on to a huge
screen, behind a panel of expensively suited executives. A CNN business
correspondent struts up and down a catwalk, excitedly thanking UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the ubiquitous Al Gore. The scene of
this corporate love-in? The World Business Summit on Climate Change.
‘The fact that I flew here to sit on a panel for one and a half
hours, then I´m flying straight back to the US, is an example of our
commitment to environmental sustainability,’ boasts Indra Nooyi, CEO of
PepsiCo, blissfully unaware of the irony of her statement. Her fellow
industry representatives make similar claims about just how
energetically they are saving the planet.
This is the new face of the climate business.
Until recently, many of the globe’s biggest corporations were firmly
in the climate change denial camp – and funding spurious research to
back up their claims. Now a new realism has emerged. Climate change is
no longer rejected as a bogus theory the economy can ill afford.
Instead, it’s a business opportunity.
Back in the days of George W Bush, the ostrich-headed faction of US
industry held sway. Companies like ExxonMobil saw no profits in
‘climate solutions’, so opposed any climate legislation. Now, carbon
markets – the buying and selling of the right to pollute – are at the
heart of proposals for a new global deal at the UN Climate Conference
in Copenhagen this December, and the ‘progressive’ wing of big
business, backed by large US-based NGOs, argues that this market-driven
approach is the only way to secure an international emissions
reductions deal.
The problem is, critics say, that carbon markets are delaying
genuine action on climate change, and shifting attention away from the
fundamental task of rapidly phasing out fossil fuels. How did it come
to this?
The ostrich position
Tags: ACES, American Petroleum Institute, big business, blame, cap-and-trade, carbon markets, carbon offsets, Carbon Trade Watch, carbon trading, CDM, Clean Development Mechanism, COP15, Copenhagen, corporate criminals, corporations, corruption, disaster, g20, green capitalism, lobbyists, loopholes, markets, offsets, politics, REDD, UN, UNFCCC, World Economic Forum |
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Trade to Climate Caravan: Protest and Action between WTO in Geneva and COP15 in Copenhagen
November 8th, 2009
****TRADE TO CLIMATE CARAVAN***
Protest and Action around and between
7th WTO in Geneva and COP15 in Copenhagen
Two important summits take place at the end of 2009 in Europe: the 7th conference of ministers of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva and the UN climate summit in Copenhagen (COP15). With a week between them, 60 activists from the global South will travel across Europe through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France and Denmark. They will draw attention to the consequences neoliberal globalization and climate change have on their lives and show how to fight against them. Together with local activists, they look for alternatives to free trade and the privatisation of resources, and unite the North and South in their fights for another world.
Read the rest of this entry »
Shut Coal Down in Copenhagen ahead of COP15
September 27th, 2009
Shortly after G20 protesters were attacked by police at the University of Pittsburgh, on September 26 about 1,500 people took direct action to shut down one of Copenhagen’s coal fire power plants. The SHUT IT DOWN action plan had been openly announced several months earlier and Danish police had been gearing up for massive use of force to trial new anti-protest laws. Around 100 protesters managed to get inside the power plant. Although at that point the plant should have been shut down due to safety regulations, it was kept running.
Around 100 people have been arrested. One person so far has been charged. The action was widely and positively covered in Danish news. The protesters regard this act of mass civil disobience for climate justice an encouraging success and a positive trial run for the actions surrounding the COP 15 climate conference in December in Copenhagen (On Dec 16, RECLAIM POWER!).
Action pics:
http://modkraft.dk/spip.php?article11552
For google-translated movement and mainstream news about Shut-It-Down:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=da&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmodkraft.dk%2F
For the original Danish versions go to:
Tags: action, civil disobedience, climate, climate justice, coal, COP15, Copenhagen, direct action, europe, g20, media, Pittsburgh, protest |
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Greenpeace Activists Greet G20 Leaders with Massive Banner on Pittsburgh Bridge
September 23rd, 2009
Pittsburgh, United States — Greenpeace activists rappelled off of a Pittsburgh bridge with a massive banner displaying our message to G20 leaders gathering for tomorrow’s summit. The banner takes the form of a stylized “road sign” that warns of the political maneuvering and delay that have put an international climate treaty in jeopardy as the world enters the final stretch on the road to Copenhagen.
“It is imperative that developed world leaders do not fail again in Pittsburgh. They must put money on the table to support developing countries” said Damon Moglen, Greenpeace USA’s global warming campaign director. “It is also critical that G20 leaders agree to kick-start economic recovery through clean energy investment. Both of these elements are vital to achieve a good deal in Copenhagen and avert catastrophic climate change.”
read more:
Climate Change: Off the G20 Agenda?
September 23rd, 2009
By Robert S. Eshelman
September 23, 2009
Editor’s Note: Follow Rob Eshelman’s dispatches from the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh at TheNation.com all week.
Tuesday afternoon, US District Court Judge Gary Lancaster rejected a request by the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Center for Constitutional Rights for an injunction against the Pittsburgh Police. The lawyers alleged in the suit that local law enforcement has been systematically harassing and carrying out unconstitutional searches and seizures of members of two G-20 protest groups–the Seeds of Peace Collective and the Three Rivers Climate Convergence (3RCC). The judge refused to restrain the police and suggested that if police conduct warrants damages claims, then the ACLU should file suit. The ACLU says it will pursue such claims.
read the whole article at The Nation
Robert S. Eshelman is an independent journalist. His articles have appeared in Abu Dhabi’s the National, In These Times and on TomDispatch.com. more…
Tags: action, climate camp, climate justice, coal, direct action, g20, legal, media coverage, mtr, Pittsburgh, police, protest, the streets |
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Mobilizing The Masses In Defense Of The Planet: Change You Can Act For
September 23rd, 2009
By Frank Joseph Smecker
With the entire planet at stake, why would anyone want to sit out on the sidelines and watch while the most crucial decision-making is about to take place? Before the adjournment of 2009 arrives for all of us, the world’s most influential and powerful individuals will be assembling more than once to discuss the economic and ecological future of the entire planet.
Later this week – September 24th through the 25th, the G-20 Summit will be taking place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The world’s most powerful players from the twenty most powerful industrial nations will be convening down on the “green-engineered†David L. Lawrence Convention Center to discuss the recent financial collapse, as well as the economic implications climate change has on globalization.
Then, later this year, from the 7th to the 18th of December, many of the same power-players will be flocking to Copenhagen to discuss global warming and climate change. Calling it the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15 – quite the apropos acronym-cognomen), global elites will be engaging in discourse with regard to finding a solution to climate change, alongside setting up new treaty mechanisms that will replace the futile Kyoto Protocol that is due to expire in 2012.
Tags: action, action alert, climate justice, direct action, g20, media, Pittsburgh, protest |
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Rising Tide climate contingent at People’s Uprising march on the G20
September 14th, 2009
On Thursday Sept 24 meet at 2:30 pm at Arsenal Park (40th Street & Penn Avenue in Lawrenceville) Look for the “Our Climate is not Your Business†banner. The people who are responsible for evicting poor families from their homes and displacing entire peoples through wars of conquest, are the same ones responsible for the climate crisis that evicts thousands from their communities each year as sea levels rise, droughts spread, and rivers overflow their banks. On Sept 24th and 25th they will be meeting in Pittsburgh to salvage an economic system that wreaks havoc upon our communities and ecosystems. We will not be fooled by their desperate PR campaign to paint capitalism green, nor their attempts to solve the climate crisis via the very same free market ideology that created this mess. It is plain to see, capitalism means crisis. As the Big Greens ready the beds in their luxury hotels to continue their love affair with corporate America, thousands will be flooding the streets of Pittsburgh to take direct action against the G20 and its destructive policies. Rising Tide invites all those who recognize capitalism as a root cause of climate change to join the climate contingent at the People’s Uprising mass march on the G20 on Thursday Sept 24th. This is an un-permitted march to the G20 summit site being organized by a coalition of anti-capitalist, student, labor, ecological, and anti-war groups. For the full call to action check: www.resistg20.org . Read the rest of this entry »
Why is the “Greenest City†Silencing Green Voices?
September 9th, 2009
[This morning, we at the action factory had an impressive showing at the National Press Club where representatives from Pittsburgh sought to explain “Why Pittsburgh†was chosen as the city for the G20 meeting that President Obama will host this September. The city officials are touting Pittsburgh’s economic revitalization and green initiatives over the last several years as an example for the world leaders to replicate elsewhere as they seek to address the global financial crisis and the global climate crisis during the G20. Yet they have been denying us climate advocates and our allies working on other issues the right to protest by not giving permits. So today we stood up and made our voices heard. - http://dc.actionfactories.org ]
Washington, DC — Environmental advocates hoping to influence G20 climate commitments are surprised to find that Pittsburgh is showcasing its green recovery while stalling permits and planning for a major crackdown on free speech activities during the summit. To show their frustration, they twice held up banners and were subsequently escorted out during a briefing on Pittsburgh and the G20 at the National Press Club this morning. The banners read “Why is the greenest city silencing green voices?â€
The Pittsburgh meeting is the G20 leaders’ last chance to make progress on climate change policy before the expected deal at the UN talks in Copenhagen this December. President Obama has asked finance ministers to bring climate finance proposals, but negotiations are gridlocked. The stakes are high, and climate advocates intend to be part of the conversation by encouraging the G20 to be ambitious in creating a just and sustainable future.
And yet, the efforts of climate activists have thus far been thwarted and their first amendment rights denied along with other groups organizing free speech activities in Pittsburgh. Many groups, including the Three Rivers Climate Convergence and the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Social Justice are still awaiting permits to hold peaceful marches and demonstrations.
Pittsburgh considers legislation targeting G20 protesters’ tools
August 7th, 2009
By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
City of Pittsburgh officials are debating whether to legislate away some of the materials protesters use to disrupt gatherings such as the impending G-20 summit, and how to pass such legislation without compromising either their public safety plans or the public’s right to know.
Knowing that highly organized protesters use materials like plastic PVC pipe, handcuffs and other locks, wire and cement to link themselves together in tough-to-break formations with names like “sleeping dragon,” Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s administration is drafting restrictions on carrying such materials into public gathering places.
Administration officials wouldn’t detail the emerging ordinance yesterday, but compared it to special legislation passed prior to the 2006 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which restricted the transport of signs, poles and pipes into certain areas at certain times. Read the rest of this entry »