24 May 2016, ECO 8, Barro Blanco: Never Again. ECO is deeply concerned by the current developments in the Barro Blanco project in Panama, a hydroelectric dam registered under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and financially backed by the German and Dutch development banks. In 2015, Panama recognised that the Barro Blanco project had been approved in violation of the Ngäbe’s social and cultural rights. The government temporarily suspended the construction of the project. Later in the year, the government fined the project developer $775,000 for failing to negotiate with, relocate and compensate those affected by the dam. How can it be that the dam is fully constructed, and still no agreement has been reached with the affected Ngäbe communities? Just two days ago, Panama announced that it will “initiate the filling of the dam reservoir” today on May 24. While the government claims that the measure is “temporary and will allow for the necessary testing,” it will flood homes, schools, and religious sites and threaten the cultural heritage of the indigenous Ngäbe communities. The flooding will severely affect the Ngäbe’s territorial lands and means of subsistence, and will result in the forced relocation of several families. Barro Blanco is a clear example of why human rights protections must be included in the newly established Sustainable Development Mechanism. Despite the Parties’ failure to reach agreement on the scope of an appeals procedure for the CDM, the SDM must learn from CDM’s mistakes and provide an accountability mechanism that allows affected peoples and communities to raise concerns about harms associated with these mitigation projects. As the Paris Agreement calls on Parties to protect human rights in climate action, Parties must ensure that another Barro Blanco never happens. Source here
Category Archives: Equity & Social justice
23 May 2016, New Statesman, What will it take for people to care about climate change? Record-breaking heat wave in Rajasthan reveals how badly we lack the necessary infrastructure to cope with the human suffering climate change is already causing. The question of whether or not climate change is real is rapidly becoming less urgent than what can be done to alleviate the human suffering it is causing. In Rajasthan, north-west India this week, the mercury hit 51 degrees celsius (123°F). That’s the hottest temperature on record in the country. Hospitals are swamped with patients suffering heatstroke and dehydration. The year’s harvest is shrivelling in the ground. People are cooking to death on public transport. Yesterday, a camel left alone in the sun went mad and chewed its owner’s head off. That’s how hot it is in Rajasthan right now…..The British national sport of complaining about the weather is becoming increasingly insensitive. After three centuries of merrily conquering other nations and building bonfires out of their resources to light our way to a place of power in a burning world, we are still inhabiting one of the only landmasses where the weather isn’t actively trying to kill us all the time. Pleasant as it is to carp and moan every time the temperature moves outside the ten-degree range I happen to find comfortable, the temperate, drizzle-through-the-sunshine British climate is pretty much as good as it gets, on a global scale. In fact, on that same global scale, Britain has some claim for having had the most benefit out of fossil fuels for the least climate cost. If we’re not going to cough up reparations, the least we can do is stop whining.I mention all this for two reasons. Firstly, because the manifestations and implications of climate change are frightening wherever you happen to live, and I find sprinkle of weak humour makes the whole thing bearable, makes me less likely to panic and tap out of the entire discussion as something that’s not relevant to me right now because for the meantime, at least, I’m comfy indoors and it’s raining outside. Secondly, because when the lives and livelihoods of so many are at stake – when the topic for discussion is not tens or thousands but millions of people actually cooking in the unnatural heat – you run into a phenomenon that rationalists call “scope insensitivity”. Let’s say that my nightmare is overwhelming, inescapable heat. I can imagine, viscerally, physically, how it might feel to be trapped in a 51 degree… Read More here
16 May 2016, MSF, IF EUROPE TURNS ITS BACK NOW THE CONCEPT OF ‘REFUGEE’ WILL CEASE TO EXIST. This week Europe celebrated unity and peace on Europe Day. But in 2016 we fear its leaders, like Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, are united in turning their backs on those seeking our protection. In March, Europe’s leaders passed a deal with Turkey that allows Greece to send people back to Turkey in exchange for, among other things, a multi-billion Euro financial aid package. Sound familiar? Just like Australia’s “push back” policy and offshore detention program this new agreement, the so-called “EU-Turkey Deal”, threatens the right of all people to seek asylum and violates governments obligations to assist each man, woman or child asking for protection. Putting people’s lives or health at risk and causing suffering in asylum seekers is not a justifiable way to stop others risking their lives at sea, or worse, to control borders. Pushing people back to their country of last transit or banishing them to offshore detention transforms asylum into nothing but a political bargaining chip to keep refugees as far away from our borders and the eyes of the voting public as possible. “It betrays the humanitarian principle of providing impartial aid based on need, and need alone, without political strings attached” In exchange for this deal, Europe promises “humanitarian” and development aid to fulfill the needs of Syrian refugees and presents these funds as a measure to ease human suffering. But this aid to willing neighbours such as Turkey (just like the aid given to Papua New Guinea and Nauru), is conditional on shipping suffering offshore. It betrays the humanitarian principle of providing impartial aid based on need, and need alone, without political strings attached. By offering billions of euros to care for people out of sight in Turkey, Europe is also asking aid agencies to become complicit in their border control scheme. The Australian government has also referred to its push back policy as ‘humanitarian’. It has similarly funded it at the cost of its overseas development aid budget. But there is nothing whatsoever humanitarian about denying people their right to seek protection, and instead leaving people to suffer or die out of sight.Read More here
7 May 2016, The Conversation, Sea-level rise has claimed five whole islands in the Pacific: first scientific evidence. Sea-level rise, erosion and coastal flooding are some of the greatest challenges facing humanity from climate change. Recently at least five reef islands in the remote Solomon Islands have been lost completely to sea-level rise and coastal erosion, and a further six islands have been severely eroded. These islands lost to the sea range in size from one to five hectares. They supported dense tropical vegetation that was at least 300 years old. Nuatambu Island, home to 25 families, has lost more than half of its habitable area, with 11 houses washed into the sea since 2011. This is the first scientific evidence, published in Environmental Research Letters, that confirms the numerous anecdotal accounts from across the Pacific of the dramatic impacts of climate change on coastlines and people. A warning for the world Previous studies examining the risk of coastal inundation in the Pacific region have found that islands can actually keep pace with sea-level riseand sometimes even expand. However, these studies have been conducted in areas of the Pacific with rates of sea level rise of 3-5 mm per year – broadly in line with the global average of 3 mm per year. For the past 20 years, the Solomon Islands have been a hotspot for sea-level rise. Here the sea has risen at almost three times the global average, around 7-10 mm per year since 1993. This higher local rate is partly the result of natural climate variability. These higher rates are in line with what we can expect across much of the Pacific in the second half of this century as a result of human-induced sea-level rise. Many areas will experience long-term rates of sea-level rise similar to that already experienced in Solomon Islands in all but the very lowest-emission scenarios. Read More here