Friends of the Earth International decends on Durban

Pascoe Sabido

29 November 2011

Durban has been descended on: governments, NGOs, social movements and community activists have found their way here from some of the furthest flung corners of the world.

This year's UN international climate negotiations in South Africa will have a massive impact on the world. According to UN research, current commitments by industrialised nations will lead to catastrophic five degrees global warming. Will they up their ambition to stop it?  Will they provide the oft-promised finance and technology, enabling developing countries to grow without fossil fuels and adapt to impacts already being felt?  

Stories can be found across our surrogate city, not only of climate change impacts, but also resistance to the underlying causes of climate change and the vested interests that drive it. Nowhere more so than within Friends of the Earth International (FOEI), the world's largest grassroots organisation: campaigners from Uganda and Mozambique tell of forests being commodified as carbon stores, displacing local people and providing, at best, an offset to rich country emissions rather than the aggregate reduction the science demands. FOEI's chair, Nnimmo Bassey, brings colourful tales of the struggles in the Niger Delta, where locals are fighting Shell, BP and Chevron to stop gas flaring and oil spills.  From right across Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe, campaigners tell of their struggles in their home countries, regional battles and alliances on the ground, and of their victories that provide the fuel to keep fighting.

Here in Durban, FOEI will be feeding its experiences from the ground into the 'inside' negotiations, as well as in the alternative 'outside' spaces with social movements, NGOs and community activists. If industrialised countries avoid talking about increasing ambition, or weaken the current agreements that legally bind them, FOEI will be pushing back. We will make our voices as loud as possible to say that the current course of action is condemning Africa and the billions who live there to what Archbishop Desmond Tutu has described as "incineration".

There's a long two weeks ahead of us. And when everyone leaves, snaking their way back across the world, we musn't leave Africa abandoned. By campaigning together and making government's hear our calls, we must fight for a solution that cuts global emissions and helps Africa adapt to climate change and grow cleanly.