Bolivia to Host 2015 Meeting of Social Movements to Fight Climate Change
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- Published on Wednesday, 17 December 2014 00:44
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1062 .... December 17, 2014
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Bolivia to Host 2015 Meeting of Social Movements to Fight Climate Change
In wake of UN's COP20 Failure, ALBA Summit Backs Proposal to Draft Alternative Plan
Richard Fidler
Meeting in Havana December 14, the 13th summit of ALBA leaders endorsed a Bolivian proposal to host an international assembly of social movements in 2015 to discuss and adopt a united strategy for fighting climate change.
The decision by the Bolivarian Alliance for the peoples of Our America -- Trade Treaty of the Peoples (ALBA-TCP) coincided with release of the final agreement adopted by the United Nations COP20 climate talks at Lima, Peru. The UN agreement, reached by representatives of 195 countries after two extra days of haggling, has been universally condemned by environmental activists... for the failure, once again, to take meaningful actions to prevent catastrophic climate warming.
The "Lima Call for Climate Action" fails to commit governments to firm plans on how they will reduce emissions and provides no mechanism for international assessment and enforcement of such plans. Activists warn that its proposed individual state pledges, called "Intended National Determined Contributions" (INDCs), will be too weak to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times -- a guarantee of increasingly severe heatwaves, rainfall, flooding and rising sea levels. Major provisions of the agreement are summarized here.
The COP20 outcome is "unacceptable for the people and Mother Earth and represents a roadmap to global burning," said Pablo Solón, former Bolivian ambassador and now director of Focus on the Global South. For other reactions, see "Lima agreement fails humanity and the earth."