Features

Nature is essential for our lives and is essential for how life can exist.

"The communities are closely connected to forests. It is impossible to imagine communities without forests because everything communities need is provided by the forests ... by preserving forests, families are preserving their own livelihoods. " -Campesino de Acre, Brasil

From the COP1 in Berlin in 1995 to the COP20 in Lima, 20 years have passed. Under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), countless formal meetings have taken place.

The coming UN climate conference in Paris, France, will likely produce an agreement on implementing Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD).

All humans have two things in common and that is, we walk on two legs and on each hand we have five fingers that we use in common. We are taught from infancy to use these hands and fingers as gifts of the Creator.

In early June 2015, the CEO of oil giant BP, Bob Dudley, gave a remarkable speech at the World Gas Conference in Paris. He presented a new role for oil multinationals like BP in “shaping the age of gas”.

Awareness of the problem of climate change and recognition of its roots in capitalism and inequality has grown, but all too often, big conservationist NGOs and groups focusing on the amount of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere end up having vague and unspecified demands for “action” or “solutions”

The Government of India has recently come up with a National REDD+ policy. This short article mainly responds to that draft and the accompanying “Reference Document for REDD plus in India” (Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, August 2013, hereafter RD).

The climate is heating up. If the atmosphere reaches 2°C or higher, the conditions for life on our planet will be disastrous.

Relations deteriorate. If we hesitate any longer, human relations between men and women, between groups, Peoples and the Earth will be completely compromised.

Financialized policy is ubiquitous across a wide range of environmental policy areas, such as carbon trading or biodiversity offsets, but contributes little to averting climate catastrophe.