Publications

ETC GroupNews release (revised)Friday, February 26, 2010www.etcgroup.org

FAO's Biotech Meeting Dubbed “Biased for Business” as Steering Committee Member Resigns in Protest

On the eve of a major intergovernmental conference on Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries (ABDC) in Guadalajara, Mexico, a civil society member of the international steering committee has resigned, calling the preparations for the gathering of governments and scientists “hopelessly biased” and “foolishly sidestepping key socioeconomic and scientific issues.”

Pat Mooney, Executive Director of ETC Group, a Canada-based international civil society organization with a long history of work with FAO and biotechnology issues, resigned from the steering committee on Tuesday, February 23. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization conference, hosted by Mexico, runs from March 1- 4 in Guadalajara.

“The overwhelming thrust of the guiding documents for the meeting are... Read more

Communiqué de presse

Le 12 février 2010

www.etcgroup.org

Les partisans de la géoingénierie préconisent l’expérimentation de technologies à haut risque

Des normes volontaires pour prendre la planète en otage

Si la plupart des scientifiques ont quitté la Conférence de Copenhague sur le climat plutôt déprimés quant à la force de leur influence, un petit groupe de défenseurs de la géoingénierie en sont sortis enhardis par l’absence de résultats et l’incertitude qui en découle face à l’avenir. Ce groupe de scientifiques souhaite procéder à des recherches et à des expérimentations sur des technologies de géoingénierie controversées, et la « gestion du rayonnement solaire » (GRS) suscite chez eux un réel enthousiasme. La GRS est un type d’intervention permettant de « faire baisser le thermostat de la planète » en réfléchissant une portion des rayons solaires dans l’espace,... Read more

ETC Group

News Release

February 11, 2010

www.etcgroup.org

Top-down Planet Hackers Call for Bottom-up Governance

Geoengineers Bid to Establish Voluntary Testing Regime Must be Opposed

While most scientists left the Copenhagen Climate Summit feeling gloomy about their influence, a small group of geoengineering advocates came away emboldened by the summit’s weak outcome and uncertain road ahead. This group of scientists aims to get on with research and experimentation in controversial geoengineering technologies. Their real excitement is over “solar radiation management” (SRM). This is a way of “cooling down the planet’s thermostat” by reflecting a portion of the sun’s rays back to outer space, through a variety of techniques ranging from sunshades in space, to aerosol sulphates in the stratosphere, to whitening clouds. These high-risk, planet-altering schemes affect global warming without changing... Read more

Retooling  the Planet:  Climate Chaos in a Geoengineering Age, a Report Commissioned and Published by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

This critical overview of geoengineering technologies examines the history, politics and social and ecological implications of attempts to add large-scale, intentional manipulation of the planet to the menu of possible responses to climate change.   The report contests the notion that more funding, research and experimentation is needed into geoengineering technologies, and provides a series of recommendations on how these controversial technologies should be regulated.

To read the full report, click on "Download PDF" above.

To view the webcast of ETC Group's press conference in Copenhagen announcing the release of this paper, go to: http://tiny.cc/5BnqI

Who Will Feed Us?

2009’s most important intergovernmental meeting on the climate and food crises has already happened. In October,  as climate negotiators were fighting in Bangkok and as the UN food agencies were jousting over a restructured  response to the food crisis and plans for the World Food Summit, the Food and Agriculture Organizations’s (FAO) Commission on Genetic Resources met quietly in Rome to review the preparedness of the international community  to adapt and develop crops, livestock, aquatic and microbial genetic resources used in food and agriculture to  address climate change. The meeting also considered the political and corporate constraints that could prevent a  major strategic shift to achieve our food security. The Rome Food Summit in November and the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December should pay attention. At stake is the answer to the most important question not being asked in... Read more

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEGOTIATORS warned to LOOK BEFORE LEAPING!

Civil Society Alarmed at Climate Technology Quick Fixes in Copenhagen 

Read more

POUR DIFFUSION IMMÉDIATE

LES NÉGOCIATEURS sont invités à RÉFLÉCHIR AVANT D’AGIR !

La société civile alarmée face aux solutions technologiques miracles au changement climatique proposées à Copenhague

Copenhague, le 10 décembre 2009 – Plus de 160 groupes de la société civile, englobant des mouvements sociaux et des organisations non gouvernementales (ONG), ont rendu publique aujourd’hui une déclaration conjointe portant sur la technologie, intitulée « Réfléchissons avant d’agir ! ». La déclaration vise à alerter les gouvernements devant l’absence, dans le projet d’entente sur les technologies de Copenhague, de toute mention d’un mécanisme d’évaluation environnementale et sociale fondé sur le principe de précaution. On y affirme également que l’approche actuelle présente de graves menaces à la santé humaine, aux droits de la personne, au mode de... Read more

Technology transfer is one of the four key topics being discussed under negotiations on Long-Term Cooperative Actions in Copenhagen (the others are mitigation, adaptation and financing). The inter-governmental negotiating text that is under discussion contemplates various measures for accelerating the diffusion of technologies. It will most likely create an ʻAction Planʼ as well as a ʻTechnology Bodyʼ and various technical panels or innovation centres that will prove influential in the coming years in deciding which technologies get financial and political backing. We need to make sure the right technologies get the support they need and the wrong ones are discarded. That wonʼt happen without a comprehensive social and environmental assessment process. We, civil society groups and social movements from around the world, understand the urgent need for real and lasting solutions to climate change. We recognise the deadly consequences that we all face... Read more

RÉFLÉCHISSONS AVANT D’AGIR

LA SOCIÉTÉ CIVILE APPELLE À UNE

ÉVALUATION DES TECHNOLOGIES

DANS LE CADRE DE TOUTE ENTENTE À COPENHAGUE

Le transfert de technologies constitue l’un des quatre principaux sujets qui seront discutés à Copenhague dans le cadre des négociations sur les actions de coopération à long terme (les trois autres étant l’atténuation, l’adaptation et le financement).  Le texte de négociation intergouvernemental qui fait l’objet de discussions envisage diverses mesures visant à accélérer la diffusion des technologies. Il donnera vraisemblablement lieu à un « plan d’action », ainsi qu’à la mise sur pied d’un « organe voué aux technologies » et de divers groupes techniques spéciaux ou centres... Read more

让我们三思而行公民社会呼吁技术评估成为任何哥本哈根协定的组成部分我们 - 来自世界各地的公民社会组织和社会活动团体 – 认为迫切需要真正的、持久的应对气候变化的解决方案。我们认识到，如果没有真正的、持久的应对气候变化的解决方案，将带来人类不得不面对的致命后果。我们必须紧迫地增强应对气候变化挑战的能力，同时显著减少温室气体的排放。一些公司、个人、甚至是政府正在恐慌和无助地推广未经测试和未经证明的技术，作为“我们唯一的选择”。然而我们不愿意看到，在没有考证对生态和社会影响的情形下，这些未经测试和未经证明的技术，就被推广使用。一些视为能储存碳或调控自然体系的技术，可能造成灾难性的生态和社会后果。在某些情形或方面技术转让是在哥本哈根长期合作行动谈判中的四个关键议题之一... Read more

LA SOCIETÀ CIVILE CHIEDE VALUTAZIONE DEGLI IMPATTI DELLE TECNOLOGIENELL'AMBITO DI UN ACCORDO A COPENHAGENIl trasferimento di tecnologia è uno dei quattro temi principali cheverranno discussi nel corso dei negoziati sulle azioni di cooperazioneper il lungo termine a Copenaghen (gli altri sono mitigazione,adattamento e finanziamenti). Il testo negoziale preliminare contienediverse misure volte ad accelerare la diffusione di nuove tecnologie.Con ogni probabilità i negoziati si tradurranno in un "piano d'azione"e in un nuovo "organismo" di gestione delle tecnologie, che dovràcoordinare diversi pannelli tecnici e/o centri di innovazione, e cheavrà grande influenza negli anni a venire sul tipo di sostegnopolitico e finanziario che le nuove tecnologie riceveranno. In questoquadro, è di grande importanza riuscire a fare in modo che siano letecnologie appropriate e benefiche a ricevere il necessario sostegno,e non quelle pericolose o dannose. Questo non può... Read more

ON BEHALF OF AD HOC COALITION: LET’S LOOK BEFORE WE LEAP!

MEDIA ADVISORY

Alert to climate negotiators:

LETS LOOK BEFORE WE LEAP!

GAPING OVERSIGHT:  NO ASSESSMENT IN TECHNOLOGY TEXT

An international group of more than 150 civil society groups from 36 countries will release a joint declaration calling upon governments in Copenhagen to revamp the draft text on technology transfer, to ensure that the precautionary principle is respected and that high-risk and unproven climate “techno-fixes” are not allowed to put the world at risk.

WHO:   Third World Network and ETC Group with other signatories of declaration.

WHEN: Thursday,  December 10 2009 at 9:00 AM

WHERE: BELLA CENTRE, Hall H, Asger Jorn Room, Copenhagen

This press conference will be webcast.

Check Read more

Geoengineering the Climate

Planetary technofixes: Illusions and reality

 Speakers: Diana Bronson (Canada) - Silvia Ribeiro (Mexico)

Friday Dec 11

10am –12pm

Grey room - Klimaforum09Tietgensgade 65DGI-byen (50mt from Central Station)Copenhagen

As action on emissions reductions stalls, industrial think tanks and former climate skeptics are gaining support for using large scale technological 'fixes' for the climate crisis. It’s called Geoengineering. There are proposals for risky interventions in planetary systems such as polluting the upper atmosphere with nanoparticles, rejigging the chemistry of the world's oceans and attempting to redirect hurricanes. Some governments are now also toying with geoengineering, and contemplating funding large-scale... Read more

The declaration coming out of the World Food Summit for Food Security in Rome is even worse than the “shameful” document adopted by world leaders in 1996, so famously criticized by Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Governments won’t promise anything to anybody. The only issue really being debated in Rome is whether control of the UN’s “Department of Agriculture” will be wrested from the UN’s Rome-based agencies and surrendered to an amorphous, G8 conjured, public-private compact called the Global Partnership for Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition. If the Partnership prevails, national sovereignty fails, and civil society's hopes for Food Sovereignty will suffer.

Issue: The World Summit on Food Security (Rome, Nov. 16-18) is agriculture’s bid for the attention of climate change negotiators en route to Copenhagen. To carbon traders, agriculture is a money-maker.... Read more

Time’s Up

Climate Justice Now! Network Denounces False Climate Solutions in Barcelona

BARCELONA, November 6, 2009 – The international civil society network Climate Justice Now! deplores the downplaying of expectations for the Copenhagen Climate Summit in Barcelona by industrialized countries, UNFCCC officials and the host of the Copenhagen Summit.  On the eve of Copenhagen, there is still no real progress on targets, a naïve and dangerous reliance on market mechanisms, no commitment to human rights, and a frightening context in which some countries are beginning to talk seriously about dangerous climate techno-fixes.

"Instead of discussing practical approaches to rapid emissions reductions -- like a massive investment in safe renewable energy and rapid technology transfer -- here in Barcelona, the developed countries are downplaying expectations, inching toward weak targets, minimal financing and no meaningful agreements... Read more

At the beginning of October 2009, the Córdoba Group -- a small gathering of independent food and agrocultural specialists (including the first and current UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food) that have been meeting over the past two years -- published a brief (two-page) analysis of the state of global governance around food and agriculture and of the need to place the Right to Food and the interests of peasant producers at the center of the food and climate debate.  The Group’s report was widely distributed  at the UN Committee on World Food Security that met in mid-October and is influencing deliberations around both the World Food Summit in November and the December Conference in Copenhagen on Climate Change.  The Report, "Call from Córdoba", follows.

-ETC Group

The Cordoba Group is formed by senior experts on hunger, agriculture, agrobiodiversity and human rights, convened in his/her personal capacities by the Chair of Hunger and Poverty... Read more

Au début d’octobre 2009, le Groupe de Cordoue – un petit regroupement d’experts indépendants en questions relatives à l’alimentation et à l’agriculture (dont font partie celui qui a été le premier rapporteur spécial des Nations Unies sur le droit à l’alimentation ainsi que le titulaire actuel du poste) qui se réunit depuis deux ans – a publié une brève analyse (deux pages) portant sur la situation de la gouvernance à l’échelle mondiale en matière d’alimentation et d’agriculture et sur la nécessité de placer le droit à l’alimentation et les intérêts des paysans producteurs au centre du débat sur l’alimentation et le climat. Le rapport du Groupe a été largement distribué aux membres du Comité de la sécurité alimentaire mondiale des Nations Unies, qui s’est réuni à la mi-octobre, et il exerce depuis une influence sur les délibérations entourant le Sommet mondial de l’alimentation de novembre et la Conférence de Copenhague sur... Read more

Report Card from Reform School

The Committee on World Food Security Passes a Test, but…

Rome, October 14-17, 2009

The food and fuel crisis that only became apparent to OECD governments in early 2008 arrived as the Rome-based UN agencies (FAO, WFP, IFAD) were responding to external and internal evaluations that found all three organizations wanting.  Most severely criticized was FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization).  In April 2008, the UN Secretary-General took advantage of the crises and the institutional weaknesses of the Rome agencies to establish a High-Level Taskforce involving 22 UN and Bretton Woods institutions to develop a Comprehensive Framework for Action to address the crises.  Almost simultaneously, President Sarkozy of France called for a Global Partnership of intergovernmental institutions, the private sector, mega-foundations, and civil society... Read more