Publications

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

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

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

A principios de octubre del 2009, el Grupo de Córdoba –un pequeño grupo de expertos independientes sobre alimentación y agricultura (incluyendo a dos Relatores Especiales de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Derecho a la Alimentación, el primero y el actual) que se ha venido reuniendo durante los dos últimos años– publicó un breve análisis sobre el estado de la gobernanza global en alimentación y agricultura, y sobre la necesidad de colocar el Derecho a la Alimentación y los intereses de los campesinos y productores de pequeña escala en el centro de los debates sobre alimentación y cambio climático. El informe del Grupo se distribuyó ampliamente en la sesión del Comité de Seguridad Alimentaria Mundial de Naciones Unidas que se reunió a mediados de octubre, y está influyendo tanto en las deliberaciones en torno a la Cumbre Mundial sobre la Alimentación que se realizará en noviembre 2009, como en la Conferencia de Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático en... 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

ETC Group Special Report 28 August 2009 http://www.etcgroup.org The Emperor’s New Climate: Geoengineering as 21st century fairytale

The idea of re-engineering the entire planet (geoengineering) used to be the stuff of science fiction, but in the past few years a small group of geoengineering enthusiasts has worked hard to give it a veneer of respectability. On 1st September, they will have succeeded in getting the world’s oldest scientific academy, the UK’s Royal Society, to legitimize dangerous planet-tinkering schemes with minimal transparency and even less public participation.

170 years after Hans Christian Andersen penned his tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes, an analogous tale is being woven around an event in his homeland that will affect the entire planet: the global climate change negotiations this December in Copenhagen. This time, it’s not a naked emperor... Read more

ETC Group News Release 28 August 2009 www.etcgroup.org SCIENCE FICTIONS: UK’S ROYAL SOCIETY TO ISSUE MAJOR REPORT ON GEOENGINEERING SEPTEMBER 1; BAN REAL-WORLD EXPERIMENTS, SAYS ETC GROUP The oldest scientific academy in the world, the UK’s Royal Society, will release its long-awaited report on geoengineering September 1st  2009 in London. The report, drafted by a panel dominated by geoengineering enthusiasts, is widely expected to recommend that the government support more research and perhaps even real-world experimentation of these controversial new technologies that intentionally manipulate the earth’s climate on a large scale with the aim of lessening the effects of climate change. “Geoengineering is a bad idea, and, unfortunately, it may transform Lord Rees’s book from musings to memoir,” says Diana Bronson, researcher for the international technology watchdog ETC Group, referring to the Royal... Read more

News Release Biofuelwatch / ETC Group / Greenpeace

BIOMASS POWER GRAB HIGHLIGHTED AS BIOTECH INDUSTRY MEETS IN MONTREAL

Montreal- July 21 2009 -- As hundreds of delegates gathered for the Sixth Annual Conference on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing at Palais des congrès in Old Montreal, a group of NGOs held an early morning press conference across the street. Greenpeace, ETC Group and Biofuelwatch joined forces to warn that the “green” energy of the biotech industry was mostly hype, that governments should not add to their already generous subsidies of the industry and that the feedstock on which it is all based – so called “biomass” – is neither plentiful nor easily converted into renewable chemicals, plastics and fuels.

Jim Thomas, a researcher from ETC Group, charged that behind the thin, green veneer of clean energy and renewable plastics, Big Bio is, in fact, engaged in a huge industrial power grab:... Read more