POLITICAL PLATFORM OF KLIMAFORUM 10
México D. F., July 9, 2010
After several meetings, we have adopted the following Political Platform
of KlimaForum10:
1. THERE IS A CLIMATE CATASTROPHE, NOT CLIMATE CHANGE
The weather patterns of the world are undergoing a rapid and disturbing
disruption, which is increasing in both force and catastrophic impact.
This change could end up being life-threatening for many human
communities in coming years. For the large majority of people in this
century, describing this process as “climate change” amounts to
distorting reality.
2. THERE IS NO TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CATASTROPHE
There will be no technological solution to climate disaster as long as
certain economic values continue to predominate in the world, including
mercantilism, utilitarianism, “development-ism,” and militarism. In this
framework, “productivity,” competition, and manipulation reign supreme.
As long as the system which generates these values (and therefore also
shapes the dominant social imagination) remains in force, there will be
no real solution. Neither nuclear energy, nor geoengineering,
nanotechnology, GMOs, or biofuels (among other technologies) will offer
us real solutions to the climatic disaster; they are false solutions.
The only appropriate solutions to this predicament will come from a
world-wide expansion of solidarity, cooperation, and friendship, valuing
the pleasure of free time and playfulness, social life, autonomy,
wisdom, the techniques and beauty produced by craftsmen and artists,
practical and adaptive approaches, approaches based on relationships and
co-existence, a spiritual approach, and mainly, respect for the
sacredness of mountains, rivers, the seas, forests, the forests, the
animals: Mother Earth, whose gifts have no price. This change in values
must be systematic – meaning, we must change the system, not the climate
- beginning with a different personal ethics, like voluntary simplicity.
We must learn to live better with fewer objects, and to act in defense
of the global commons.
3. THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CATASTROPHE
Because of its violent nature and concentration of power, which removes
it from local and cultural diversity, and because of its pyramidal,
authoritarian character, governments are incapable of providing
authentic solutions to climate catastrophe; they are capable only of
false solutions.
False solutions are costing us precious time as we face this threat,
experiencing greater calamities such as long heat waves, stronger
hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, a drop in global food production,
the rise and spread of diseases, the melting of glaciers, ocean
acidification and sea-level rise, changes in ocean currents, the death
of coral reefs, and species extinction, among others.
State-sponsored false solutions include “market-based” solutions (such
as carbon markets), offsets, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM),
REDD, and perverse finance schemes. Only a great diversity of
small-scale, locally-appropriate solutions, involving a great social
mobilization, can mitigate the catastrophic effects of this modern disaster.
4. RADICAL REDUCTION IN CONSUMPTION AND INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION BY THE
POWERFUL IS REQUIRED
In order to face the climatic disaster, we must urgently reduce
consumption in the powerful countries, especially the United States,
England, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, due to their historical
responsibility in the generation of the climatic disaster. Further, we
must reduce consumption by the rising middle-classes of the emerging
economies, including China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Taiwan,
South Korea, Mexico and South Africa. As soon as possible, the present
“American way of life,” which has grown into a cancer on the world, and
which is the main cause of this catastrophe, must disappear. In
particular, it is indispensable to vastly reduce the consumption of
bottled water, red meat, paper, and mobile phones, among other things.
Of course, this means vastly and rapidly reducing the global industrial
over-production which gives rise to this untenable wastefulness.
Centrally, industrial agriculture and factory farming must be rapidly
abandoned in favor of a return to local, small-scale food production.
5. WE MUST LEAVE OIL, GAS, COAL AND OTHER GIFTS OF NATURE UNDERGROUND
The consumption of fossil fuels is not only the main cause of climatic
disaster. Their extraction also generates enormous ecological damage;
Peak Oil (which is already creating world-wide tensions and causing
great misery) forces industry to riskier extractions every day, creating
spills like the Gulf of Mexico gusher, and disasters like those in
Maracaibo, Nigeria, and the Alberta tar sands. Mining, whose
environmental damage is excessive, is in the same category. Without a
rapid and radical reduction of energy consumption in the United States,
the European Union, Japan, China, and India, is will not be possible to
achieve real solutions to the climatic disaster which is causing the
destruction of the modern world. It is urgent to establish severe
restrictions to the use of the automobile, airplanes and high speed
trains; to discourage “free markets;” to eliminate privatization; and to
prohibit mega-projects. We must re-conceptualize and reconstruct
governments with the purpose of substantially increasing civic
collaboration, relocalize both production and consumption, and
intensively recycle and reuse materials. It is essential to abandon the
era of oil now, to move beyond the economy of “growth without limit” and
to enter a stable era of low energy consumption and shared frugality.
6. WE MUST DE-NUCLEARIZE THE WORLD
Nuclear energy is a fundamental pillar of the dominant system – an
unjust system responsible for creating climatic disaster, growing global
injustice, and the predominance of values that reign today. We live
under the tyranny of nuclear-armed states which initiate the wars and
extreme violence that destroys modern societies. These states impose
dominant modes of consumption and production, which foment the
construction and operation of very dangerous nuclear plants in support
of nuclear weapons, and which are leading to the world towards its rapid
destruction. In order to face the climatic disaster, it is essential
that the United States, Russia, France, England, China, Israel, India,
and Pakistan eliminate their nuclear weapons. In addition, all the
existing nuclear plants in the world must be dismantled, because their
risks are excessive and their waste products leave an unacceptable
burden to future generations. Only social awareness of the nature of
nuclear energy and the continuous opposition of movements along with
independent organizations can curb this insane activity by ministers,
industrialists and the scientists loyal to them. There is no nuclear
solution to climate change.
7. WE SUPPORT THE BLOSSOMING OF SMALL SOLUTIONS TO CLIMATIC CATASROPHE
WHICH:
A. Give top priority to very low energy consumption.
B. Contain high percentages of reused/recycled materials and support
traditional production methods and craftsmanship.
C. Guarantee food, clothing, housing, education, happiness and the
spiritual needs of the most vulnerable.
D. Strengthen the local and regional communities where they take place.
E. Remain critical of industry and modern-day consumption.
MEXICAN PROMOTION COMMITTEE FOR KLIMAFORUM 2010:
Adriana Matalonga; Eugenio Cabrera; Gabriela de la Vega; Jorge López;
Mauricio Villegas; Miguel Valencia; Miguel Ángel Rosas; Raquel Rodríguez.
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Web page: www.klimaforum10.org.mx
Telephones: 52 (55) / 5553-2340; 5212-1886; 5540-7866
ORGANIZATIONAL ENDORSERS OF THIS PLATFORM
CAMBIOS, (Cooperative for a Biodiverse and Sustainable Environment or
“Cooperativa por un Ambiente Biodiverso y Sustentable”)
Ecoactivists from the Civil Association of the community of Magdalena
Mixhuca (“Ecoactivistas de la Magdalena Mixhuca AC”)
ECOMUNITIES Autonomous Ecologists Network from the region “Cuenca de
Mexico” in the Mexican Basin (“ECOMUNIDADES, Red Ecologista Autónoma de
la Cuenca de México”)
EDENAT (Network In Defense of Mother Nature) (“EDENAT, Red en Defensa de
la Naturaleza”
Reduction or Cruelty! Network for the Reduction (“¡DESCRECIMIENTO O
BARBARIE! Red por el descrecimiento”)
Front of the Peoples of Anáhuac (“Frente de los Pueblos de Anáhuac”)
Front of the Left (“Frente Izquierda”)
Front for Human Rights, Baja California (“Frente de Derechos Humanos,
Baja California”)
Civil Society for Environmental Action Network (“Red Acción Ambiente SC”)
Theater Popular Association PC- CLETA
Timbers of the People of the Southeast, Civil Association (“Maderas del
Pueblo del Sureste, AC)
Network for the Defense of the City of Mexico (“Red en Defensa de la
Ciudad de México”)
Civil Association For a Change with Dignity (“Por el Cambio con Dignidad
AC”)
Pitahaya Growers’ Society, community of Chan Tza Can, Kinchil, Yucatán
(“Sociedad de Productores de Pithaya Chan Tza Can de Kinchil”)
Civil Association of the Tecolote Theater Workshop (“Teatro Taller
Tecolote, AC”)
INDIVIDUAL ENDORSERS OF THIS PLATFORM
Aina Barag, tree guardian, Herradura, State of México
Alejandro García Núñez, Social Change Movement
Alejandro Aceves Jiménez, environment consultant and adviser
Alejandro Velarde, eco-techician
Alfredo Rojas Díaz Duran, Social Change Movement
Antonio Vital, Aliance for Health and Public Workers
Antonio Figueroa, Proyect Alternative of the Nation
Araceli Flores, The Other Campaign
Carlos Zaragoza Cibrián, Rayo Zaragoza
Carmen Ventura Quintal, of EIS 2012, Yucatán
Denise Alamillo, campaign Vote Nullification
Dr. Álvaro de la Chica, coordinator for the Civic Alliance, Ensenada, BC
Dr. Luis Tamayo, coordinator, Research Group in Ecosofia UEF/CIDHEM
Dr. José Ignacio Félix Díaz, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Cuajimalpa
Dr. Rafael Huacuz, College of Mexico
Dulce Karina Fierros Barquera, the De-Growth Department, Political and
Social Sciences, UNAM
Edith González, the Civil Association Echoes, Voices and Actions
Edgardo Mota, Political Ecology Workshop, UAM, Xochimilco
Eduardo Rincón Mejía, Energy Program, UACM
Enrique Cisneros, del grupo de teatro popular PC-CLETA
Eugenio del Valle, coordinator of enviromental issues, CROC
Flor de Mayo Rouko, EIS2012, Yucatán
Gabriel Eduardo Gallegos Labastida, De-Growth Group, Department of
Political and Social Sciences UNAM
Gerardo Martínez of the Left Front
Gerardo Montes de Oca Sierra, of the Civil Society for the Environmental
Action Network
Guillermo Samaniego Martínez, Faculty Higher Studies, Iztacala, UNAM
Gustavo Romero from the Civil Association Fomentosol
Hugo David Uriarte Bonilla, Social Transformation Movement
Iván Azuara Montes, UCCS (Union of Scientists Committed to Society or
Unión de Científicos Comprometidos con la Sociedad)
Jesús Solís Alpuche, Pitahaya Growers’ Society, community of Chan Tza
Can, Kinchil, Yucatán
José Enrique González Ruíz, coordinator for the graduates in Human
Rights at UACM
José Enrique Tec Poot del EIS2012, Yucatán
José Ignacio Gutiérrez de Velazco, Cooperative Self-Management Program UACM
José Luís Hernández Jiménez, Civil Association For a Change with Dignity
Liliana Zavala Nieto of the Alternative Proyect of the Nation
Lucy Torres of the Klimaforum10 initiative, Puebla
Luisa Ortiz Garduza, Social Transformation Movement
Luis Cisneros Lujan, general director of the Civil Association Theater
Workshop Tecolote
Luis Gabriel Urquieta, Political Science, UNAM
Lucrecia Noemí, environmental trainer
Marco Antonio Tafolla Soriano of the Xoxocotla Movement, Morelos
Marisol Valverde Yáñez, Social Transformation Movement
Miguel Ángel García of the Civil Association Timbers of the People of
the Southeast
Oscar Montaño of the Front for Human Rights, Baja California
Oralia Silvia Rocha de la Organización Mundial Ambientalista Educativa AC
Pedro Echeverría, columnist, México
Pedro Pliego from the Civil Society Enviromental Action Network
René Molteni, Social Transformation Movement
Ricardo Guzmán, Political Ecology Workshop, Metropolitan Autonomous
University, Xochimilco
Sebastian Silva, activist from colonia Condesa
Silverio de la Mora, from the civic Movement in defense of the Parque
Central Benito Juárez en Tijuana, Baja California
Víctor Ariel Bárcenas Delgado, environmental issues adviser
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