Is Bolivia taking the right steps?

By Soumya Dutta, Cochabamba, 22 April 2010On this Earth Day at the historic People's Conference on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth, standing at the Estadio Felix Capriles de Cochabamba (Felix Capriles Stadium of Cochabamba) full of enthusiastic crowd of climate justice activists, peasants movements, anti-mining groups, and all sorts of left-leaning social formations - numbering about 25,000 ad full of vibrant energy, it would probably not be right to have any negative thoughts about anything that is happening here in Bolivia. The spirit...

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City of eternal spring carries the expectation of the world

by Ajay K Jha, PAIRVI.The city of epic struggle against water privatization, Cochabamba carries the expectation of the world for a just and equitable climate deal. Besides the warmth of the people from Cochabamba, one can definitely feel and poise and expectation in the air. More than 7 million people stranded at airports of northern Europe, many thousands among them definitely destined to the small tropical town and third largest city of Bolivia, has failed to dampen the spirit and enthusiasm of Bolivia to play a crucial leadership role in arriving...

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Voice of Civil Society Loud and Clear in Cochabamba

by Daniela Estrada - TierramericaThe success of the climate change conference taking place in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba will depend on how unified civil society ultimately is in its efforts to influence the United Nations Climate summit in Mexico, say Latin American Activists.The bulk of the debate in People's Conference will be led by civil society, which tends to oppose the market-based mechanisms proposed by most of the governments to fight climate change, and this is fuelling doubts about just how much impact the Bolivian forum...

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Conflicts within Bolivia - even with the government of Evo Morales

The "Plurinational State" of Bolivia has convened the World People's Conference on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth in the city of Cochabamba. The policies of this government are quite progressive in many terms, particularly when compared to many of the developing countries in our part of the world. The HISTORIC PEOPLES REBELLION AGAINST WATER PRIVATISATION, the toal and forceful rejection of the crooked Copenhagen accord, the recognition that the earth herself has rights and that has to get primacy - many such visionary advances in the...

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Evo Morales’ message to grassroots climate talks – planet or death

Bolivia's President opened the inaugural international 'People's Conference' at Cochabamba, with delegates from 125 nations. "Planet or Death!" chanted Bolivia's leftwing president, Evo Morales, to a crowd of 20,000 people. "We will be victorious!" the crowds answered back, waving rainbow-coloured, chequered Andean indigenous flags.Morales was officially inaugurating the first international "people's conference" on climate change - the grassrotts...

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Inauguration of the Cochabamba Conference

by Soumya Dutta, SADED, a Delegate of Beyond Copenhagen CollectiveToday on the 20th here in Cochabamba, Bolivia standing under the mighty Andes mountains, the conference was inaugurated by the Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma, which was preceeded by presentations by people´s representatives from different continents.Over 14-15 thousand people from all across the globe came in their colourful atires, with the lively & colourful Latin American...

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About the Cochabamba Climate Conference

by Soumya Dutta, SADED, a delegate of Beyond Copenhagen CollectivePeople from around the world are attending the Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia this week as a follow up to the failed UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen, Denmark last December.Social movements have converged in Cochabamba to rally opposition to the push by the world's leading carbon emitters to promote unjust and false solutions to climate change such as carbon offsets, and to make a collective push for stricter binding carbon...

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Working Group 17: Agriculture and Food Sovereignty

Courtesy: http://pwccc.wordpress.coma. We declare and denounce that agribusiness and the inherent logic of production of foods oriented towards the market and not for the right to food, is one of the main causes of climate change through changes in the use of land (deforestation and the expansion of the agricultural frontier), monocrops, the excessive use of products derived from the petrochemical industry, food processing, and all the logistic involved in the transportation of food towards the consumer and also through the model of society,...

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For Media Persons

Historic First World People’s Summit on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia, called by President Evo Morales after the failure of UN Climate talks in Copenhagen, has attracted more than 130 countries and more than 12,000 delegates. It is likely that the North American mainstream media will ignore it. However, the Summit can be followed live on internet TV, on alternative media rabble.ca and Democracy Now and in European media Guardian UK....

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Bolivia pushes for climate crimes tribunal

Courtesy: JEFF MCMAHONDiplomats from the 17 largest economies are meeting behind closed doors for a second day today in Washington D.C. to work out their differences on climate change. As the name suggests–the Major Economies Forum–all the major players are there: the U.S., the European Union, Japan, China, India, Brazil, South Africa…But 4,000 miles to the south, as many as 15,000 people are expected to gather at the municipal coliseum in Tiquipaya, Bolivia, to open the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth....

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Bringing Agriculture to the centre of Climate Change Negotiations

by Soumya Dutta. SADED, a Delegate of Beyond Copenhagen collective.The Climate Change talks in COP 15 conference at Copenhagen could not reach much of the desired goals, but no doubt it had paved the way for more and more Climate talks. Now the time has come to look beyond Copenhagen conference. After making its presence felt in the COP 15, PAIRVI, CECOEDECON and SADAD (Representative of Beyond Copenhagen Coalition) once again has joined hands to promote and to highlight the adverse affect of climate change on agriculture, in the World People's...

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Curtain Raiser – Cochabamba Conference: World People’s Conference on Climate Change & Mother Earth’s Rights

by Soumya Dutta – South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy (SADED), 'a delegate of Beynd Copenhagen Collective’.The by now ill famous climate summit in Copenhagen – COP 15, held from 7th to 19th December last year in the Danish capital became the butt of ridicule by the people of the world, instead of taking bold steps to address one of the greatest crises that humanity has ever faced – that of a human induced climate change and the resulting upheavals. The 190 odd governments who gathered in Copenhagen in the cold north-European winter, failed...

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