For the last several years, many big business & industry groups have floated NGOs, to have additional intervention space in all kinds of negotiations -- be it Trade, Climate change, Food security, water. The convoluted argument they put up is -- "aren't we also 'civil society’?". This completely negates the fact that as the moneyed groups, they already wield huge influences over governments and policy making. By floating these BINGOs (Business & Industry NGOs), they are deliberately & with clever designs -- encroaching upon the already shrunk democratic space left for various people's groups, social movements, progressive CSOs etc
Richard Polaris has compiled a list of corporations participating in this COP17 in Durban. This can be seen together with the fact that:
1. Big technology corporate solutions -- like the carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), Geo-engineering etc are being pushed as "solutions" for the emerging climate crisis, and
2. Even in the Climate finance issues, a hard push is visible for a part of whatever little climate finance is to emerge -- to go for financing private sector enterprises!!
Also to be noted, that many of the BINGOs masquerading as "civil society" are the big dirty-energy groups like Shell, Exxon, Sasol, Eskom etc, nuclear power vendors like Areva, many of which are extractive industry behemoths like Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton etc.
Richard Polaris has compiled a list of corporations participating in this COP17 in Durban. This can be seen together with the fact that:
1. Big technology corporate solutions -- like the carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), Geo-engineering etc are being pushed as "solutions" for the emerging climate crisis, and
2. Even in the Climate finance issues, a hard push is visible for a part of whatever little climate finance is to emerge -- to go for financing private sector enterprises!!
Also to be noted, that many of the BINGOs masquerading as "civil society" are the big dirty-energy groups like Shell, Exxon, Sasol, Eskom etc, nuclear power vendors like Areva, many of which are extractive industry behemoths like Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton etc.
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Soumya Dutta
Beyond Copenhagen Coalition
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