Category Archives: Climate Change

City Press: Spies snoop on greens

http://www.citypress.co.za/SouthAfrica/News/Spies-snoop-on-greens-20111112

Spies snoop on greens

Yolandi Groenewald

Intelligence agencies are keeping a close eye on activists ahead of this month’s big climate change COP17 conference.

A number of activists have told City Press about intelligence sources breathing down their necks in anticipation of protest actions being launched during the climate talks.

“The sudden attention concerns us a lot,” said activist S’bu Zikode from Durban based Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shack Dwellers) Movement. “They are phoning us, watching us.”

He said crime intelligence officers were making regular phone calls to his members, asking them what they planned for COP17 as well as questioning them about the organisation and who their leaders were. Officials also made an appointment to visit Zikode personally, but never arrived.

The movement has been a constant thorn in the side of the Durban authorities, and is planning to bring 10 000 people to civil society’s big march at COP17 on December 3.

“Why crime intelligence’s interest in us all of a sudden? They are obsessed with us now,” he said. “Even our normal actions, which can be quite militant, don’t usually attract such a lot of attention.”

Activist Bobby Peek, director of KwaZulu-Natal-based environmental group groundWork, said the police crime intelligence unit was quite upfront in their surveillance.

Climate Change and Poor People’s Struggles

October 2011

Climate Change and Poor People's Struggles

Bandile Mdlalose

I wish to thank the World Development Movement for inviting me to speak about Climate Change and how the Abahlali baseMjondolo experience relates to this important topic. I also wish to thank Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement S.A, the movement that I’m part of, for trusting me with the responsibility to represent it here today. I have come here with a clear mandate to speak about the political challenges of linking different kinds of crisis together and to meet with poor people's organisations here in England, like the London Coalition Against Poverty, as well as our many comrades in London. I will report back on all the meetings here to my comrades in South Africa.

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Interview with Bandile Mdlalose from Abahlali baseMjondolo

http://www.wdm.org.uk/blog/video-interview-bandile-mdlalose-abahlali-basemjondolo

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Africa demands climate justice

http://cruzerism.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/africa-demands-climate-justice/

More than ever before, rich industrialised countries are using the UN climate talks as an excuse to advance corporate interests. In the run up to the climate talks in Durban, South Africa, this December people across Africa and the world are demanding climate justice.

Join us to hear speakers from social movements on the front line of the campaign in Durban. Find out how you can take action against the UK’s unfair policies that are prioritising corporate profits via discredited institutions such as the World Bank. Not only will this fail to tackle climate change, but it will also deepen existing global inequalities.

3 October: Milton Keynes
4 October: Leeds
5 October: Lancaster
6 October: Derby
6 October: Glasgow (linked event)
10 October: Brighton
11 October: Bristol
12 October: Eastleigh
13 October: London

Bandile Mdlalose is general secretary of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shack-dwellers’ movement in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. She represents Abahlali on the civil society committee set up in response to the coming UN climate talks in Durban, working on mobilisation and education. She will be speaking in Milton Keynes, Leeds, Lancaster and Derby on WDM’s speaker tour.

Desmond D’Sa is coordinator of South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, which mobilises local people against industrial pollution. A veteran campaigner on local and global environmental justice issues, he’s centrally involved in organising the alternative civil society space during the UN talks. He will be speaking in Brighton, Bristol, London and Eastleigh

Business Day: Durban climate talks ‘exclude the poor’

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=147084

Durban climate talks ‘exclude the poor’
SUE BLAINE
Published: 2011/06/29 06:32:44 AM

LOBBY group for the poor Abahlali baseMjondolo said yesterday that the government and some civil society organisations have effectively locked the poor out of climate-change talks that will affect them.

This includes the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Durban in December, known as COP17 .

It is widely accepted that the poor often bear the brunt of negative effects of climate change, such as rising energy and food prices.

The UN talks were at a very high level and the poor “are talked about and yet no one wants to come and engage with us”, Abahlali baseMjondolo general secretary Bandile Mdlalose said.

“Part of the problem is these big organisations like the UN think they can use millions and millions of rand in donor money to create their own fake poor people’s organisations that will be tightly controlled by their nongovernmental organisations and be their good boys and girls. Our government likes this too.”

The government’s chief negotiator, Alf Wills, said it was agreed at the recent UN climate change talks in Bonn, Germany, that more discussion was needed about ensuring civil society had better ways of influencing the talks. Further discussions would be held in Durban, and in June next year.

The COP negotiations are government-to-government talks, and nongovernmental organisations can be admitted to sessions as observers only.

Spokeswoman for the UN in SA Helene Hoedl said about 1400 nongovernmental and 86 intergovernmental organisations were accredited as COP observers for the Durban talks.

They represented a broad spectrum, from business and industry, to environmental, farming and agriculture groups as well as indigenous populations, local and municipal authorities, research and academic institutions, labour unions, and women and gender and youth groups.

Ms Mdlalose, who said her organisation represented more than 10000 people in 64 informal settlements across SA, said the UN’s “beautiful plans” nonetheless excluded the poor.

“That’s why they (the UN Development Programme) called me to Nairobi (where she addressed the body earlier this year). They said they don’t know what’s happening on a grassroots level.” Ms Mdlalose’s trip to Kenya was sponsored by the UN body.

Mpho Nenweli, a programme manager at the UN in SA, said on Friday that a meeting was held with the Civil Society Committee for COP17 to discuss how the UN could support civil society participation in events that run parallel to the intergovernmental talks.

Civil Society Committee for COP17 member Melita Steele said the committee was planning an alternative space for civil society to hold exhibitions, workshops and discussions . It hoped to have a full plan within two months.

Ms Mdlalose is a member of this committee.

Ms Hoedl said that the UN Development Programme supported governments in creating mechanisms to enable citizens to engage in policy processes — including marginalised sections of the population.

blaines@bdfm.co.za