CONCLUSIONS WG Nº11- ADAPTATION
The Pre-Conference of Bolivian Indigenous Peoples and Social Organizations on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was held in the city of Cochabamba from the 29th to the 30th of March. The Pre-Conference drafted in 17 Working Groups proposals to be submitted by Bolivia to the CMPCC to be held from the 19th to the 22nd of April. The plenary of the Pre-Conference discussed and adopted the following conclusions. It is noteworthy that these documents are still preliminary in terms of form and compatibility by a drafting committee composed at the Pre Conference.
The impacts of climate change are generating irreversible and invaluable damages to Mother Earth affecting peoples’ lifestyles, their human rights, their natural and cultural resources, as well as the future of new generations.
Climate change is threatening the substantive basis of life by affecting the agricultural sector, food sovereignty, water resources, health, ecosystems and biodiversity. Extreme accelerated events by climate change are strongly deteriorating human security, infrastructure and settlements, thus limiting economic development of poor countries on the planet.These impacts are much more evident on indigenous populations, whose livelihoods and natural resources are affecting the use of biomarkers, making them even more vulnerable, thus increasing the number of climate migrants.
Peoples do not accept the term “adaptation” because it represents an imposition, and is insufficient since it leads to a process of actions and costs required in front of an impact not generated by us. Climate change adaptation is understood by peoples as the tool to fight climate change impacts and to protect and defend Mother Earth. It also means the healing of damaged natural resources, and the compensation of damages, social and cultural conflicts. The actual adaptation is the one that developed countries should accomplish, changing their lifestyles, development models and excessive consumerism.
It is proposed, in the context of the UNFCCC, that developed countries and those with emerging economies with large footprints, must learn to live with less opulence and lower GHG emissions.
MONITORING AND IMPACTS ASSESSMENT
• We demand the need of monitoring and assess impacts that poor countries suffer as a consequence of climate change effects, which requires developed countries to provide technology transfer in order to measure these impacts establishing the evidences of climate change impacts and their compensation, which should not represent a new debt for our states.
• We demand the strengthen of investigative capacities and technology transfer to universities in developing countries to build capacity to monitor, predict, and assess impacts of climate change on every level. To accomplish this, it is mandatory to demand resources from developed countries that cover all of these processes.
• We propose a record of each and every one of the impacts and costs that our countries are suffering and will suffer due to climate change. Local actors and indigenous peoples should be privileged to analyze impacts, prioritizing ancestral knowledge. Based on these records within the UNFCCC, a fair compensation for impacts’ costs should be established. It must be stated that the costs of impacts include lost opportunity costs of our development, cultural and services losses, replacement of losses due to climate events, and intrinsic losses.
• The failure of developed countries to resolve these impact costs and climate change adaptation should be the subject of the Climate Justice Tribunal.
CLIMATE DEBT AND FINANCING
The Climate adaptation debt should be assumed entirely by developed countries, and it is necessary to establish a binding mechanism for these countries to assume their economic responsibilities. In this sense, we demand:
1. The establishment of an adaptation fund as part of a financial mechanism operated through our own countries, and which it is vitally important.
2. That the application of this fund’s resources must be managed and conducted by our states with sovereignty, without following the conditioning process through international banks.
3. That this fund’s resources must be designed to cover the damage compensation for climate change impacts already occurring and for those impacts that are hampering the right of peoples to “living well” and to strengthen the role of women in relation to climate change.
4. That the Adaptation Fund must be sustainable over time. In this sense, it is demanded that this fund is consolidated with 2 to 3% annual GDP growth in developed countries. These funds should imply compensation and be additional to Official Development Assistance.
5. That under any point of view, adaptation funds should be used to subsidize corporations and companies; however, these companies must contribute with resources to the adaptation fund.
6. That resource’s transfers from people to people within countries can be complementary generated.
EQUAL RIGHTS PROTECTION TO THE IMPACTS OF CC
• To disqualify the Copenhagen Accord because it is limited; it addresses adaptation to climate change insufficiently since it does not fully cover the components of the Bali Action Plan, which provides an integral view of Adaptation. This Accord is intended to generate obligations in adaptation to our countries, ignoring all the responsibility of impacts and adaptation costs lying in developed countries.
• The offer of the Copenhagen Accord in terms of economic resources is minimal since at least 300,000 million dollars are annually required to address adaptation to climate change. In addition, the fact that the Copenhagen Accord involves adaptation and mitigation in a single fund is disapproved, distorting the needs of our peoples. This Accord intends to divide and confront the peoples for economic resources.
• We oppose any attempt to categorize our countries by their vulnerability to climate change, which generates disputes, inequality and segregation. We also report that is intended to extort our states, forcing emissions reductions (mitigation) in exchange of adaptation funds.
• Adaptation can not be considered as its own solution. Mother Earth and peoples can not live adapting themselves forever; therefore, developed and emerging countries must change their economic development model, Consumption Patterns and Life System.
• Peoples have equal rights to access the protection and technology systems for the impacts of climate change. We demand mandatory compensation for climate refugees and migrants. We reject the adaptation measures, such as the use of transgenic or biofuels because they violate peoples’ lives.