Climate Justice Activists Protest and Occupy French Consulate in San Francisco

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Climate Justice Activists Protest and Occupy French Consulate in San Francisco

Activists occupy lobby calling on French government to lift ban on climate marches at U.N. climate talks, act on climate change.

SAN FRANCISCO–At 930am this morning, a group of eight  Bayparis SF 5 Area protesters entered the lobby of the French Consulate in San Francisco’s financial district to speak with the consular general. The demonstrators  dressed in blue, covered their mouths with French flag tape to call attention to the repression of climate organizers during the ongoing United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) talks in Paris. Another 20 people rallied outside the consulate doors with signs and banners. The protest calls on the French government to lift a prohibition of public marches during the COP. The group called on the French government  to stop the acceleration of global climate disruption by pushing for a strong international agreement to regulate carbon emissions.

Citing concerns about the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, on November 19 the French government announced a ban on public gatherings and protests, interrupting a Global Climate March planned for 29 November, at which 200,000 people from around the world were expected to march. A December 12th climate mobilization was banned as well.  Under a veil of national security, French police  wrongly placed 24 French climate organizers under house arrest and began turning back international activists at its borders. On November 29th, French police attacked peaceful protesters at the Place de Republique with tear gas, pepper spray and violently arrested over 200 people.

Protesters at today’s San Francisco action say that France’s heightened security rules endanger citizens’ ability to participate meaningfully in these international climate talks.

‘Many political leaders now acknowledge Climate Change presents a real security threat to the future of nations.” said protest organizer Lynn Stone, with local climate justice group Diablo Rising Tide. “Stifling free speech during the Paris climate talks is a tragic mistake. Paris should not fear and restrict climate justice protesters when the real threat is climate change.”

The talks in Paris come at a critical juncture in world history as more action is needed on climate as storms, floods and droughts increase in intensity each year. Despite the obstacles faced by protesters in Paris, an additional  700,000 people are estimated to have marched in cities throughout the world last weekend calling for heads of state and COP negotiators to rise to the occasion of the climate crisis. Over 50 major cities saw huge demonstrations.

In Oakland, on November 21st, over 5,000 marched for climate action after hearing the same call to action. Action oriented climate justice groups like Diablo Rising Tide have vowed to pressure corporate and political leaders on the issue of fossil fuel extraction, infrastructure and combustion in Northern California.

protest CJ Paris“As a coastal region and a hotbed of environmental innovation, these climate talks are especially relevant to life in the Bay Area,” said Scott Parkin, also with Diablo Rising Tide. “Numerous Bay Area organizations have sent representatives to Paris to join others from around the globe, and the recent crackdown prevents citizens here and around the world from making their voices heard.”

On September 28th, Diablo Rising Tide organized Flood Wall Street West which saw over 250 people march to the offices of Chevron, Wells Fargo and Bank of the West in San Francisco’s Financial District.. The mass civil disobedience shut down the corporate headquarters of Bank of the West for the day and led to the arrests of a dozen climate activists. Bank of the West is a subsidiary of French bank BNP-Paribas, a lead financier of the coal sector in France.

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Diablo Rising Tide is the Bay Area chapter of Rising Tide North America network. Rising Tide is an all-volunteer climate network in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico who confront the root causes of climate change with protests and grassroots organizing.The larger Rising Tide network spans four continents and works with activists in North and South America, Europe, and Australia.

 

Resistance and Solidarity at COP20, Lima

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An answer to the climate crisis is emerging right now from Lima, Peru, but it’s not COP20.

At COP 20, political elites haggled over a draft UN climate deal that they hope to ratify next year in Paris. It’s a bad deal. It is narrowly focused on unenforceable commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Those reductions won’t even begin till after 2020 and won’t keep temperature rises below two degrees celsius. At the same time, rich countries, and the corporate lobbyists behind them, worked for a deal that won’t stop them from expanding the extractive industries cooking the planet. And it does nothing to help poor nations adapt to climate change and sustainably lift their people out of poverty.

But outside COP20, a real response to the crisis is emerging: solidarity and resistance.

Thousands of people, representing indigenous communities and their allies from all over Latin America and the world came together for the Cumbre De Los Pueblos, (People’s Summit).

The People’s Summit was an unprecedented moment, particularly for bringing together so many communities from the Amazon and Andean Highlands of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Many of these communities are actively resisting extractive projects like gold mining, petroleum extraction, and logging. These communities are connecting their struggles to protect their water from extraction, forests from expropriation and communities from state violence around a framework of justicia climática (climate justice). They are addressing the need to confront neoliberal capital, the system that finances and drives the climate crisis.

Nilda Rojas

The People’s summit hasn’t just created a space for solidarity. Its also created a space for resistance. The communities present are demanding autonomy, so when the news broke that Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia, might speak at the event, many were furious. Nilda Rojas, an Indigenous woman of Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu explained that a summit with government officials is not a peoples summit. Her community faces state violence that Evo Morales is responsible for. His presence would undercut the autonomy and potential of the summit and communities fighting for their land and water.

People rallied against government inclusion. On Monday, activists with the Ecuadoran group YASunidos used drums and banners to disrupted a speach by the mayor of Lima. After the disruption, Caravana Climática used its radio equipment to broadcast and amplify voices from dozens of indigenous communities saying they were unhappy with government inclusion. The dissent spread, and in the end Evo Morales did not speak.

Conga No Va

On Tuesday, hundreds from  the region of Cajamarca, Peru arrived in Lima. They immediately took the streets with a giant, river like banner. The people of Cajamarca are fighting the expansion of one of the largest open pit gold mines on the planet, Minas Conga, owned by the U.S. based Newmont Mining Corporation. The energy intensive mine threatens the water supply of Cajamarca, and state repression of protests has lead to the murder of at least five community members.

On Wednesday, up to 20,000 people took the streets in Lima to march in defense of Mother Earth. Nowhere in this march of 20,000 indigenous people, ecologists, feminists, anti-capitalists, could you get away from beautiful banners, and contagious protest songs for land and water and against neoliberal imperialism.

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Demonstrators also confronted the World Climate Summit, a meeting of representatives from Multinational corporations. Even though the Police had used tear gas to disperse the initial march, many reconvened in a park closer to the Hilton where the corporate summit was gathering. We marched straight to the Hilton but were stopped one block from the target by a dense police line. In sight of the summit, we held a rally, standing in solidarity with those killed by state violence and denouncing the multi-nationals poisoning our land, water and climate.

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If there is one lesson from the week, that is never doubt that you are alone in the fight for climate justice. We are a truly global, and growing, movement.

As we learn to work together, we are creating a real answer to the climate crisis, one based on communities protecting their land, water and forests from the industries destroying the planet. We are coming together to keep fossil fuels in the ground, ensure forests belong to the communities that live there and demanding water be protected as a common good.

The political elites at COP20 won’t end the climate crisis. We will.

Update, December 14: Edited to reflect that the COP20 released a draft climate accord in the early morning of Sunday, December 14.