First Week Of Climate Talks A Predictable Failure

At the end of the first week of the climate talks at Copenhagen, thousands of activists from the Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now! networks are joining the climate march under the banner of ‘System Change Not Climate Change’ to denounce the climate negotiations as a predictable failure. The protesters are demanding radical changes in economic and political systems in order to address the climate crisis.
The coming together of the Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now! is an unprecedented coalition of social movements, NGOs and grassroots climate activists from around the world to demand alternatives to the failed market solutions being pushed by governments and big business.

The ‘System Change’ contingent has been tipped as the largest and loudest section in the march and includes people from 50 different countries. It will include a flat bed truck broadcasting music and speeches from prominent activists from the global south.

Josie Riffaud from La Via Campesina a global coalition of peasant movements, said
‘We’ve seen this week in Copenhagen that governments are turning the climate chaos into commodities. Farmers – men and women – are taking to the streets today because we are so outraged by the ineffective targets and false solutions such as agrofuels being peddled by business lobbyists and governments that listen to them.

Lidy Nacpil from the Jubilee South Coalition said
‘All week we have heard a string of excuses from northern countries to make adequate reparations for the ecological crisis that they have caused. We are taking to the streets to demand that the ecological debt is repaid to the people of the South’.

Lars Fredikssen, an activist from Climate Justice Action said
‘At the root of the climate crisis is an economic and political system that puts profit above people and the long term sustainability of this planet. Unless we address these root causes, climate change will devastate people around the world. These talks are a predictable failure and that’s why we will be taking action next week to create a People’s Assembly. We want the voices of ordinary people who are already being affected by climate change to be heard and listened to.”

Both networks will continue to work together on 16 December, where they are planning to bring the energy from the streets into the Centre where the talks are being held. A massive Peoples Assembly will take place when thousands are expected to march to the Bella Centre to expose the false solutions and to propose positive alternatives and at the same time, hundreds of people inside the talks are expected to walk-out and join.

In Finland concerned citizens took part in the E.ON-F.OFF action weekend by hanging a banner near the Helsinki offices of E.ON and Fennovoima. The banner stated a math equation of dirty energy: FENNOVOIMA=E.ON x NUCLEAR + COAL = CLIMATE CHAOS

While E.ON is busy with coal power in rest of Europe, in Finland it wants to build a nuclear power plant. It is the largest single shareholder of Fennovoima energy company which advertises nuclear power as a solution to climate change. Most Finnish people are against new nuclear power plants, but it seems that the politicians want to make Finland a playground for nuclear industry: there are also plans for several uranium mines and a waste depository. Finland’s decisions will influence policy-making in rest of the world: all support in stopping the nuclear madness is welcome. Both coal and nuclear power are dying forms of energy production that belong to the past!

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43685984@N05/

Our future is at stake. Climate change is happening, and NOW is the time to take action against the forces driving it!

While the preparations and mobilisations for the COP15 are underway all over the world, a sinister meeting is under way. On May 24^th – 26^th 2009, again in Copenhagen, corporations, climate criminals, capitalists and their allies, will meet for the World Business Summit on Climate Change (WBSCC).

The very people representing the business elites and multinationals who played the majority part in creating the mess of crises we’re in will now be converging under the guise of a green social conscience to champion business-friendly and marked-based mechanisms.

The Danish Government has already stated that the WBSCC will have a special place in the COP15 negotiations, so the scenario is the same people who’re the cause of the crisis will be asked to solve it — through the same false market mechanisms as we saw with the failed Kyoto Protocol and other greenwash deals,  commodifying more of our commons for the sake of profits!

With some of the biggest emitters (DONG, SAS etc.) as a parts and sponsors of the WBSCC, it is hard to imagine that they would have the future of the planet and of its peoples in mind..

But we will not stand idle by as their show goes on!

So for three days, while business elites will discuss how to spin more profits of the COP15 and put pressure on governments, how to develop and implement false and market based solutions, we’ll be in Copenhagen: Starting off on the 24^th with a massive demo that will aim directly at the summit, displaying our dissent to their world order while trying to shut down their party!

We invite you to come to Copenhagen, to join the May 24^th demo and to take autonomous action on Sunday and on the days that follow, targeting the summit or the corporate crooks involved therein whereever they might be found!

We will surround them and disturb them as much as possible, letting them know once and for all, that OUR CLIMATE IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS!

Demo + Action, May 24^th h.14.00

@ Christianshavn Torv

Copenhagen, Denmark

Accommodation, convergence center and other facilities are being arranged. For more information write to notyourbusiness.cph[a]gmail.com or check out www.climateaction09.org

See you in Copenhagen!

A call-out for common actions against the construction of a new nuclear power station in Belarus

26 April, the day of Chernobyl nuclear accident.

Present-day Belarus is a post soviet country, on which territory a regime, police state in form and neoliberal in essence, fortified its position. For already 14 years the country is run by one and the same person Alexander Lukashenko, a populist at the beginning of his governing and openly pursuing antisocial reforms now. The freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly is not about our country. These basic values as well as the political opposition are suppressed. Peaceful gatherings dispersions, political trials, preventive detentions all this has become a norm of political practice in Belarus.

A few years ago the ruling top started to consider another venturesome project, the construction of a nuclear power station (NPS). Lukashenko took a decision regardless of the public wishes and common sense. The decision was made with the active support of the international nuclear lobby. The construction is to be undertaken by a Russian corporation Rosatom. It is to be held in a seismically active zone, in a dozen kilometers away from Lake Naroch the largest lake in Belarus, which is ecologically unique for our country and is a tourists and holiday-makers attraction. On the construction will be spent $4 billion, which otherwise could be outlaid for alternative energy means development.

But the above-listed points pale before the fact that Belarus shared 70% of radioactive contamination after Chernobyl nuclear accident. But the government and the president are absolutely not concerned about that.
They want to create a delayed-action bomb in the country, where one third of the territory is unfit for farming and berries/mushrooms gathering.

We, Antinuclear resistance, an anarchy group, come out against nuclear power engineering on the whole and against the NPS construction specifically in Belarus. A part of political forces in Belarus, including opposition, supported the NPS construction. Unlike them we do not believe in NPS safety irrespective of the political regime, within which it is functioning and being constructed. Our activity is based upon non-authoritarian principles, we do not cooperate with any political parties on a regular base, but with ecological organizations and grassroots initiatives.

On 26 April, the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, an annual demonstration Charnobylski Shlah (The Chernobyl Path) takes place in commemoration of the accident and the people who fell the immediate and lingering victims of it. Starting with the year of 1996 anarchists take part in the demo with ecological and antinuclear slogans. But nowadays the demonstration, instead of just mourning and commemorative event, is gaining a protest mood: in the country, where dozens of thousands people have died as a result of the nuclear accident aftermaths and hundreds of thousands have acquired accident-caused illnesses or become handicapped, a new NPS is to be constructed! And that is done according to the common regulations of an authoritarian police state not asking the peoples opinion, but just confronting them with the fact.

On 26 April we will again take a most active part in the Charnobylski Shlah (The Chernobyl Path), well try to pass along to everyone our clear antinuclear position, will inform as many people as possible of the approaching danger. But now it is not enough! As an instrument of struggle against the state lawlessness we rely on the international support. We urge anarchists, environmentalists, antiauthoritarians of the world to carry out solidarity actions on 26 April 2009. We call for a decentralized day of action of any form, which could help people learn something about our problem and stop the impudent authority and their sponsors from IAEA. If you already take actions on 26 April on your local problems concerning nuclear power engineering, please put on your list the demand for abolition of the NSP construction in Belarus. You are also welcome toparticipate in The Chernobyl Path in Minsk and other actions in Belarus.

Together we will be able to stand up for the right for life on a clean and ecologically safe planet!

If you have any intention to make solidarity actions with the Belarussian antinuclear movement or participate in the demonstration in Belarus please contact us:
antiatombel@riseup.net

Spread out the call out through any accessible for you information channels.

(source: http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2169)

Everything is rational in capitalism, except capital or capitalism itself …the system is demented, yet it works very well at the same time”.
(Felix Guattarri, 1995)

“We mean business when we talk about climate change”.
(Jose Manuel Barroso, European commission president)

One of the biggest political spectacles of the coming year will be held in Copenhagen, (COP-15) in December. There, delegates from 170 countries, corporate lobbyists and NGO representatives will come together under the banner of the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCC) in an attempt to solve the problem of climate change via the implementation of a global, market based, carbon cap and trade scheme. The deal brokered here will replace the Kyoto treaty which will expire in 2012. The COP-15 will be a core global governance mechanism through which climate change mitigation will be implemented. The deal that emerges from this has the potential to affect the entire socio-ecological field.

Although the framework for the new treaty has been sketched out at Poznan there is still lots to negotiate. Outside of state actors, NGOs from both North and South are calling for a mass movement to intervene in this process. Many are calling for a dramatic reduction in the maximum CO2 levels that will be permitted to be emitted whilst others are seeking greater flows of technological exchange and financial aid to cope with the effects of climate change. In the UK, the Climate Camp and sections of the radical left are also beginning to mobilise. However, heated debate still exists over whether we should go and, if we do decide to go what should our intervention consist of? With the upcoming anti-Nato, G8, G20 and COP-15 summits 2009 appears, at least on paper, as the year in which summit mobilisations come back into vogue. However, unlike mobilisations during the alter-globalisation cycle of resistance, the politics of climate change make an intervention at the COP-15 much more difficult. Whilst many are calling for the COP-15 to be de-legitimised and shut down others are calling for a pragmatic engagement with it and suggest corporate lobbyists or the most dilatory states as targets. This article hopes to problematise the (post)politics of the COP-15 process and highlight the difficulties a radical left intervention would encounter in doing so.

Post-politics of climate change

The formal political space of the COP-15 process can be defined by its emphasis on consensus. Although every actor involved has their own individual agenda and set of goals for the summit it appears a degree of consensus has been reached. A new political space based on science and technocratic administration is emerging where the only debates that remain are over the finer points of the carbon market which will be implemented. Climate change has been de-politicised and debate is now framed within scientific terms of carbon parts per million in the atmosphere. Despite appearing as a non-political issue, it is the exact opposite. Anthropogenic emissions stem from concrete forms of production. By focusing on carbon and not the flows of capital responsible for their emission, policy makers are confusing the effects with the system that produces them. This focus on carbon helps to insulate the system from criticism by creating the problem as external and divorcing it from its social context.

Climate change has been defined in terms of carbon and not in terms of capital, but any policy needs support in order to be implemented. The political willpower to act on climate change has been galvanised through an apocalyptic and millenarian narrative. The argument for averting climate change is clear and unequivocal; if we do not mitigate climate change the results will be disastrous for the entire world. This is of course true, the effects of climate change will be devastating for many, particularly for the most vulnerable sections of society. Therefore we must act now to avert this catastrophic build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The problem is defined as a universal problem requiring a united global response. Faced with the prospect of apocalypse, old left-right antagonisms begin to look outdated and those standing outside of this “carbon consensus” are marginalised as idealistic at best. Climate change therefore becomes a post-political space devoid of conflict and instead focused on implementing policy based on science, technology and markets. This appeal to universal action has helped to short circuit real political debate over future potential socio-ecological relationships. Within this depoliticised space Ed Miliband’s call for “millions on the streets” in a Make Poverty History style mobilisation to give Gordon Brown a mandate at the COP-15 sits comfortably with environmental activists calling for a pragmatic engagement with the process. Much like the Gleneagles G8 summit, COP-15 appears to be recuperating antagonism in order to re-articulate global patterns of capital.

This is tying the world into a disastrous course of action. Climate change must be defined as an issue of capital not carbon. Contrary to the claims of proponents of the emerging “green” economy, there is no equitable technological solution to climate change. A de-carbonised global economy (as many wish to see) will still be a capitalist economy with all the social and environmental damage this entails. A greener form of capitalism will be a more austere form of capitalism in which increasing unrest will require disciplining by increasingly authoritarian forms of state power. At best the COP-15 will be a pyrrhic victory in which catastrophic climate change is averted at the expense of many people’s standards of living. The Cop-15 process can be seen as one part of this emerging green new deal in which converging ecological and financial crises can be recuperated into circuits of capital accumulation. This carbon market will primarily benefit private interests in the North who have enough financial power to offset their emissions via “development” projects in the global south which look likely to only benefit small sections of local elites. Real political contestation has been trumped by a process whose destructive and deeply political nature has been obscured behind a scientific and apparently universal mandate for action.

That the media and the entire political spectrum appear in support of this process makes an anti-capitalist intervention even more problematic. By demanding the end of capitalist social relationships and refusing to accept the COP-15 we are articulating a demand that is impossible to be accommodated within the existing political sphere, especially one which forecloses the political through its use of science and focus on “universal” consensus. By standing outside of this, our demands are likely to be made legible in one of two ways. The first narrative, already used by George Monbiot with regards to last years climate camp, is that a radical intervention at the COP-15 will be an outdated and ideologically driven form of protest in a situation which needs a unified global effort behind it. The second narrative, and perhaps the more undesirable, will be that our intervention will be conflated with that of more liberal groups.

Despite this, we must act. Our intervention must embody a rejection of the false solutions proffered by the COP-15 process whilst clearly standing in opposition to liberals and environmentalists wishing to “make Kyoto Stronger” who are in fact pushing for a more austere form of capitalism. Our only hope of breaking through this will be an intervention of such force that the post-political veneer of the COP-15 process will be shattered, even if only for the days of the conference. Given a trend of increasingly militarised summit policing this appears an unenviable, if necessary, task.

In terms of environmental politics the anti-capitalist left is nowhere. Climate change has gone post-political. The only debates left at COP-15 are over the finer points of the carbon market which will be implemented, a market which will produce new forms of structural violence. In an incredible demonstration of the adaptability of capital many NGOs and environmentalists are supporting this process. Although it would be tempting to remain in our local communities the impacts of climate change and its mitigation are so large that we cannot afford to ignore this summit. Although as a movement our energies are perhaps best focused on the local this is our last chance to try and de-legitimise this process and re-politicise climate change.

Given the post-politics of climate change however this will be very difficult to achieve. An analysis of post-political processes has severe implications for anti-capitalist interventions. If the political sphere is no longer, if it ever was, a viable space for protests then perhaps the focus should shift to autonomous interventions in spaces that we create. Indeed, the real intervention against global climate governance may well be expressed in food riots, anti-airport expansion campaigns and fuel poverty campaigns, perhaps even by people not explicitly identifying with climate change politics. Whether we are successful or not at COP-15 we must begin to recognise ways in which we can support these autonomous uprisings rooted in our everyday experiences of capital.

Kokoukseen voi ilmoittautua osoitteessa www.climateaction09.org/signup

2nd Invitation to participate in the Next International Coordination meeting for mobilization around the COP 15 December 2009.

When: from 5pm 13th of March till 8pm 15th March
Where: Denmark: MellemFolkeligt Samvirke Fælledvej 12, Copenhagen N.
Proposed Aims: Developing our basis for Unity, Some Agreement on Action, Discussion of Movement Building through COP 15 (for more details see below)

We invite all groups, networks and organizations concerned about climate justice and interested in organizing mobilizations around the time of the COP 15 to come to the next international coordination meeting in March 13-15th in Copenhagen.

We stand at a crossroads. The facts are clear. Global climate change, caused by human activities, is happening, threatening the lives and livelihoods of billions of people and the existence of millions of species. Social movements, environmental groups, and scientists from all over the world are calling for urgent and radical action on climate change.

On the 7th of December, 2009 the governments of the world will come to Copenhagen for the fifteenth UN Climate Conference (COP-15). This will be the biggest summit on climate change ever to have taken place. Yet, previous meetings have produced nothing more than business as usual.
There are alternatives to the current course that is emphasizing false solutions such as market-based approaches and agrofuels. If we put humanity before profit and solidarity above competition we can live amazing lives without destroying our planet. We need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Instead we must invest in community-controlled renewable energy. We must stop over-production for over-consumption. All should have equal access to the global commons through community control and sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water. And of course we must acknowledge the historical responsibility of the global elite and rich Global North for causing this crisis. Equity between North and South is essential.

Climate change is already impacting people, particularly women, indigenous and forest-dependent peoples, small farmers, marginalized communities and impoverished neighborhoods who are also calling for action on climate-and social justice. This call was taken up by activists and organizations from 21 countries that came together in Copenhagen over the weekend of13-14 September, 2008 to begin discussions for a mobilization in Copenhagen during the UN’s 2009 climate conference.

After a number of further meetings in the Copenhagen process – in December in Poznan, and in January in Belem – we have realized that one of the defining characteristics of the emerging global climate justice movement is a wonderful diversity of opinions, tactics, and strategy, in general and specifically with respect to the mobilization towards the COP15. As the group that is developing the agenda for the March meeting we see it as our responsibility to give space to this diversity in our process.

In order to guarantee that this is the case, we strongly encourage people and organizations to participate in the March meeting in the spirit of the lessons we have learnt from these previous meetings- a mature recognition of our diversity. We hope that people participating in March will recognize that we come from different traditions of political action, with many experience of success through different political approaches and methods of protest. While we entirely accept the validity of these positions, in March we explicitly want to create a space that allows the really existing diversity of positions in the movement to come and work together in a broad mobilization for climate justice in and beyond Copenhagen.

As such our proposed aims for the meeting are:
1/ to clarify given our diversity how we can work together for the COP 15 mobilizations. (Developing our basis for unity)
2/ to clarify what action proposals exist, to test for consensus around those proposals and to accept principled diversity of actions if we do not come to consensus on those proposals. (Some agreement around action)
3/ to discuss ways in which we can make the Copenhagen mobilizations something that helps us build a broad based movement for climate justice beyond the COP 15 that is both global and system critical. (Discussion of Movement Building through COP 15)

To register your participation please email climatemarch09@gmail.com or log on to www.climateaction09.org/signup
More information will be sent to you once you register but briefly:
-       If you need a letter of invitation for your visa application please contact us ASAP.
-       Translation will be available in languages that people request where the request is received at least one week before the meeting- if you require translation please include this in your email for participation.
-        Vegetarian (mostly vegan) food will be provided by donation over the weekend, if you need accommodation please also include that in your registration email.

Yours
The international coordination group of the
Coordination network for Mobilization around COP 15

Please circulate and distribute this invitation widely.

First the city traders speculated with our homes, jobs and money – with disastrous results. Now they are speculating with our climate and the very future of life on earth – and once again our governments are cheering them on.

By creating a brain-bending system of carbon pollution licenses, fossil fuel companies and trading firms have found a way to keep on churning out global warming gases and to reap huge windfall profits at the same time.
Meanwhile, the UK government is justifying a third runway at Heathrow and a coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth by saying that these new “carbon trading” schemes will magically make all their emissions vanish.

They are handing control of our climate over to the same people and systems that caused the financial collapse. All the workable and fair alternatives aren’t getting a look-in.

We need to stop this foolishness.

We’ve camped against the Heathrow runway, we’ve camped against the Kingsnorth coal power station. Now its time to camp against the over-arching problem: absolute faith in unfettered markets and endless economic growth. On April 1st the G20 leaders arrive in London. At a time of climate crisis their response to the market meltdown is emergency loans to car manufacturers, increased spending to encourage consumption, and bailouts for the very people who got us into this mess – just the thing that will make the climate crisis worse.

Don’t let them get away with it: join our camp in the Square Mile! Gather at noon, April 1st, at the European Climate Exchange, Hasilwood House, 62 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AW. Bring a pop-up tent if you’ve got one, sleeping bag, wind turbine, mobile cinema, action plans and ideas…let’s imagine another world.

Don’t let the financial and fossil fools make the rules!

for updates, details on back-up plans, and more information, visit us again at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

Join the announcements list, the facebook page and event.

Please post this link, paste this text, and otherwise spread the word!

Help celebrate Fossil Fools Day and Financial Fools Day.

Download the map for yourself

Many nuclear facilities like nuclear power stations and the cooling ponds and recycling plants of used nuclear fuel have been constructed on coastal areas. When nuclear facilities are situated near the sea, sea water can provide for much of the cooling required by the plants. This reduces the consumption of freshwater. However, the construction of nuclear facilities on coastal zones also exposes them to storm surges and tsunamis.

It is now more or less generally accepted that much of the extra heat remaining on our planet because of the atmosphere’s increasing greenhouse gas concentrations will be channelled into more powerful storms. On the Saffir-Simpson scale a category 5 hurricane is defined as a storm with wind speeds exceeding 249 kilometres per hour and strong enough to rise the sea level (temporarily) by at least 5.5 metres. In bays and fjords the temporary rise of sea level can be much more, especially if there are rivers that are flooding because of the heavy rains. Such hurricane storm surges are produced by the combined effect of two different factors: the strong winds push the surface water forward and against the shores, and the low-pressure area inside the storm adds to the height of the surge. The first factor is the more significant one.

At the North Atlantic there have been a little bit more than one large tsunami wave in a century. The most well-known events took place in 1929, 1755, 1607 and 1580. The tsunami of 1755 destroyed Lisboa, Cadiz, Huelva, and hundreds of smaller towns at the Spanish, Portuguese and Moroccan coasts. The Buran Peninsula tsunami (in 1929) was 7 metres high on long stretches of Canada’s coastline and rose to 27 metres in some bays. It was triggered by a relatively small (Magnitude 7 on the Richter Scale) earthquake, which caused a 200-cubic-kilometre submarine landslide.

After the last ice age the melting of the Fennoscandian ice sheet was relatively slow and took thousands of years of time. However, the melting of the continental ice sheet was still able to cause very large earthquakes, at least 8.5 and possibly much more on the Richter scale. These earthquakes were caused because a continental ice sheet is so heavy that it depresses the crust under it, sometimes by more than one kilometre. When the ice melts the ice sheet becomes less heavy and the crust begins to bounce back. The Swedish scientists have found traces of at least 13 tsunami events triggered by these earthquakes at the Baltic Sea, 12,400 to 4,000 years ago. According to the Swedish scientists some of these waves were “large” (about 20 metres high) and a few were “very large”.

The Fennoscandian ice sheet melt slowly because the melting process was only influenced by natural factors. During our own time the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could happen in a much shorter time, because of the influence of various human activities. We are increasing the atmosphere’s greenhouse gas concentrations and we are increasing the cirrus cloud cover (which has a strong warming impact on climate).Besides this we are also producing huge amounts of soot and dust which accelerate the melting of the glaciers by making the surface layer of the glaciers darker. Dust and soot reduce the reflectivity of snow and ice so that the glaciers can absorb more solar radiation.

Many scientists are now saying that the major part of the Greenland ice sheet could disappear in a couple of centuries and possibly in less than a century. If this happens, the Greenland ice sheet will melt dozens of times faster than the Fennoscandian ice sheet did. Such a process would, with a probability of exactly 100 per cent, cause a number of extremely violent earthquakes. Such earthquakes would be very likely to cause huge submarine landslides along the eastern coast of Greenland. There are enormous amounts of loose sediments, brought by the annual melt waters, which have been piling on Greenland’s coastal margins for more than a hundred thousand years. The edge of the ice sheet in Eastern Greenland has been remarkably stable for a very long time. For this reason there haven’t been any major earthquakes in the region after the last ice age, and the first major event can easily trigger substantial underwater landslides.

The scientists of Geomar, a famous ocean research institute in Kiel, Germany, have also warned that the warming of the sea water could lead to the destabilization of the so called methane clathrate deposits on continental slopes. This might also cause huge submarine landslides and tsunamis.

High storm surges or the tsunamis triggered by the melting of the clathrate beds and the Greenland ice sheet constitute a potential danger for the coastal nuclear facilities. A tsunami or a storm surge hitting a nuclear power plant could easily halt the diesel and electric engines of a reactor’s cooling system. In the worst-case scenario the nuclear fuel inside the reactor would burn and spread into the atmosphere in the form of highly radioactive aerosols. The main problem is the zirconium alloy cladding of the nuclear fuel rods, because it can catch fire and liberate most of the radioactivity inside the nuclear fuel into the atmosphere in the form of small and nanoparticles which can easily be inhaled in the lungs, but which can then stay inside a human body for years or for decades.

Three generals of the US Air Forces (see Nichelson-Medlin-Stafford: Radiological Weapons of Terror, Air University Air Command and Staff College) made, in 1999, an investigation of what would happen if a group of terrorists would use conventional high explosives to pulverize ten kilograms of used nuclear fuel just taken out from a nuclear reactor. According to the study the radioactive fallout produced by such a Dirty Bomb of three million curies would be able to kill most of the unprotected inhabitants of New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia and Baltimore if the winds would blow towards their direction. A large nuclear reactor can contain 150 tons of nuclear fuel with 300,000,000 curies of radioactivity per ton. Some of the proposed new reactors would be even larger and might finally contain two or three times more radioactivity for each ton of nuclear fuel. As a Dirty Bomb such a reactor would be 17,000 times more effective as the radioactivity dispersal device in Nichelson’s, Medlin’s and Stafford’s scenario. The accident of Chernobyl only released 50 million curies of radioactivity into the environment.

The cooling ponds outside the reactors’ containment shields are probably the most vulnerable spots. The fuel rods stored in them are typically thousands of times less radioactive than the nuclear fuel which has just been taken out from the reactor. However, even this fuel is still so hot that its zirconium alloy cladding will catch fire if the pumps stop functioning and the water in the cooling ponds evaporates so that the fuel rods will be exposed. A typical cooling pond of a nuclear power plant contains 20-50 times more radioactive Cesium 137 than what was released in Chernobyl, and this could easily be released into the atmosphere in a fire caused by a tsunami or a storm surge accident.

It would be very important to improve the sea defences of the nuclear facilities which have been constructed on the coastal areas of the Atlantic. If the governments decide to construct new nuclear power plants, they should not be sited on low-lying coastal zones.

Further information:
Coalition for Environment and Development
risto.isomaki (at) luukku.com, 358-(0)9-5877484 or 358-(0)19-2442436

Content:
1. Meeting in Copenhagen Sept. 2008
2. Meeting in Poznan Dec. 2008
3. Meeting in Belem Jan. 2009
4. The Next International Meeting

1. The first planning meeting happened in Copenhagen in September 2008. About 100 people from 20-25 different countries participated. Many people were quite young with a background in anti-globalisation movement: Seattle and the WTO blockades were an important reference point for the group. The Climate Justice Now ideas (i.e. movements of the global north must work hand-in-hand with movements of the global south) were very important for the way we are planning for the COP15. For the record of this meeting see http://klimax2009.org/docs/climate_meeting_minutes_final.pdf

What we did at the meeting:

-set-up working groups to facilitate the process of moving forward

-discussed strategy: we realised that we came from very different backgrounds and had very different ideas (for example: on the legitimacy of the COP process), but also that we had lots of similarities (ie: we don’t want the false solutions that are being propagated, we believe that the outcome of these negotiations are likely to be bad, we’re not convinced by market based solutions, we want to put solidarity over profit making, we need to stop over-production for over consumption, and we want to work for food sovereignty and community control)

-these ideas come from the call out produced by the meeting: it is a preliminary call out, but was a first way to reach out and get new organisations involved. The initial call has now been translated into 21 different languages available at http://risingtide.org.uk/copenhagen/translations

2. Meeting in Poznan Dec. 2008

During the COP14 in Poznan in December 2008 there was a second meeting. We were about 80 people from nearly 30 countries. The first part was mainly an introduction-round to know each other. People came from different backgrounds, NGO’s, climate-action-groups, groups that
not only work on climate change but also work on issues of globalization such as WTO-finance-interests, and climate-camps. The majority of the represented groups were also members of the
Climate-Justice-Now Network.  http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=19013

In the working-groups and discussion circles we found that we had many different positions but also some big similarities. On the one hand there was the position to influence the summit to achieve a “good deal”. On the other hand were loud voices to shut down the summit. We all had in common the position that the actual way the negotiations are going is wrong and if the process goes on in this way, we won’t
have an outcome in Copenhagen that really accomplishes something on climate change.

In the working group phase of the second part, we updated the actual process groups for Media, Action, Logistics; Process/Facilitiacion and created some new for Messaging and Solidarity. Informations about the existing mailinglists you find at the end. Furthermore, every group was asked to public a contact-email but until now, we only have personal email- addresses. So please contact us, the process-group,
(climateaction [at] klimax2009.org) if you want to get in contact with one of the groups.

3. Meeting in Belem Jan. 2009

During the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil, 27th of January until 1st of February 2009, there will also be meetings. Many of the people at these meetings will come from the networks of the global south, from South America, or other places in the world that cannot come easily to Europe. The meeting will be on the 31/1 from 12.00-15.00 in Belem at Local: UFPA Bp-Bp 05.

4. The Next International Meeting

The next international meeting of this network will happen in Copenhagen March 14-15, 2009. This meeting will discuss our aims and tactics during the summit. We will also discuss the possibility of coordinated global action during the summit. We invite all interested people to participate. By working together as many social movements, we can find good solutions to the challenges that the COP15 summit of global leaders presents to us all. If you need a special invitation in order to acquire a visa please contact climatemarch [a] gmail.com right away.

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To get involved in the ongoing and open process, you may *also* want to sign up to the climate09-int email list To join discussion list go here
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More information can be found on this website http://climateaction09.org
You can add material to the website here

To join a WORKING GROUP or to otherwise get involved, use the information below:
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LOGISTICS
(general) https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cop15logistics
(in Copenhagen)

https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cop15-coordination-cph

PROCESS
(website & communication)

http://our-kitchen.org/mailman/listinfo/coordination

(next international meeting)

http://our-kitchen.org/mailman/listinfo/international-coordination

MEDIA

https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cop15media

http://our-kitchen.org/mailman/listinfo/cop15.messaging

WEBTEAM

https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cop15web-team

On the 30th of November, 2009 the governments of the world will come to Copenhagen for the fifteenth UN Climate Conference (COP-15). This will be the biggest summit on climate change ever to have taken place. Yet, previous meetings have produced nothing more than business as usual.

There are alternatives to the current course that is emphasizing false solutions such as market-based approaches and agrofuels. If we put humanity before profit and solidarity above competition we can live amazing lives without destroying our planet. We need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Instead we must invest in community-controlled renewable energy. We must stop over-production for over-consumption. All should have equal access to the global commons through community control and sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water. And of course we must acknowledge the historical responsibility of the global elite and rich Global North for causing this crisis. Equity between North and South is essential.

Climate change is already impacting people, particularly women, indigenous and forest-dependent peoples, small farmers, marginalized communities and impoverished neighbourhoods who are also calling for action on climate-and social justice. This call was taken up by activists and organizations from 21 countries that came together in Copenhagen over the weekend of 13-14 September, 2008 to begin discussions for a mobilization in Copenhagen during the UN’s 2009 climate conference.

The 30th of November, 2009 is also the tenth anniversary of the World Trade Organization (WTO) shutdown in Seattle, which shows the power of globally coordinated social movements.

We call on all peoples around the planet to mobilize and take action against the root causes of climate change and the key agents responsible both in Copenhagen and around the world. This mobilization begins now, until the COP-15 summit, and beyond. The mobilizations in Copenhagen and around the world are still in the planning stages. We have time to collectively decide what these mobilizations will look like, and to begin to visualize what our future can be. Get involved!

We encourage everyone to start mobilizing today in your own neighbourhoods and communities. It is time to take the power back. The power is in our hands. Hope is not just a feeling, it is also about taking action. To get involved in this ongoing and open process, sign up to this email list: climateaction@klimax2009.org

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