What happened in Paris? A Sham, and a Shame

Despite all the fanfare, the bottom line from the Paris Agreement is that emissions from fossil fuels will continue at levels that endanger life on the planet, and the trading schemes the agreement promotes will lead to an increase in natural resource grabs.

While government dignitaries engaged in UN climate negotiations (the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, otherwise known as the COP21) we had a chance to participate in 10 days of powerful strategy sessions and actions for climate justice in Paris alongside many of Grassroots International’s Global South partners. We will tell you more about movement proposals and accomplishments soon, but let’s start by reviewing the official agreement.

As we expected, the results of the official negotiations were devastating for people and the planet as a whole. The US government and others celebrate the fact that 196 countries reached an agreement in Paris. However, we know that the actual agreement reached is not only inadequate to address the severity of the climate crisis; it actually does more harm than good.

Our analysis on what is wrong with the Paris Agreement echoes critiques from social movements around the world, led by those most impacted by both climate disruption and the false solutions that governments and corporate interests promote in its wake. We have learned from social movements that in order to be effective in developing and supporting the next steps that are necessary, we must have a clear and honest understanding of the challenges and conditions that we are facing.

1. The Paris Agreement is not based on what is scientifically necessary to address climate disruption. It refers to a goal of “holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels,” it does not actually require action to meet these goals. The Paris Agreement contains no binding mandatory emissions reductions – only voluntary pledges from each country, called “Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions.” When all these pledges are added up, the result would be global average temperature increase between 3-4 °C above pre-industrial levels. Scientists warn that this level of temperature increase would be catastrophic. In fact, the agreement allows for continued increased emissions without setting a date by which emissions need to begin to decrease. The actual language states that “Parties aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible.”
2. The agreement allows countries to claim reductions through carbon trading schemes – otherwise known as “carbon neutrality” – rather than requiring actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. For example, polluters can keep polluting through extraction and burning of oil, gas, and coal, and supposedly offset that pollution through trading based on so-called “sustainable development” mechanisms – code for what we understand to be false solutions such as forest offsets. Alberto Saldamando, a human rights attorney, and part of our ally the Indigenous Environmental Network, clearly exposed the farce behind these false solutions:

“The Paris accord is a trade agreement, nothing more. It promises to privatize, commodify and sell forested lands as carbon offsets in fraudulent schemes such as REDD+ projects. These offset schemes provide a financial laundering mechanism for developed countries to launder their carbon pollution on the backs of the global south. Case-in-point, the United States’ climate change plan includes 250 million megatons to be absorbed by oceans and forest offset markets. Essentially, those responsible for the climate crisis not only get to buy their way out of compliance but they also get to profit from it as well.”

3. The agreement weakens or strips the rights of many communities most impacted by climate disruption. For example, since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was first created in 1992, there has been an understanding that countries must act in accordance with the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” The Paris Agreement weakens that language, which until now has been critical for establishing the expectation that countries that have greater historical responsibility for causing climate change must be held to higher standards for reducing emissions and addressing impacts. Furthermore, the Paris Agreement denies the possibility for compensation or liability for loss and damage done, thus limiting rights of countries or communities impacted by climate to use legal methods to hold entities accountable for causing their suffering. As our allies at Friends of the Earth explained,

The wording specifically excludes compensation and liability. This will be a high price for vulnerable countries to pay. There is no concrete structure in place for climate refugees, and no finance on the table to address irreparable damage. Without this, the most vulnerable countries will be left to pick up the pieces.This is a step backwards for loss and damage. The US pushed this text on small island countries…

4. The operating text of the agreement does not include any mention of human rights or the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Based in large part on the role of the US in blocking this text from the official part of the agreement, there is only a mention part of these rights in the preamble – which holds no legal weight.

The harsh reality we face is that the very people who have already been experiencing the most frequent and severe climate impacts to date – Indigenous Peoples, small-scale farmers/peasants, women and low-income communities of color, especially in the Global South – will now face even more difficult life-or-death struggles as the their lands, territories, waters, and forests could be increasingly privatized and taken away under the mechanisms of the Paris Agreement.

The harsh reality we face is that the very people who have already been experiencing the most frequent and severe climate impacts to date – Indigenous Peoples, small-scale farmers/peasants, women and low-income communities of color, especially in the Global South – will now face even more difficult life-or-death struggles as the their lands, territories, waters, and forests could be increasingly privatized and taken away under the mechanisms of the Paris Agreement.

Given these results of the Paris Agreement, the leadership of social movements of Indigenous Peoples, small-scale farmers/peasants and women who have been defending lands, territories, water, forests, and Mother Earth as a whole is more critical than ever.

Like the movements with which we partner, we are not immobilized by our critical analysis of what took place in Paris. Rather, we are that much more determined to do our work, accompanying the grassroots, ground-up organizing and movement-building work necessary to achieve climate justice through rights to land, water, food sovereignty, resilience, and local, living, loving, linked, regenerative economies. As Antolin Huascar, a Peruvian member of Grassroots International partner La Via Campesina’s delegation to Paris asserted,

“The future of the planet is in the hands of the people…We, the peasants of the world, will now return to our territories and farms all the more determined to continue our struggle for food sovereignty for all the peoples of the world.”

The links below provide fuller analysis of the Paris Agreement from some of Grassroots International’s partners and strategic allies:

• Via Campesina statement: … “COP21 is further opening the door to financial speculation on nature, industrialisation of agriculture, and accelerating resource grabbing.”
• Friends of the Earth International statement: … “Rich countries have moved the goal posts so far that we are left with a sham of a deal in Paris. Through piecemeal pledges and bullying tactics, rich countries have pushed through a very bad deal.”
• It Takes Roots statement (including Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Climate Justice Alliance and the Indigenous Environmental Network: … “The atmosphere within the COP21 meeting was one of business instead of saving Mother Earth. World leaders were in deep negotiations not over climate policy, they were in negotiations about commercialization of nature.”
• Indigenous Environmental Network statement: …”Here at the COP21 they are proposing false solutions to the climate crisis, they are proposing a commodification of the sacred, they want to put a price on the air we breathe. They want to go into other countries, displace our Indigenous brothers and sisters, so that they in the US can continue killing our people. We are the frontlines, we are the red lines.”