After the U.N Climate talks in Cancun last month brought the world no closer to a strong inter-governmental climate agreement than the Copenhagen meeting did a year earlier, leaders in the climate justice movement are saying this: It is up to communities to lead the way. This mantra is gaining steam.

In fact, on Jan 18 in Berkeley, key climate justice organizations will gather at a conference open to the public about moving forward on climate justice from Cancun – or despite Cancun. “Reigniting the Climate Justice Movement! Moving forward form the UN Climate Conference in Cancun” will be held at the David Brower Center, on 2150 Allston Way, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 18.

Several of the speakers have already said publicly or in interviews that the progress on climate justice we seek will come from us - from communities and individuals and organizations and perhaps from states - but not be initiated by the U.S. government or governments of other large nations or, for that matter, the United Nations. That is the legacy of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change of the past two years.

“There's no need to wait for a global treaty to get started installing solar at the local level, transitioning companies to green policies, or getting towns or cities to commit to long term climate action plans,” said 350.org Co-founder Jamie Henn in a recent blog post. “And there's no need to wait for a political breakthrough at the UN to create the movement that can force a cascade of political breakthroughs from the ground up." Henn will be among those speaking Tuesday in Berkeley.

Ananda Lee Tan, coordinator of U.S. and Canadian Networks for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, said in an interview that effective responses to global warming are not going to come from Washington, but rather from communities.

“Even Obama has said change will not come from Washington,” Tan said this week in advance of the Brower Center meeting where he will speak.  “Mahatma Gandhi could be in the White House and change would still not come from Washington.  It will come from communities.”

In Washington, public interest can’t compete with well-financed corporate lobbyists for influence in Congress, he said. But in Oakland and cities like it across the nation, people have drafted Climate Action Plans and are taking steps to carry them out.

“On the climate justice front, where do we have influence is at the community level,” Tan said. He cited a victory in Richmond’s mayoral election in which local community groups were able to hold back an effort believed to be financed by Chevron to replace Richmond’s mayor with a candidate more inclined to allow expansion of oil refineries.

Tan also cited GAIA’s work with hundreds of communities around the world in closing down waste burning incinerators. Communities and individuals also have blocked new coal burning plants from coming on board, he said.
Nonetheless, federal law and International frameworks are major tools, especially for getting a coordinated response to what is, after all, a global problem, and to find consistent policy.

That is what the United Nations Framework Conventions on Climate Change have set out to do. The Kyoto Protocol agreed to at the UN Climate meeting back in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, is a binding agreement signed by 37 nations then and eventually by 187. But the United States and some other big countries like China and India are not among them.  That has frayed the will of other countries and weakened the Protocol's impact, since the U.S. has been the largest emitter of greenhouse gases over the years. Also, the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

At the UNFCCC climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009, an “accord” was reached but was not legally binding. Again in Cancun last December, a non-binding accord was reached at the UN sponsored event. Although it was named the "Cancun Agreement," the deal sets goals and time-tables and mechanisms, but no legal commitments to abide by these goals.

Rose Braz, climate campaign director at the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco, who will speak on Tuesday, says individuals working through organizations and communities need to pressure their federal governments to do the right thing.

“The United States could lead the way to a solution if it chose to. We have the most powerful laws on the books to curb carbon pollution; we just need to create the political will to force the Obama Administration to use them urgently and ambitiously,” Braz said this week.

“Most notably, the Clean Air Act has protected the air we breathe for four decades. By curbing air pollution, it is directly responsible for saving many thousands of lives and improving health,” she said, adding that it achieved these successes while saving money and protecting the economy.

“The Clean Air Act’s comprehensive system of pollution control, with a proven track record of success, is just now beginning to be applied to the grave problem of carbon pollution and global warming.

But precisely because it is so powerful, the Clean Air Act is under attack from big polluters who are pushing Congress to gut or delay this cornerstone environmental and public health protection so that they can continue to foul our air and warm our planet.

"We have the tools in the toolbox, but the tools won't work unless we use them quickly and aggressively.”

Getting the government to use those tools aggressively will require individuals and communities to get to work.

“We need to pressure Congress and President Obama to reject any rollbacks or delay of Clean Air Act programs to curb carbon pollution and here in the Bay Area," ” Braz said.

"We will be asking our champions like Senator Barbara Boxer to pledge to filibuster any such moves." 

Other speakers at "Reigniting the Climate Justice Movement! Moving forward form the UN Climate Conference in Cancun" will be Michelle Chan from Friends of the Earth, Bill Barclay from Rainforest Action Network and Tina Gerhardt from Alternet.

The Cancun agreement set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2020, but did not get commitments from governments to do so. The agreement also set up a funding and technology transfer mechanism to help developing countries cope with climate change, but did not collect actual funds.

Lastly, while negotiators had hoped to agree to a method by which to monitor agreed-upon greenhouse gas reductions, nothing binding was produced.

Come to Tuesday's meeting - and others like it around the Bay Area - to find out what you can do to help shape climate justice here in our time.

TAKE ACTION

Reigniting the Climate Justice Movement! - Moving forward from the UN Climate Conference in Cancun
Tuesday, Jan 18, 7:00pm
 The David Brower Center/Tamalpais Room, Berkeley, CA

About Barbara Grady

Barbara Grady is a freelance reporter who often writes for Oakland Local. Before her current stint of writing about social issues for various news and non-profit organizations, Barbara was on staff at the Oakland Tribune and, earlier, at Reuters News Agency. She received a national Society of Professional Journalists 'excellence in journalism' award for a series published in 2008.