SOUTH AFRICA: Campus buzz at 'people's' COP17

The University of KwaZulu-Natal's Howard College campus in Durban, South Africa, is ground zero for C17, the civil society 'People's Space' alternative to COP17-CMP7, the global climate change gathering that kicked off on Monday.

As formal negotiations continued behind closed doors at the city's Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre complex - the site of the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol (CMP7) - the scene at UKZN was buzzing.

Groups of students marched and chanted in preparation for a mass rally planned for Saturday. C17 organisers liaised with busloads of mainly young people arriving at a symbolic refugee camp, set up off-campus, from where they would make forays to UKZN for workshops and other activities before joining the Saturday rally.

Lecture halls at three campus venues, Shepstone, TB Davis and the landmark Memorial Tower Building, were jammed with multi-generational audiences involved in discussions and workshops ranging from 'land reform through land occupation' to food security and rural women farming issues.

Professor Patrick Bond, director of the university's Centre for Civil Society in the school of development studies and author of a recently launched book, The Politics of Climate Justice (UKZN Press), has been running regular teach-ins during C17 on the politics of climate change.

Guests he has had speak at the People's Space include former Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations and well-known social and environmental activist Pablo Salón.

Meanwhile, at a round-table discussion on green energy in Durban on Friday night Edna Molewa, South Africa's minister of water and environmental affairs and head of the South African delegation for COP17, said government alone could only do so much to address climate change.

Describing climate change as "one of the most serious threats to humanity", Molewa stressed that it was scientists and academics who informed the negotiations -- and that the participation of civil society was essential.

Molewa told University World News that the South African government had co-funded the People's Space at UKZN. "We believe no voice must be left unheard. We need to hear them [ordinary people] and we want to hear them.

"Some have indigenous knowledge -- and there are alternative academic voices. We are not funding them for the purpose of having them close their mouths. We want them to speak out. We want them to challenge us," she said.

People's Space convener Bryan Ashe described C17 as "a parallel process primarily aimed at the civil society sectors, NGOs and community-based groupings from all over the world".

It was set up, Ashe explained, because "the COP initiative is currently delivering nothing. We want to change the mindset around climate change and to start developing a global movement of citizens.

"We want to see people moving away from fossil fuel and nuclear futures. Our consumption patterns need to change. What we're doing here at UKZN is discussing a different world. People have to start making commitments to reduction and a new system of negotiating. Governments need to make serious commitments to reductions irrespective of where they are in the world. They're not doing that now."

NGOs and other community groups were invited to register their People's Space events. Business and government representatives can hold events and participate in panels "by invitation only", said Ashe.

"We wanted a space separate from the government-driven process that was cost-effective so community-based groupings come and talk, learn, share and strategise around climate change."

The flexible programme, which changes as new groups arrive and register their presentations or workshops, is updated, printed and announced each morning.

"We've got about 200 events happening in more than 20 venues over two weeks and people are here from throughout Africa, Latin America, India - around the globe," said Ashe. "All of the activities, debates and workshops are civil society-driven around climate change and its impact on communities, people and the environment."

Workers unions, rural women farmers, waste-pickers, Greenpeace Africa, the World Wildlife Fund South Africa, labour alliances and environmental monitoring groups are a handful of formal and informal organisations represented.

Several curious United Nations-accredited COP17 observers were spotted on campus yesterday observing the alternative proceedings.

They wandered past a sea of posters plastered on every available wall space at the three campus venues.

There are those referring to COP as Conference of Polluters. A flyer invites anyone interested to Shepstone 12 to hear about "Use of Renewable Energy for a Better Future in India." Another informs us that in Shepstone 1, there is "An Inter-Generational Dialogue on Protecting the Earth" and later, in the same venue, an "Ecosocialism Conference".

In another Shepstone venue we can go and learn about "Natural Farming and Yogic Agriculture" where the speaker, Piero Senatore Musini from Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University in Italy, will speak, among other things, on uplifting social and economic conditions of rural people using organic methods and yoga vibrations, and present practical examples of yogic agriculture from India.

There is a Climate Justice Film Festival and an 'alternative media room'. There are TV crews, mainstream and alternative. There is a radio interviewer from KPFA, an alternative US radio station. There are about 150 student volunteers from UKZN, the Durban University of Technology and the University of South Africa.

"The students stepped up to the plate for a very small stipend and the prospect of work experience and have been totally amazing, doing every thing from data capture to registration of delegates," said Ashe.

Ahead of the Global Day of Action, around 30,000 participants were expected. But yesterday, Ashe said a more realistic figure was 10,000. "The economy has been a huge hurdle," he said.

Participants including civil society, organised labour, faith-based organisations, artists and musicians are set to march to the International Convention Centre to hand over memorandums to COP17 representatives before continuing to a venue near the Durban beachfront for a free concert "with a climate change message", said Ashe.

Then it will be back to the campus for another week of back-to-back C17 workshops and events. COP17 ends on 9 December.

* Visit the official C17 Civil Society Committee for COP17 website here.

Related link
SOUTH AFRICA: COP17 - New climate research


Comment:

I noticed the Brahma Kumaris were mentioned in this article. The Brahma Kumaris is nothing but a doomsday cult. My article about them is here.

I would be interested to hear Piero Senatore Musini's thoughts on the messages from beyond the grave that the Brahma's Kumaris dead founder sends to his followers in India. Does he believe that, or is he unaware?

Peter Daley