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NEED FOR A SOCIALIST FUTURE FOR GENUINE SUSTAINABILITY
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
18 June 2012

The Charter of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) and every General Declaration issued by the ILPS International Assembly define the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle of the ILPS and stress the objective of national and social liberation of peoples. The ILPS goes by the general terms and seeks the common ground for effecting the broadest international united front of all anti-imperialist and democratic forces. But the ultimate goal is system change, replacing capitalism with socialism.

The peoples of both the developed and underdeveloped countries are disgusted with capitalism and welcome socialism as the alternative to capitalism. They want a way out of the rapidly worsening crisis of imperialism, the undeniable depression of the global economy, the escalation of exploitation and oppression, the frequency of imperialist wars of aggression and consequences of capitalism that threaten the very existence of humankind and the entire planet, such as the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, biological and other weapons of mass destruction; the extreme degradation of the environment; and global warming.

The material conditions for socialism already exist in the industrial capitalist countries. But the proletariat and people urgently need to wage the anti-imperialist and class struggle in order to develop their strength for countering the growing danger of fascism and overthrowing the big bourgeoisie through a socialist revolution. In the more numerous semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries, it is more than ever valid to struggle for the completion of the new democratic revolution and proceed consequently to the stage of the socialist revolution.

Imperialist Use of the Term ‘Sustainable Development’

In the aftermath of World War II, socialist countries and people’s democracies encompassed one-third of humankind and put forward socialism as the alternative to capitalism. National liberation movements continued to surge forward in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The United Nations (UN) recognized the great wave of decolonization. The imperialist powers themselves admitted that they could no longer control the colonies in the old way and sought to avail of the methods of neocolonialism.

The socialist countries and the newly-independent countries that formed the Non-Aligned Movement called for industrial development and for a new international economic order that would no longer be controlled and manipulated by the imperialist powers at the expense of the underdeveloped countries. The UN proclaimed the decades of the 1960s and 1970s as “development decades .” The core demand for industrial development was unmistakable. Even the US made a big show of promoting certain newly-industrializing economies (such as South Korea, Taiwan and Brazil) under the aegis of monopoly capitalism to counter the example of industrialization being set by socialist countries and the demand of the anti-imperialist and socialist movement for industrialization.

But while pretending to support the development of underdeveloped countries, the US was forwarding concepts to undermine and defeat the popular clamor for industrial development as the leading factor in well-balanced economic development. Through the Club of Rome in 1972, the US harped on the ¨limits to growth¨ in the face of the fuel and food crisis during the 1970s, stirred up the fear of sudden and uncontrolled collapse of economies and dished out the concept of “sustainable development.”

The concept of “sustainable development” emphasized the limited natural resources of certain countries and the danger of degrading the environment. It obscured the extent and richness of the natural resource base of many underdeveloped countries, as well as the possibilities for the wise utilization of these resources and the development of economies in harmony with both the environment and the people’s welfare. It further obfuscated the fact that the US and other imperialist powers had plundered and degraded the environment for the purpose of profit-taking to the detriment of the people.

When imperialist powers headed by the US adopted the neoliberal policy of “free market” globalization at the beginning of the 1980s in reaction to the phenomena of stagflation and state-supported development in socialist countries and in certain developing countries, they retained the notion of “sustainable development” for propagation, mainly through imperialist-funded NGOs, academics and the mass media in order to undercut and discourage the people’s demand for industrial development in underdeveloped countries. The coupling of neoliberalism and the fear of unsustainable development coincided with the rapid degeneration of socialist societies towards capitalism and the successful financial and economic manipulation of newly-independent countries through neocolonialism.

The imperialists and their political, business and intellectual camp followers attacked national industrialization for supposedly being dependent on the state and being destructive to the environment. Why aim for national industrialization and a well-balanced economy when multinational companies can provide manufactured goods from their home base and overseas enclaves while being able to exploit the natural resources of underdeveloped countries? The point of the imperialists is to globalize the economy by denationalizing underdeveloped economies and allow trade and finance liberalization, privatization of state assets and deregulation at the expense of the entire nation, labor, women, children, society and the environment.

When the first Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development Conference) was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the imperialist campaign against industrial development for underdeveloped countries had reached an advanced stage under the auspices of the Washington Consensus. It was practically unopposed because of the dominance of neocolonialism and neoliberalism over underdeveloped countries and the full restoration of capitalism in the revisionist-ruled countries from the years of 1989 to 1991, after decades of the revisionist subversion and betrayal of socialism.

The Earth Summit of 1992 used the definition of “sustainable development’ in the Brundtlant Report, as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” that “gives overriding priority to the essential needs of the world’s poor” and “takes into account the limitations imposed by the state of technology and social environment on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs¨.

The summit proceeded to issue the Declaration on the Environment and Development filled with glittering generalities and pious preachings on the need for the harmony of humanity and the environment, the sovereignty of the state in underdeveloped countries to use the environment and natural resources for its purposes and the precautionary principle of being prudent in the application of science and technology. But the slogan of sustainable development was drummed up merely to drown out the clamor for industrial development. Imperialist powers and multinational firms were depicted as knowing best how to develop the global economy and protect the environment.

Since the Earth Summit of 1992, the underdevelopment of the overwhelming majority of countries has become far deeper and far worse than ever before.. At the same time, the imperialist powers and their multinational firms have accelerated the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases towards the tipping point in global warming; the spread of nuclear, chemical and other kinds of pollutants; the plunder and depletion of the world’s mineral, forest, soil, marine and fresh water resources; the genetic manipulation of flora and fauna; the patenting of genetic processes; the massive loss of biodiversity and the degradation of the environment in general. In the process, they have done away with constitutional and legal limitations on foreign ownership and exploitation of natural resources in underdeveloped and impoverished countries.

Even as the neoliberal economic policy of accelerated superprofit-taking and capital accumulation has brought about the ongoing economic and financial supercrisis, the US and other imperialist powers are more hell-bent than ever in carrying out their accursed policy of unbridled greed. They wave the green flag to herald the further accumulation of super-profits by escalating the plunder of natural resources in underdeveloped countries. They pretend to protect the environment in order to further exploit and control the world’s natural wealth, converting what remains into their ¨natural capital¨.

In the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio this year, they are launching an offensive, using the ruse of the “Green Economy”, in order to expand the sources of profit by further exploiting the environment in the underdeveloped countries. Their goal is to further plunder natural resources and commodify even essential organic processes in nature, putting a price tag on biomass, biodiversity and the functions of ecosystems—such as storing carbon, pollinating crops, filtering water and the like—in order to transform the “services” of nature into tradeable units in the financial market.

The document being prepared for issuance by the Rio+20 conference is titled,“The Future We Want.” Once more, the imperialist powers and the multinational firms are using the slogans of sustainable development and poverty eradication in order to expand their corporate interests and profit-making opportunities, to guarantee themselves against risks and to put up the legal framework for the financialization of nature. They claim that all previous failures to advance socio-economic development and environmental protection have been due to market failures and misallocation of capital and not due to the unequal relations between the imperialist states and the client-states and between the exploiting and exploited classes in the social structure of the underdeveloped countries.

Bankruptcy of Capitalism and Need for a Socialist Future

The imperialist powers and their camp followers still arrogantly assert that the history of humankind has attained final perfection in capitalism and liberal democracy and that there is no alternative to these. They find comfort in the notion that the current grave crisis of global capitalism is merely a period of consolidation in which the strong gobble up the weak; that it is a process of creative destruction, leading to the next peak of capitalist development. They are oblivious of the fact that we are still in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution and that imperialism is moribund capitalism.

The adoption of higher technology has raised the productivity of labor and has enhanced the social character of production. But under capitalism, especially with its neoliberal policy, the maximization of profit, the pressing down of wage levels and accumulation of private capital have accelerated at an extreme speed, bringing about the recurrence of the crisis of overproduction at a far worse rate than before. The attempt to stem or override the crisis of overproduction and the tendency of the profit rate to fall through all kinds of financial manipulation (expanding the money supply, increasing the debt of governments, corporations and households, inventing all sorts of financial derivatives and engineering one financial bubble after another) has led to the ongoing economic and financial disaster.

The monopoly bourgeoisie, especially the financial oligarchy, get bailouts and continue to enjoy tax cuts, overpriced contracts from the state, subsidies, guarantees and other kinds of privileges. Within the imperialist countries, the burden of crisis is passed on to the people through austerity measures, including higher taxes on consumers, lower wages, erosion of pension benefits, reduction of public sector employees and higher fees for lessened social services. These austerity measures further impoverish the people and make life even more miserable amidst widespread unemployment and soaring prices of basic commodities.

From the imperialist countries to the underdeveloped countries, the burden of crisis is passed on to the people, thus causing high rates of unemployment and further cheapening labor for the production of raw materials and semi-manufactures. The imperialist powers can take more exports at cheaper prices from the underdeveloped countries. They are also rushing in to plunder natural resources in an inter-imperialist contest to stock up on strategic materials. They wave the so-called green flag to promote their assault on the environment and the world’s land, forest, mineral, energy, marine, water and genetic resources.

It is remarkable that they are frenziedly opening up mines in a period of economic depression. It is obvious that they are stocking up on mineral ores. They are thus taking advantage of cheap labor and the eagerness of political puppets for some doses of foreign exchange. In connection with the ravaging of the environment, multinational companies have engaged in a simultaneous process of acquiring national treatment for themselves and denationalizing the economy of client-states.

The inter-imperialist struggle for a redivision of the world is intensifying. It is a contest for sources of oil and other strategic raw materials, markets, fields of investment and spheres of influence. So far, it has taken the appearance of amicable negotiations among the imperialist powers who, at worst, show disagreements on how to enforce their decisions on resource-rich countries that assert their national independence. The direction of the wars of aggression carried out by the US and NATO is against such countries as Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

But the crisis of the world capitalist system is worsening. In the past, grave crises like the current one have led to inter-imperialist wars and provided great opportunities for the proletariat and the people to carry out new democratic and socialist revolutions. At the moment, the crisis is comparable to the Great Depression in scale and severity and is already inciting the broad masses of the people to wage various forms of struggle along the anti-imperialist and democratic line towards a socialist future.

The utter bankruptcy of the world capitalist system is made conspicuous by the severe economic and financial crisis in all the imperialist countries and consequently the far more severe crisis in the underdeveloped countries. The whole world is afflicted by economic stagnation, high rates of unemployment, growing poverty, environmental degradation and underdevelopment of the overwhelming majority of countries.

These problems have run out of control because of the unbridled greed of the imperialist powers and the monopoly bourgeoisie. It is a great irony and tragedy that the people are exploited and impoverished more than ever before, when their relatively higher level of education and training and the higher level of technology mean higher productivity and ought to result in better social conditions. But this higher productivity leads to an economic and financial crisis that destroys productive forces through mass layoffs and closure of workplaces.

Worse than the economic and financial crisis is the rise of state terrorism aimed at suppressing the people’ s exercise of their democratic rights to protest the injustices done to them and to demand changes for the better. The imperialist powers are systematically whipping up chauvinism, racism, religious bigotry, fascism, war hysteria and other ultra-reactionary currents in order to mislead the people and obscure the roots of the crisis in the exploitative and oppressive nature of the capitalist system.

Worst of all, the imperialist powers are increasing their military budgets, stepping up war production and are ready to plunge into more wars of aggression. The US and the NATO have deployed their military forces far beyond their national borders. They openly boast of their objectives to expand their economic territory. They threaten to use, or actually use, brute force to impose their imperialist interests on other countries. Rival military blocs such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization have risen to counter the hegemonism and expansionism of the US and its Western allies.

The International League of Peoples’ Struggles and the broad masses of the people must intensify their anti-imperialist and democratic struggles, with the perspective of advancing in the direction of socialist revolution. The imperialist powers are hell-bent on escalating the exploitation and oppression of the people and bringing out the worst of monopoly capitalism. The reformists who wish to improve and preserve the capitalist and imperialist system cannot stop or redirect the plundering and aggressive course of imperialism. Neither can they mislead the people who are suffering from the crisis and who are responsive to calls for revolutionary struggle.

The adoption of higher technology has accelerated and aggravated the recurrence of the crisis of overproduction. It has facilitated financial transactions and the creation of fictitious capital. It has speeded up the propaganda of the imperialist powers and their puppets. But the handy gadgets of communication also speed up the spread of revolutionary propaganda and facilitates the mobilization of the people against the system. The revolutionary forces and people are confident that someday they can use high technology to serve social needs and not private profit-taking.

The higher level of science and technology is fully useful and beneficial to the people only under a socialist system. It can expand and improve the quality of production without resulting in a crisis of overproduction. It can protect and ensure the wise and planned utilization of natural resources, instead of the reckless plunder by capitalism. It offers ceaseless possibilities for centrally-planned, decentralized and creative economic, social, political, cultural, educational and scientific activities. It can enhance the harmonious relationship of humankind with the environment, with entire nations and local communities benefiting from it and protecting it. It can promote and realize social and environmental justice. Thus, it can facilitate and accelerate the spread of ideas and activities that bring about greater freedom, democracy, social justice, all-round development, a healthy environment and the revolutionary solidarity of all peoples. ###

 

African social activist Wahu Kaara, Coordinator of the Kenya Debt Relief Network, said that “For more than 20 years the much-abused slogan of Sustainable Development has been utilized by promoters of  capitalist interest but we continue to experience more privatization of resources, devastation of the environment and widespread poverty.  Development never came for 99% of the earth’s population, and it will never come under the regime of monopoly capitalism in the world.  The peoples of both the developed and underdeveloped countries have abhorred capitalism and are seeking now for ways out of this system.”

ILPS Chairperson, Jose Maria Sison, in a statement on, proposes that “the International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) and the broad masses of the people intensify their anti-imperialist and democratic struggles, with the perspective of advancing in the direction of socialist revolution.”

Sison further explained that the high level of science and technology today, which has accelerated and aggravated the recurrence of the global financial and economic crisis, can only be put to better use to serve people’s interest under the socialist system. He said under socialism, science and technology can expand and improve the quality of production without resulting in a crisis of overproduction. It offers ceaseless possibilities for centrally planned, decentralized and creative economic, social, political, cultural, educational and scientific activities.”

Clemente Bautista of the Philippines’ Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment said “people’s movements must unmask the UN’s sustainable development and green economy agenda as nothing but the relentless plunder of the environment by the US and other imperialist powers to the detriment of the people.  Only a government that is founded on the people’s struggles to bring down global capitalism and build a socialist future can people hope to realize their dreams for a better world.”

Reference: Clemente Bautista 83707547 Nicole Benedicto 80739442 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Kalikasan.pne@gmail.com

PRESS RELEASE

June 20, 2012

Activists from Asia, Africa and Latin America debunk ‘Green Economy’, bat for genuine sustainable development thru socialism

 People’s movements and organizations across the globe today meet the opening of the Rio+20 with its rejection of the ruse behind the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD)’s themes of Green Economy and its renewed take on the Sustainable Development framework. Hundreds of thousands of peoples commemorate June 20, dubbed as “Global Day of Action on Rio+20,” with simultaneous rallies, marches and protest actions in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Green Economy, as defined in the UN, is the pursuit of economic growth through public and private investments that would reduce carbon emissions, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Rich capitalist countries like the US and the European Union are using the green economy concept to cover their destructive and pollutive economic production and practices. Green Economy in the real sense is the commodification and financialization of natural resources so that capitalist countries and their corporations can continue to exploit people and plunder our environment for the sake of profit," explained Dominican Republic’s  Virtudez Alvarez, of  Solidaridad, a bi-continental network of  Latin American and Asian people’s organizations.

The International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS) and Solidaridad, a network of  Latin American and Asian people’s organizations are joining the rally at the City Center, with calls to expose the Green Economy as a desperate attempt of  capitalist countries to profit from the economic and ecological crisis of its own doing.   

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KALIKASAN PEOPLE’S NETWORK FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
26 Matulungin St. Central Dist., Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines, 1100
Tel./Fax; +63 (2) 924-8756; E-mail: kalikasan.pne@gmail.com
Website: www.kalikasan.net
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 20 2012

At the Global Day of Action on Rio+20
People and Planet over Profits, not Public-Private Plunder!

Hundreds of environmental activists marched today towards the United States Embassy to join calls for a Global Day of Action to coincide with the opening of the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development. The groups led by the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) and Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) challenged world leaders to reverse the prescribed natural resource and industry privatization and commercialization schemes packaged as the “greening” of key economic sectors, a business-as-usual approach that will benefit top polluter nations led by the US.

“At Rio+20, the world’s advanced capitalist nations are trying to save face after 20 years of global ecological destruction and socio-economic crisis under the banner of Sustainable Development. But the green economy paradigm peddled in the United Nations has promised nothing but public-private investments and other market-based mechanisms in reducing the ecological and carbon footprints of industries,” said Mr. Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE.

The Rio+20 conference is the follow-up to the 1992 Earth Summit also held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that promoted the concept of Sustainable Development. The Agenda 21 was the summit’s resultant action plan which was adopted by the 178 participating governments.

“The transition to a Green Economy, according to its architects, calls for financing from international financial institutions, speculators, conditional loans and other market-driven forces. It is clear from our two decades of experience under the corporatization of such sectors as energy, water and mining that public development standards are never met when project implementers are profit-oriented,” Bautista pointed out.

National policies passed and implemented under the auspices of Sustainable Development include the Mining Act of 1995, water privatization in 1997, and energy laws such as the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001, among others. These policies led to the massive corporatization of key public utilities, and the subsequent skyrocketing of prices and dismantling of state regulations.

“The latest aggressive push for “responsible mining” practices and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP’s) is bolstered by proposals of environmental accounting or resource pricing, essentially putting a price on nature’s ecosystem functions. The research, development and production of green products and technologies being left to the control of corporations as well,” Bautista said.

The Green Economy framework prioritizes the “greening” of 11 key sectors: agriculture, fisheries, water, forests, energy, manufacturing, waste, buildings, transporation, tourism and city development. Meanwhile, concerns such as food security, jobs creation and human rights are left out of the discussion.

“Concerns for genuine land reform, labor rights and welfare, accessible social services and human rights are watered down if not outright thrown out of the negotiations. In addition, the fact that the green economy framework is unable to meet greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets prescribed by science makes for a recipe of disaster. Abject poverty will be left unaddressed, increasing the vulnerabilities of the poor and dispossessed to extreme weather events and other climate change impacts,” said Bautista.

The groups reiterated the need to advance genuine pro-people and pro-environment solutions to the long-standing crisis posed by imperialist globalization policies.

“Green technologies and industries, and more importantly, basic people’s needs should be made universally accessible to the public, and the development of environment-friendly resource and industy management should be ensured by the state. For our part, the people must expose and oppose corporate greed disguising itself as a “Green Economy” and reject the profit motive of imperialist globalization,” ended Bautista.###

Reference:
Mr. Leon Dulce, campaign coordinator of Kalikasan PNE – 0917 562 6824
Mr. Clemente Bautista is at the Rio+20 Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Contact him through kalikasan.pne@gmail.com

NEWS RELEASE
21 June 2012

On Rio+20 Summit
‘Green jobs’ won’t ease worsening jobs crisis, climate change - labor NGO

As state representatives gather in the Rio+20 Summit in Brazil, a Manila-based NGO exposed the false promise of “green jobs” of supposedly easing global unemployment while promoting green practices in workplaces.

Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER) said that the green jobs initiative, which pushes for job creation along the lines of ecosystem protection/ rehabilitation and waste reduction, “cannot match the scale and rate at which corporations are exploiting the environment and cutting workforce worldwide.”

“Promoting green jobs and green practices in workplaces cannot compensate for the large-scale devastation of ecosystems, continuing mass layoffs, and declining quality of work around the globe precisely because of the ever growing corporate greed,” said EILER executive director Anna Leah Escresa.

Escresa said even the most optimistic projections of job creation under the green economy pales in comparison with the more than 200 million jobless people worldwide. In terms of climate response, she said green jobs can hardly cause a dent in carbon emissions by private corporations. Also, she said that governments convening in the Rio +20 Summit should not pin their hopes on green economy as recovery route from the continuing global economic crisis.

“The transition set for green economy proposed in Rio +20 includes marketization of environment and natural resources. That would lead to greater resource plunder and profiteering from ecological services. We should remember that the financial institutions expected to lead the transition to green economy are the same entities which led to the outburst of the global financial crisis in 2008 with unregulated profiteering from leverages and derivatives,” Escresa said.

“For our workers, the green jobs creation in green economy relies mostly on speculation that there will be real investments in clean and green industries in the immediate future. And if ever created, green jobs does not automatically mean decent work for workers with decent living wages and their rights respected,” she added.
 

Thus, green economy and green jobs are mere catchwords that provide a smokescreen for the more rabid hunt and extraction of resources, corporate creep in agriculture and environmental preservation, and retrenchment of supposedly redundant jobs in the name of efficiency,” Escresa pointed out.
 

No to Aquino's green jobs

Escresa also warned that in the Philippines, the green jobs initiative could be used by firms to take over the government’s environmental programs and profiteer from biodiversity areas under the guise of providing “green technologies” and environmental services.

“Companies can pretend to create green jobs by offering a host of green services, such as constructing sustainable irrigation networks, harnessing renewable energy and managing critical watersheds, possibly via public-private partnerships (PPP). But such ploy would reduce the government’s role in environmental preservation while giving corporations new areas for profiteering,” Escresa said.

EILER criticized the Aquino government for peddling the green jobs hoax to Filipino workers as it held last year the country’s first Green Jobs Conference, wherein the Green Call to Action was signed by some labor federations.

“The Aquino administration should stop this green gimmickry and instead arrest the continuing onslaught of corporations on the environment and labor, especially in light of the worsening global crisis,” Escresa concluded.

Anna Leah Escresa, EILER executive director, 0908-864-2151

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Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER)
www.eiler.ph
15 Anonas St., Unit D-24 Cellar Mansions
Barangay Quirino 3-A, Project 3, Quezon City,
Philippines 1102
Tel. No. (+632) 4339287 (telefax);
SEC. Reg. No. A200100111

IBON on SDGs: We need an alternative development vision after 2015
 

on June 17, 2012

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 15, 2012 — Rights for Sustainability (R4S) delegate and IBON International program manager Paul Quintos at a Rio+20 side event put forward the case for a transformative development agenda to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Quintos appeared alongside speakers from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Global Policy Forum Europe, and the United Nations Non-Government Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) at the event, which was organized by IBON International and the UN-NGLS.

The event focused on the potential of “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs), an idea first tabled by Colombia and being debated at Rio+20. It is believed that SDGs could be the framework to replace MDGs when they expire in 2015.

While acknowledging the success of MDGs in raising public awareness and galvanizing public commitment to address major socio-economic problems, Quintos said governments and the UN Development Group must first ask why many countries are off track in the meeting of targets.

Quintos said: “Development goals are not the same as development strategies,” adding that the MDG approach risks reducing the development process to “meeting specific, absolute, and measurable aspects of poverty or underdevelopment — such as hunger, or infant mortality — without tackling the root causes of poverty and underdevelopment that give rise to hunger and preventable deaths in the first place.”

Quintos explained that without addressing the world’s uneven power relations and “wrongheaded policy choices at the root of poverty and underdevelopment,” any seemingly successes with the meeting of targets would quickly erode.

He argued that the processes used to develop a post-2015 development agenda should be grounded at the national level — and not remain at the global level — and should ensure the meaningful participation of all stakeholders and development actors.

“SDGs should be about coming out with alternative visions of development, of well-being, and of course the strategies necessary to attain this vision,” he said.

“The post-2015 development agenda should not be merely an extension of the unfinished agenda of MDGs but should be truly transformative, equitable, just, grounded in human rights and guided by a new consciousness that respects the integrity of nature.” #Rights for Sustainability Delegation at Rio+20 Summit

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Press Release
20 June 2012
 

Nature and our future are not for sale
Green groups join Global Day of Action for Rio+20

Manila – Green groups led by Kalikasan Partylist today marked the first day of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Brazil with a protest in front of the US Embassy.

The Rio+20 is the second conference of its scale since the first Rio Earth Summit two decades ago in 1992. This rally for the Global Day of Action, which gathered advocates from different people's organizations, was capped by a program in front of the US Embassy along Roxas Boulevard, Manila.

Meanwhile, participating in the Rio+20 civil society actions in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are Kalikasan Partylist President Clemente Bautista, Jr., Secretary-General Frances Quimpo and other Filipino advocates. There, Bautista and Quimpo helped convene a newly-formed broad working group on mining and alternatives to the current models of economic development.

Sending a message from the ongoing actions at Rio de Janeiro, Kalikasan Partylist Secretary-General Frances Quimpo expressed opposition to the “Green Economy” being proposed at the Rio+20 negotiations.

The governments of the world's largest economies and lobbyists representing transnational interests are pushing for the “Green Economy,” which proposes market reforms across 11 economic sectors: agriculture, fisheries, water, forests, energy, manufacturing, waste, infrastructures, transportation, tourism and cities.

She warned of the wide-reaching implications and impacts of such reforms.

“The “Green Economy” is being used as a ruse to expand markets and profiteering by large corporate interests. In the guise of using natural capital as a driver for growth, it will put a price on ecological services, resources and knowledge—paving the road for the financialization of nature. It will further perpetuate the plunder of the world's remaining natural wealth and the privatization of critical services, technologies and products through Public-Private Partnerships and similar market-driven mechanisms,” Quimpo explained.

The transition to a Green Economy requires massive amounts of capital, estimated to reach around 2 percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product. Most of this will come from funds to be managed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Quimpo said.

“It is green-washing on a global scale,” Quimpo asserted, “and is not the solution to any of the interconnected problems that the world faces: the crisis of overproduction, the massive emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the unprecedented destruction of our planet.”

“What we need is not the “Green Economy” but genuine development for the people: one which protects the country's rich natural resources, develops the domestic economy to be self-sufficient, and which upholds social, economic and environmental justice,” Quimpo said.

“This is development which puts no price on the environment and people's lives,” she ended. ###

Kalikasan Partylist
For more information, contact Lisa Ito-Tapang, Public Information Officer at 0917.8179955.
Address: # 26 Matulungin Street, Barangay Central, Diliman, Quezon City 1100
Website: www.kalikasanpartylist.org
Email: kalikasanpartylist1@gmail.com
Facebook: Kalikasan Partylist
Twitter: @KalikasanParty
Telephone: +632.434.3173

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Press Release
20 Hunyo 2012

Panawagan ng mga maka-kalikasang grupo sa unang araw ng Rio+20 sa Brazil:
Huwag presyuhan ang ating kalikasan!

Hindi dapat pinepresyuhan ang kalikasan upang ibenta sa iilan: ito ang mensahe ng mga miyembro ng Kalikasan Partylist na naglunsad kaninang umaga ng kilos-protesta sa harap ng embahada ng US sa Manila.

Ito ay bilang pakikiisa sa Global Day of Action sa pagbubukas ng ikalawang United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (o Rio+20) sa Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ang Rio+20, isang kapulungan na naglalayong itakda ang landas ng pandaigdigang ekonomiya, ay magaganap mula Hunyo 20-21, 2012. Ito ang unang malaking pagtitipon ng mga gobyerno ng iba't ibang bansa pagkatapos ng unang Rio Earth Summit noong 1992, dalawang dekada na ang nakalipas.

Nagamartsa ang mga miyembro ng maka-kalikasang partido hanggang sa embahada ng US at doon naglunsad ng programa kasama ng iba’t ibang organisasyon. Nasa Rio de Janeiro ang ilan sa kanilang mga lider upang dalhin ang panawagan ng mamamayang Pilipino sa loob at at labas ng kumperensiya. Kabilang rito ang Presidente ng Kalikasan Partylist Clemente Bautista, Jr. at Secretary-General Frances Quimpo.

Tinutulan ng Kalikasan Partylist ang mungkahing “Green Economy” na itinutulak ng mga malalaking bansa at mga korporasyon sa Rio+20. Upang makamit diumano ang balanse ng pagunlad at ng kalikasan, kailangang lapatan ng “market-based” at diumanong maka-kalikasang teknolohiya, konsepto at produkto ang 11 susing sektor ng ekonomiya: agrikultura, pangisdaan, tubig, gubat, enerhiya, manupaktura, basura, imprastraktura, transportasyon, turismo at mga syudad.

Tinataya ng mga nagsusulong nito na kailangang pinansyahan ang pagtungo ng mundo sa Green Economy sa halagang aabot ng 2 porsyento ng pandaigdigang GDP. Pero sa halip na ipatiyak sa mga estado ito, ang tinutulak na mga mekanismong pampinansya ay sa pamumuhunan ng mga korporasyon na nakabatay sa dikta ng pamilihan, ani Quimpo.

Kasama sa Green Economy ang mungkahing lagyan ng presyo ang mga rekurso at serbisyo ng kalikasan (katulad ng hangin, tubig, hayop at halaman) at mga maka-kalikasang kaalaman at praktika ng mga tao (katulad ng katutubong pagsasaka) upang madaling ilako ang mga ito sa pamilihan. Nangangahulugan ito ng higit pang pribatisasyon ng mga maka-kalikasang teknolohiya, serbisyo o produkto sa pamamagitan ng mga Public-Private Partnership, dagdag niya.

Magbubunsod ang Green Economy ng mga patakarang kontra-kalikasan at kontra-mamamayan na magbubukas ng mga bagong pwedeng pagkakitaan ng mga malalaking korporasyon, ani Quimpo. “Hindi ito ang solusyon sa mga magkakaugnay na problema na hinaharap ngayon ng sangkatauhan: ang krisis ng labis na produksyon, malakihang pagbuga ng greenhouse gas ng mga korporasyon at industriyalisadong bansa na nagiging sanhi ng pagbabago ng klima ng mundo, at pagkasira n gating kapaligiran,” ani Quimpo.

“Hindi “Green Economy” ang ating kailangan kung hindi totoong pag-unlad para sa mamamayan.
Dapat patatagin natin ang isang pambansang ekonomiya, ipagtanggol ang ating likas na yaman mula sa higit pang pagkasira at pandarambong, at isulong ang tunay na pag-unlad para sa mamamayan at kalikasan.Hindi dapat pinepresyuhan ang kalikasan upang ibenta sa iilan,” sabi ni Quimpo.