It was the event of the day on Wednesday at COP15. Early in the morning, a group of delegates from countries in the South left the negotiating table to protest against the resistance of representatives of developed countries to the creation of a new fund to ensure the implementation of the coming agreement on the biodiversity.
This protest coalition, led by delegates from Brazil, argues that this fund should be contributed by rich countries to the tune of 100 billion dollars per year, or 1% of world GDP, by 2030. The reasoning is quite simple: it is unrealistic to demand that representatives of Latin American, African or Asian countries support the adoption of a global framework for the protection of biodiversity containing ambitious objectives if they are not guaranteed support substantial in honoring their commitments.
We see here reproduced the game that led to the adoption, then the financing of a mechanism intended to compensate for losses and damages, during the COP27. It took decades of pressure and negotiations to recognize the obvious. Just as the Global South today suffers the consequences of the monstrous emissions of greenhouse gases in the North, the Global North has been plundering the South for centuries, confiscating its natural resources, its means of subsistence and curbing its development. economic social. However, now that it is necessary to mop up the damage caused by the extractive orgy, we hesitate despite everything to take out the checkbook.
Respect for the sovereignty of States is a concept with very variable geometry, as we will have understood. There is never any hesitation in bringing states to their knees in order to obtain unconstrained access to what is most precious in their territory — from one trade and investment agreement to another, from a structural adjustment to another. When it comes to making onerous commitments, on the other hand, their autonomy is complete. This recalls the formula without appeal of Eduardo Galeano, who, already in 1971, famously introduced The open veins of Latin America “The international division of labor makes some countries devote themselves to winning, others to losing. It’s all understood. However, we are still there, this time to organize the rest of the world.
Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault on Wednesday questioned the relevance of creating such a fund, arguing that the process would be too long and too laborious. He also argued that allocating public funds to such an initiative was “counterproductive,” citing the importance of involving the private sector as well. Of course, and, moreover, no one says otherwise. The nuance is convenient, but according to the latest news, it is indeed the States that have the power to constrain industry and capital, insofar as they deign to do so.
As such, the Government of Canada rarely does well. Just last month at COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, had Canadian diplomacy not taken the trouble to drag its imposing oil court with it?
Other voices were raised yesterday at COP15 to denounce these contradictions. In a statement from the Indigenous Climate Action coalition, titled Biodiversity Can Only Exist with “Land Back” and presented by Mohawk activist Ellen Gabriel, it highlighted the essential work of Indigenous land defenders across the Americas. Alongside Ellen Gabriel were Mapuche, Shuar, Kaingang, Wet’suwet’en and Anishinabé militants, all of whom had in common that they suffered, on their territory and in the name of profit, constant dispossession at the hands of the States which, these these days, claim to be committed to the preservation of ecosystems.
The numbers don’t lie: indigenous peoples are the allies of biodiversity. It is estimated that they protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity, while they represent only 5% of the population. However, the destruction of nature threatens their way of life, and instead of promoting their knowledge and drawing inspiration from it, we multiply the encroachments on their sovereignty and criminalize their acts of resistance.
Sleydo’Molly Wickham, spokesperson for Camp Gidimt’en, a dam erected to prevent the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on the traditional territory of the Wet’suwet’en nation in northern British Columbia, pointed out that the Territory defenders are brutalized daily by the RCMP. As we know, when it comes to resisting destructive economic development, the state does indeed pull out the stick, but rarely to turn it against industry.
Indigenous Climate Action activists yesterday drew a clear link between widespread disregard for indigenous self-determination and dead ends in biodiversity conservation. Indeed, the idea of conservation that governs meetings such as COP15 basically amounts to placing “30% of the territory” under a glass bell, as if to repent of the wrongs caused by the past. As if we were trying to restore nature to its original state as much as possible, but without taking into account the knowledge and modes of organization of peoples whose way of life is linked to the balance of ecosystems. Like a perverse reversal of the idea of terra nulliuswhich will lead nowhere, except to our loss.