Climate Change: A systemic

violation of the Rights of Nature

Rights of Nature Violations
• Right to life and to exist
• Right to be respected
• Right to regenerate its biocapacity and continue its vital cycles
and processes free from human disturbance
• Right to maintain its identity and integrity as differentiated
beings, self-regulated and interrelated
• Right to water as a source of life
• Right to clean air
• Right to integral health
• Right to be free from contamination
• Right not to be genetically altered and modified in its legal
structure to a full and prompt restoration
Who is quilty?
• Corporations
• Governments
• United Nations
• Capitalist System
 400 ppm
CO2:
2012

1850:
280 ppm
 Key Indicators

• Increased ocean levels

• Ocean acidification
• Loss of biodiversity
• Involvement of the water cycle
• Land desertification
• Forest fires
• Increase of extreme events
Typhon Haiyan/Yolanda
Philippines
(8/XI/2013)

Dead 6,155
Injured 28,626
Desaparecidos 1,785
Missing 16,078,181
Displaced 4,095,280
Africa: Oil & the Destruction Nature

• Ghana
• S/Leone
• Togo
• Tanzania
• Kenya
• Namibia
• Cote D’Ivoire
• Senegal
• Uganda
• All along the
Rift Valley,
East Africa
• All over
Niger Delta, Nigeria

8
 2012 Floods
• Niger: 530,000 displaced b/w July &
Sept
• Nigeria: 6 million displaced. Over
300 killed
• Thousands displaced in Mali, Kenya,
Uganda, Chad, SA, Mozambique,
Somalia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon,
Ethiopia, Sudan, Mauritania and
others
 2012 Floods
• Niger: 530,000 displaced
between July & Sept
• Nigeria: 6 million displaced. Over
300 killed
• Thousands displaced in Mali, Kenya,
Uganda, Chad, SA, Mozambique,
Somalia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon,
Ethiopia, Sudan, Mauritania and
others
Water Stress
More Conflicts?
Increasing Systemic Violation
This occurs with an increase in the average
temperature of 0,85º C between 1880 -2012
What will happen if the temperature increases more
than 2 ° C?
"A third of the population of animals and more than
half of the plants of the earth could disappear.“
Study on the impact and influence of climatic changes on over
50,000 common species of plants and animals.
 Threats of
geoengineering

Silvia Ribeiro
Action Group on Erosion,
Technology and Concentration
ETC Group
Geoengineering

- Intentional large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s ecosystem,

by artificially altering the oceans, soils and atmosphere, aiming to
counter the effects of climate change.
- A technical patch for climate chaos

- A political strategy to not reduce emissions

 Geoengineering never goes to the causes,
nor mitigation and adaptation. It focuses on:

- Remove gases CARbon capture

- Block or reflect Solar radiation management

sunlight

- Modify weather Changing patterns of local

conditions rainfall
Download map at www.etcgroup.org
Climate War
• Source: weather manipulation as a weapon of war
• Experiments in Vietnam – known now from
declassified documents
• Strategic US Army Document: “Weather as a
Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025”
• With the same and new techniques, they call "war
on climate change"
1. Remove Gases Capture gases

Ocean fertilization
 Impacts of Ocean
Fertilization
• Disruption of the marine food network
• Worsening ocean acidification
• Stimulation of toxic algae blooms
• Production of toxic gases such as dimethyl sulfate
(DMS)
• Not absorbing carbon permanently, but has
serious impacts
• Developed for commercial exploitation
• Sources: “Scientific Synthesis of the Impacts of Ocean Fertilization on Marine Biodiversity,”
Convention on Biological Diversity, Technical Paper Series, Nr 45, 2009.
http://www.cbd.int/doc/publications/cbd-ts-45-en.pdf
2. Solar Radiation Management ~
Blocking or Reflecting Sunlight

Putting reflective particles into the stratosphere

through ARTIFICIAL VOLCANOES
 Volcanic Cloud:
Sulfates in the Stratosphere
• Disruption of monsoon winds in Asia and in Africa
affects food and water sources for 2 billion people
• Destroys the ozone layer
• Is irreversible (sudden rise in temperature if
stopped)
• Worsens ocean acidification
• Reduces use of solar energy
• Potential military use
• Creates dependency, captive market for profit.
• Sources : Alan Robock , James Fleming
 All forms of solar radiation
management have impacts
• Various scientific studies from 2013 and 2014 indicate
that all forms of alteration of albedo and solar
radiation produce imbalance in the rain and wind
patterns, negatively affecting 1.4 to 3 billion
people (depending on the technique and the region
concerned)
Source: GeoMIP 2014
1. Remove Gases Capture of GASES
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
Carbon Capture and Storage
(CCS)
• CCS – carbon capture and storage, comes from
the oil industry: gas injection to recover deep
reserves.
• Legitimized by IPCC in AR5, along with nuclear
energy and BECCS (bioengineering with CCS)
• Support the concept zero or negative net
emissions: still an issue because gases are
aborbed.
• Promoted by Shell Oil as the “solution” to climate
change (and continue to exploit oil.)
Some Impacts of CCS
• Leaks: storage, transportation, etc, returns to the
atmosphere
• Not all land is suitable
• “Land grabbing" underground. Already there are
maps of North America and Europe.
• At Sea: high risk of acidification, toxic to marine
life leaks
• Toxic to humans and nature, CO2, and
potentially arsenic leaks and other deep aquifers
• Earthquakes potential destabilization
Some impacts of CCS
• Increases and subsidizes higher extraction and
use of fossil fuels.
• High costs; attempts to legitimize CCS as a
suitable clean development mechanism (CDM) for
carbon trading (and other direct subsidies from
public funds) for oil and coal and as fighting climate
change.
• EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery), CCS accesses
deeper reserves and increases use of combustible
fossils
Problems of geoengineering
• More unbalanced climate: a global interconnected
ecosystem that sustains all life on the planet but is
not well understood
• Mega-scale: assault on nature and the global
commons
• Transboundary
• No “experimental” stage
• Is irreversible
• Seriously affects the alternatives and solutions to
the climate crisis: livelihoods of farmers, indigenous
people, fishermen, etc.
 Problems (continued)
• Maintains the same system, the same model of
production without addressing causes
• Excuse for not reducing: Can handle the chaos;
does not need to change anything.
• Management of technology by those who created
the problem– Now who are we to believe?
• Climate Wars: Who manages the thermostat?
• Potential hostile use: war and against peoples
• Those affected will not know who or what caused
the situation
Measures against geoengineering
United Nations
• 2008: Moratorium on ocean fertilization in the
Convention on Biological Diversity

• 2010: Moratorium on geoengineering in the

Convention on Biological Diversity

• 2012: Rio + 20 reaffirms the moratorium on

ocean fertilization
 Text of the moratorium in CBD
• Ensure, in line and consistent with decision IX/16 C, on ocean
fertilization and biodiversity and climate change, in the absence of
science based, global, transparent and effective control and
regulatory mechanisms for geo-engineering, and in accordance
with the precautionary approach and Article 14 of the Convention,
that no climate-related geo-engineering activities* that may affect
biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis
on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of
the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and
associated social, economic and cultural impacts, with the
exception of small scale scientific research studies that would be
conducted in a controlled setting in accordance with Article 3 of
the Convention, and only if they are justified by the need to gather
specific scientific data and are subject to a thorough prior
assessment of the potential impacts on the environment;
• Convention on Biological Diversity, COP 10, Decisión X/33, Climate-related Geoengineering
and Biodiversity: http://www.cbd.int/climate/geoengineering/
Definition of geo-engineering in the CBD
moratorium

** footnote to decision X/33 para 8 (w): Without prejudice to future

deliberations on the definition of geo-engineering activities,
understanding that any technologies that deliberately reduce solar
insolation or increase carbon sequestration from the atmosphere on
a large scale that may affect biodiversity (excluding carbon capture
and storage from fossil fuels when it captures carbon dioxide before
it is released into the atmosphere) should be considered as forms of
geo-engineering which are relevant to the Convention on Biological
Diversity until a more precise definition can be developed. It is noted
that solar insolation is defined as a measure of solar radiation
energy received on a given surface area in a given hour and that
carbon sequestration is defined as the process of increasing the
carbon content of a reservoir/pool other than the atmosphere.
 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
IPCC
• IPCC Expert Workshop on geoengineering, Process
AR5: Junio 20-22, 2011, Lima
• Letter from 160 organizations, 25 networks of the
South, at the IPCC: Geoengineering is NOT an
option (2011)
• Scenarios of the IPCC in AR5: all CCS, nuclear
energy and BECCS scenarios mentioned, assume
that the only solution would be to not exceed 2
degrees of temperature rise
• UNFCCC: Grave and high risk in legitimizing CCS,
BECCS, increasing exploitation of fossil fuels and
opening the way to geoengineering.
Geoengineering
• Violates the rights of Nature
• Violates the global commons: air, see, land,
space
• Violates the rights of indigenous communities and
campesinas
• Geoengineering and including geoengineering
experiments on real world (eg Treaty Nuclear Test
Ban) should be banned.
More information and discussion
• Global campaign “Hands Off Mother
Earth” to stop geoengineering, supported
by social organizations,
environmentalists, indigenous, peasant ...

• www.HandsOffMotherEarth.org
• www.NoManipulenlaMadreTierra.org

• www.etcgroup.org
Geopiracy
The Case Against
Geoengineering
Grupo ETC

Download free in
Castilian and English:

www.etcgroup.org

grupoetc@etcgroup.org
 2020 emissions (Gt CO2e)
Scenarios Gt CO2e Peaking Peak rate of
year decline
1.5 ºC 38 2104 -7.1%

2.0 ºC 44 2014 -3.4%

Business as 58 ? ?
Usual
UNFCCC 57 ? ?
negotiation
 Country Historial Emissions Percentage
MT CO2
1850 - 2007

1 United States 339.174,00 29%

2 China 105.915,00 9%
3 Russia 94.679,00 8%
4 Germany 81.194,00 7%
5 United Kingdom 68.763,00 6%
6 Japan 45.629,00 4%
7 France 32.667,00 3%
8 India 28.824,00 2%
9 Canada 25.716,00 2%
10 Ukraine 25.431,00 2%
World Resource Institute
 Total GHG Total GHG
Emissions Energy Including
Including GDP-USD Use Per LUCF Per
Country LUCF Population Per Capita Capita Capita

China 10.082 1.337.705.000 2.869 1.881 7,76

United
States 6.775 309.326.225 42.001 7.162 22,20
European
Union (27) 4.823 502.289.906 28.700 3.416 9,79
Germany 927 81.776.930 36.185 4.033 11,33
Japan 1.298 127.450.459 36.473 3.916 10,19

India 2.304 1.205.624.648 1.034 600 1,93

Philippines 131 93.444.322 1.403 434 1,41
CAIT – World Resource Institute, data 2010
Carbon Disclosure Project
50 Corporations
2.544.179.589 tCO2e
European Union(27)
4.823.000.000 tCO2e
52%
90 Corporations are responsible for 63 %
the global emissions since 1854

Richard Heede, Climate Accountability Institute

Two thirds of all fossil
proven reserves
should not be burned
if you want to limit
the temperature
increase to 2ºC
International Energy
Agency.
The Capitalist System in Action
Planets
Needed
We need a new system of harmony
between humans and mother earth
to replace the capitalist system
of infinite growth for
the accumulation of capital.