From Durban to Rio+20: Challenging the corporate hijack of environmental policy

Newsletter 13 January 2012

14 January 2012

Tackling the corporate takeover of environmental policy will be one of the most critical challenges humanity has faced in history. Corporations have been behind the failure of the UN, most recently at the UNFCCC conference in Durban, to agree effective climate change policies. TNCs are now pushing to expand privatisation of nature as a solution to the environmental crisis at the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit in June 2012. How can we stop them?

Resistance and hope at a time of climate emergency
Nick Buxton
The Durban climate conference could act as a turning point. Are we willing to be truly honest about the failure of our political and economic system to tackle climate change and willing to exercise our power in shaping the world we want to live in?

Durban’s greenwash outcome
Praful Bidwai
The outcome of Durban is a disaster for global climate protection and the survival of millions.

Durban’s climate zombie tripped
Patrick Bond
Looking back now that the dust has settled, South Africa’s COP17 presidency appears disastrous. This was confirmed not only by Durban’s delayed, diplomatically-decrepit denouement, but by plummeting carbon markets in the days immediately following the conference’s ignoble end.

RIO+20 and the greenwashing of the global economy
Olivier Hoedeman
Challenging the corporate co-option of the UN should be a major priority in the run-up to the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit in June 2012.

Praful Bidwai at the Durban Climate conference
interview of Praful Bidwai with DemocracyNow!
TNI was in South Africa together with Praful for the launch of his latest book "The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future."

The Green Economy: the Wolf in Sheep’s clothing
Edgardo Lander
The fundamental flaw at the heart of UNEP's report "Towards a Green Economy" is its failure to analyse the extraordinarily unequal power relations that exist in today’s world, and the interests at play in the operation of this global economic system.

Hunger, Food and Agroecological Alternatives

The climate crisis and the food crisis are two sides of one coin; not only is the dominant system of industrial-chemical agriculture responsible for massive environmental degradation, deforestation and desertification, it is also heavily reliant on fossil fuels for the production of inputs, food processing and global distribution. At the same time as the Durban climate conference, TNI and ISS also co-hosted a colloquium in The Hague which brought together some of the world’s leading radical thinkers and activists on the issues of food justice and the future of farming, to discuss agroecological farming and the transition to a just food system. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter also joined the discussion.

What is agroecological farming? And why should it be upscaled?
An interview with Olivier de Schutter
The food crisis and the environmental crisis are two sides of one coin, so any solution to hunger and food security must also be sustainable and contribute to ecological integrity.

On agroecology, and why it is the solution to hunger and food security
An interview with Miguel Altieri
Today, a billion people live in hunger. Can we feed the world and achieve economic development while conserving ecosystems and improving the livelihoods of peasants and the rural poor?

What's wrong with the industrial food system and the challenges facing food justice movements
An interview with Eric Holt-Giménez
In the industrial or corporate food regime, hunger is a staple commodity. Agrarian and food justice movements have come a long way in building an alternative system, but there are still many challenges.