Climate Justice Press Release

Copenhagen, Denmark - Protesters from Asia, Latin America, Africa and other regions of the world staged a lively demonstration in front of the Bella Center today to demand reparations from highly-industrialised countries for their climate debt and for the World Bank and its sister institutions to stay out of climate finance.

The demonstrators demanded that industrialised countries including the United States, Great Britain and Japan give reparations for the climate debt they owe to the people of the South, developing countries and marginalized communities everywhere. The capitalist industrialisation of these countries were said to have driven the excessive carbon emissions of the past two centuries, and were undertaken at a very high cost now being shouldered by developing countries who are most vulnerable to climate-induced disasters.

According to Jubilee South, one of the rally organisers, a central message of the action is "Reparations for Climate Debt." "Climate Debt is that which is owed by northern countries (Annex 1 countries), multinational corporations, and International Financial Institutions to the peoples and countries of the South. This debt is owed by the North for using up more than their fair share of the earth's capacity to absorb GHGs and in the process depriving the peoples of the South of their share and creating this climate crisis whose worse effects are borne by people of the South," the group explained.

Climate debt campaigners emphasised that the call for reparations includes drastic and immediate cuts of GHG emission by Annex 1 countries as a way of giving back the atmospheric space denied to developing countries. It also includes financing the total cost of adaptation and mitigation requirements of developing countries.

Rally organisers further assert that institutions like the World Bank should not be given a role in Climate Finance. Demba Dembele of Senegal, a coordinator of Africa Jubilee South, says that "The World Bank has a track record in financing harmful projects in the South including projects that have exacerbated climate change. It is also a very undemocratic institution. It cannot be entrusted with managing and disbursing funds to address the causes of climate change."

Tim Jones, from the World Development Movement, said that, "By insisting the money goes through the World Bank and is given as loans, the UK and other Annex 1 countries are perpetuating rather than addressing the injustice of climate change. If we are to see any deal coming out of Copenhagen that has justice at its core then the UK must pay tens of billions of pounds in reparations for the climate damage we have and are causing."

Milo Tanchuling of the Freedom from Debt Coalition Philippines, added "Financing must not take the form of loans and other debt creating instruments that would be adding further injury and burdens on the peoples of the South."

Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth USA stated that, "Financial reparations must be through public funds, and should be obligatory and predictable."

The groups also demanded that financing must be free of conditionalities and impositions and should not be raised via taxation of or contributions taken from carbon trading, projects involving offsets and dubious CDM projects, and other activities that violate peoples' rights, are destructive of the environment, or are false solutions to the climate crisis.

Jubilee South International Coordinator Beverly Keene, from Argentina, stressed that "now is the time for the North to clean up and return to nature and the peoples of the South, the atmospheric space they have been contaminating through their model of development based on fossil-fuel consumption and the total disregard for the rights of peoples and of mother earth. Reparations are needed now - not aid or a new round of illegitimate debt - in order to restore our planet and enable equitable development, or buen vivir, for everyone."

Today's action is part of a global campaign to demand reparations and restitution for the climate debt owed by the rich industrialised countries. Since the campaign was first initiated, more groups have also come to support the concept of climate debt and have to come to actively participate in demonstrations calling for reparations.

The demonstration was organized by Jubilee South, Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) Philippines, Koalisi Anti Utang (KAU) Indonesia, Grassroots Africa - Ghana, Thai Climate Justice Network, Brazilian Network on IFIs, PAPDA Haiti, Forum for African ALternatives Senegal, Jubilee Zambia, Equity Bangladesh, VOICE Bangladesh, Indian Social Action Forum, Economic Justice Network South Africa, LDC Watch, South Asian Alliance for Poverty Eradication, Rural Reconstruction Nepal, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, Climate Exchange Philippines, Friend of the Earth International, Oil Watch International, Third World Network, Hemispheric Social Alliance, Indigenous Envrionmental Network, NGO Forum on ADB, CRBM Italy, Eurodad, Climate Justice Now!, Institute of Policy Studies (Sustainable Energy and Economy Network), Global Exchange, International Forum on Globalization, Oil Change International, Canadians for Action on Climate Change, Focus on the Global South, Jubilee Debt Campaign UK, World Development Movement, Transnational Institute, Rainforest Action Network, Global Justice Ecology Project, Ecologistas en Accion - Spain, World Rainforest Movement, Action Aid, ETC Group, KAIROS (Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives), Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha (BJVJ) - India and South Asiand Dialogue on Ecological Democracy (SADED), Coordinator of Andean Indigenous Organizations and Dialogue 2000 Argentina