Voice of Civil Society Loud and Clear in Cochabamba

by Daniela Estrada - Tierramerica

The success of the climate change conference taking place in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba will depend on how unified civil society ultimately is in its efforts to influence the United Nations Climate summit in Mexico, say Latin American Activists.
The bulk of the debate in People's Conference will be led by civil society, which tends to oppose the market-based mechanisms proposed by most of the governments to fight climate change, and this is fuelling doubts about just how much impact the Bolivian forum will have on the official climate talks taking place within the United Nations.
Itelvina Massioli, of the Brazilian Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST-Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) and Via Compesina International, said in an interview with Tierramerica that the conference will not be a "trade fail" but rather "an important space for information, reflection, dialogue and coordination among peoples."
Mexico, which will host the COP 16 in December - an effort to reverse the failure of the Copenhagen meet, is represented in Cochabamba by delegates from at least seven environmental groups.
"Our general proposal is to say 'no' to the false solutions aganist climate change offered by nearly all governments, such as market mechanisms that do not have mitigating effects, "Miguel Valencia, an organiser of Klimaforum 2009, told Tierramerica.
"Cochabamba can be a democratic space for developing organisational capacity to build accord within civil society, " said Claudia Gomez, of the non-governmental Mexican Centre for Environmental Law.
Courtesy: pwccc.wordpress.com