The Durban Groups Press Release

MONTREAL, November 30th, 2005 –The Durban Group for climate justice, a coalition of activists and experts from across the globe* who focus on the impacts that climate change and carbon trading are having on traditional, local and indigenous communities, are holding a press conference to reveal the enormous price local communities and the poorest are paying for carbon trading and climate change on December 1, 2005, at the Palais de Congres in Montreal, room Riviere Bay du Nord from 11:30 a.m. until noon.

“People in India are being thrown off their land to make way for massive tree plantations. Individual activists, and even groups of villages who resist are threatened, arrested, forcibly thrown off lands they have inhabited for generations, labeled as terrorists or shot dead: adults, women and children alike. We cannot ignore these social injustices instigated by carbon trading added to the social injustices of climate change if we are to succeed in reversing climate instability,” said Anastasia Pinto Director of the Indian NGO CORE, an Indigenous Peoples research organization from India.

“We reject the notion that carbon trading will halt the climate crisis. This crisis has been caused more than anything else by the excessive consumption of fossil fuels and by deforestation. Carbon trading gives the illusion of action, while countenancing continuing massive public investment in fossil fuels and deforestation,” said Jutta Kill coordinator of the EU forest campaign group Fern, based in Belgium.

“These negotiations are all about making money off the climate crisis, not about bringing about a change in the current system of heavy subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. The truth of the global environmental crisis is beyond economic perspectives,” said Arief Wicaksono of OilWatch International, headquartered in Ecuador.

“The World Bank is developing a monopoly position, profiting from carbon trading while investing heavily in fossil fuels. This is made worse by the G8 suggesting they should lead the way in a ‘new framework’ on climate change. If we really want to see clean development, the World Bank should stop its massive investment in fossil fuel companies like Halliburton and Exxon-Mobil, and get out of the carbon trading business,” said Daphne Wysham, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, and co-author of “Wrong Turn from Rio: The World Bank’s Road to Climate Catastrophe,” available at www.seen.org.

In addition to the press conference, The Climate Justice Convergence Center on 2074 Clark St. will be holding panels and showing films through Dec.8, 2005, on issues ranging from criticisms of the carbon trade, alternatives to the Clean Development Mechanism, climate justice and human rights, renewable energy solutions from Indigenous communities, lessons from pollution trading that Kyoto should have learned and many more. For more information on these events, visit: http://www.carbontradewatch.org/durban/programme.doc or download a copy of the publication, “Trouble in the Air: Global Warming and the Privatized Atmosphere” at http://www.tni.org/books/troubleintheair.htm.

For ongoing commentary from the Durban group, visit: climatejustice.blogspot.com

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THE DURBAN GROUP in Montreal

Tom Goldtooth
Indigenous Environmental Network
Tel: (218) 760-0442
Email: ien@igc.org
Issue: Environmental Justice

Clayton Thomas-Muller
Indigenous Environmental Network
Tel: (218) 760-1370
Email: ienoil@igc.org
Issue: Energy Policy and Development

Heidi Bachram
Carbon Trade Watch
Tel: (514) 843 5247
Email: heidi@carbontradewatch.org
Issue: Social Justice Aspect of Carbon Trading

Norman Phillip
Transnational Institute
Tel: (514) 843 5247
Issue: Carbon Trading and Effects on Communities

Arief Wicaksono
OilWatch International
Mobile: +6281511 202764
Email: ariefw@jatam.org
Issue: Petrol Activity in Southeast Asia

Fabian Pacheco
OilWatch International
Mobile: +6281511 202764
Email: ecologismoprofundo@hotmail.com
Issue: Energy and Oil; Expert on Costa Rica; Fluency in Spanish

Wally Menne
Timber Watch
Tel: (514) 843 5247
Email: plantnet@iafrica.com
Issue: Forestry Expert; Expert on South Africa

Jutta Kill
FERN
Tel: 44 7931 576538
Email: jutta@fern.org
Issue: Carbon Sinks and Trading Alternatives

Anna Filippini
World Rainforest Movement
Tel: 44 7931 576538
Email: anafili@wrm.org.uy
Issue: CDM projects; Expert on Uruguay; Fluency in Spanish

Larry Lohmann
Corner House
Tel: (514) 843 5247
Email: larrylohmann@gn.apc.org
Issue: Problems of the US Trading Mechanism

Daphne Wysham
Institute for Policy Studies
Mobile: (514) 578-5431 or (301) 573-2468
Email: dwysham@seen.org
Issue: World Bank, Public Subsidies for Fossil Fuels, Carbon Trading and Climate Expert

Nadia Martinez
Institute for Policy Studies
Tel: (514) 578-6370
Email: nmartinez@seen.org
Issue: World Bank, IDB and Energy Expert; Fluency in Spanish

Ryan Hodum
Institute for Policy Studies
Tel: (514) 578-5473
Email: ryan@seen.org
Issue: MEDIA CORRESPONDENT

Michael Dorsey
Dartmouth College
Mobile: (734) 945-6424
Email: Michael.K.Dorsey@dartmouth.edu
Issue: Environmental Equity; Fluency in Spanish

Graham Erion
York University
Mobile: (416) 795-8044
Email: graham@erion.ca
Issue: Carbon Trading and the Carbon Market

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