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on behalf of:
Carbon Trade Watch, Europe
Delhi Forum, India
FASE-ES, Brazil
Friends of the Earth, Costa Rica
Global Justice Ecology Project, US
Indigenous Environmental Network
National Forum of Forest Peoples and Forest Workers, India
Patrick Bond, Professor, School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
SinksWatch, UK
World Rainforest Movement

Kofi Annan
Secretary General
United Nations
United Nations, S-378
New York, NY 10017
USA
Fax +1 212 963 7055
15 February 2005

Dear Kofi Annan:

We, organizations and individuals most of whom were recently gathered at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, wish to convey to you two convictions: first, that another world is possible; second, that it will not be possible if people do not have a climate they can live in.

In the light of United Nations concerns about security, we had expected that the international climate negotiations resulting from the Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992 would have effectively addressed the threats to life, livelihoods and peace posed both by climate change and the continuing extraction of fossil fuels that causes it. We had expected the negotiations to tackle the climate crisis at its root: the transfer of oil, coal and gas from underground to the surface.

But this expectation has been disappointed. Instead of mandating steep reductions in the extraction and burning of coal, oil and gas, and reducing the capital diverted to oil exploration, the United Nations, under the influence of the United States, has spent a disproportionate amount of time and resources on developing a complicated global climate market. This market is, tellingly, also being promoted by the World Bank, a major financier and supporter of new fossil fuel developments. Through this market, industrialized countries and their corporations are acquiring valuable formal rights over the earth’s capacity to recycle fossil fuel emissions while also being encouraged to use land and other resources in the South to “mitigate” continued Northern greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose and legitimacy of this carbon market is being questioned by many who see it as biased in favour of the short-term interests of industrialized countries and their corporations.

The UN has failed to move toward, or even encourage debate about, sensible and equitable alternative policies of regulation, taxation, termination of subsidies for fossil fuel extraction and use, and support for sustainable local energy. At the same time, a smokescreen of specialized “carbon market” jargon has prevented the public from understanding or exercising control over climate policy.

Seeking a more fruitful approach, we wish to announce to the public that we will be revitalizing our efforts to build, strengthen and join together with social movements to do what the UN has so far failed to do. Working in alliance with like-minded communities and organizations worldwide, we will continue to press governments to limit fossil fuel extraction and use while supporting grassroots alliances struggling against fossil fuel exploration, extraction and use and against unjust “climate mitigation” projects. We wish to emphasize that other communities and civil society organizations, as well as governments worldwide, are welcome to join our movements at any time.

Sincerely,

Heidi Bachram, Carbon Trade Watch, UK
Javier Baltodano, Friends of the Earth, Costa Rica
Patrick Bond, Professor, School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Marcelo Calazans, FASE-ES, Brazil
Ricardo Carrere, World Rainforest Movement
Soumitra Ghosh, National Forum of Forest Peoples and Forest Workers, India
Tamra Gilbertson, Carbon Trade Watch, Spain
Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network
Jutta Kill, SinksWatch, UK
Souparna Lahiri, Delhi Forum, India
Larry Lohmann, The Corner House, UK
Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project, US
Isaac Rojas, Friends of the Earth, Costa Rica

cc: Joke Waller-Hunter, Executive Secretary, UNFCCC
International Herald Tribune
Financial Times