Global Warming 8 (GW8) was hosted by the unique coalition of the UK's leading aid and environment agencies, the Working Group on Climate Change and Development formed to fight the unprecedented threat climate change poses to human development. It offered a 'reality check' to the G8 heads of state as people from eight developing nations outline the devastating impact to be expected if climate change goes unchecked.
The event was held on Tuesday 5 July 2005, at the Dynamic Earth Centre, Holyrood Road, Edinburgh.
The GW8 - from Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, India, Columbia, Honduras and the Philippines are united in their belief that efforts to 'make poverty history' will ultimately fail unless we also tackle climate change. The GW8 supported the findings of a new report Africa - Up in Smoke? from the WGCD, which highlights the devastating effect to be expected in Africa if climate change goes unchecked.
Audio is divided into different speakers - complete with biogs:
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Tatiana Roa Avendaño is General Director of CENSAT AGUA VIVA - Friends of the Earth Colombia. An oil engineer, she has promoted a series of campaigns against oil exploitation and mining in indigenous lands and environmentally significant areas in Colombia. She also participates in Colombian social movements that seek to reach a political agreement for the social and political struggle that afflicts their country.
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The Very Reverend Donald Mtetemela, is the most senior church leader in Tanzania. He also is the presiding Bishop of the Diocese of Ruaha, which has an extensive programme of rural development and poverty alleviation. The Very Reverend Donald Mtetemela works very closely with communities who are suffering the effects of climate change and the Diocese of Ruaha is helping these communities adapt to its effects.
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Samrat Sengupta, 33 is senior policy officer for climate change and energy, WWF India. He has over 9 years experience in the climate change and energy field and has done extensive research on the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities, water resources, ecosystems and the economy. He has also had much of his work published.
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Nnimmo Bassey is a professional architect in Nigeria and has been a committed human rights activist since the days of military dictatorship in Nigeria in the 1980s. He is a founding member of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria and serves on the International Steering Committee of Oilwatch International -- two important anti-extractive industry grassroots organisations working to establish human and environmental rights in the face of transnational oil moguls in the Niger Delta and elsewhere in the world. He is an accomplished author, and once served as Secretary General of the Association of Nigerian Authors. Nnimmo is also a reverend and devout Christian. He is married to Evelyn, also an architect & environmental activist and they have 3 sons.
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Rebecca Masyoka, 52, is a subsistence farmer from Yatta Division of Machakos District in Kenya’s eastern province, where rainfall is low and unreliable. She lives about 150km from Nairobi. Rebecca is married with three children and one granddaughter. She farms 10ha, and her main crops are: maize, sorghum, pigeon peas, cowpeas, green grams and pumpkins. She also keeps 7 dairy goats and is hoping in the future to process the milk into yoghurt and cheese. Rebecca is vice-chair of KESSF, Kenya Small Scale Farmers’ Forum, a registered organisation formed after WSSD. KESSFF’s vision is of a world where small-scale farmers are recognised at all levels to farm with dignity.
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Mubanga Kasakula, 55, is a subsistence farmer from the Mwembeshi Settlement, Kafue District about 45 km from Lusaka. He is married with 6 children and 3 grandchildren and grows different crops like maize, groundnuts, beans, vegetables and cash crops; mainly cotton on four hectares of land. If the rains are good he sells his surplus for cash income. Mubanga is a leader of the Zambia small-scale farmers’ forum, which has members in all 9 provinces of Zambia. The Forum's goal is to empower small-scale farmers to influence policies and decision making at all levels regarding their livelihoods.
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Rev. José Andrés Tamayo Cortez, 47, a Catholic priest from Tegucigalp, Honduras, directs the Environmental Movement of Olancho, a coalition of farmers and other Olancho residents dedicated to stopping the logging spree. He has led thousands of people on two weeklong marches to the nation's capital, drawing national and international attention to the problems caused by unregulated logging, associated crime, and alleged corruption in the Honduran forestry agency. The second march, in June 2004, led to a government investigation of the forestry agency and the resignation of its general manager. Tamayo was the recipient of the 2003 Honduras National Human Rights Award. In an April 18 ceremony in San Francisco, he was awarded one of six 2005 Goldman Environmental Prizes.
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Esther Nalliw-Licnachan, represents the Safe the Ifuago Terraces Movement (SITMO) in the Phillipines. In June 2005, SITMO won an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in recognition of their work to combat climate change and poverty. Established in 2000, Sitmo is a nongovernmental organization staffed mainly by Ifugao volunteers. It was created through the initiative of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement in Ifugao province. The project uses micro-hydro to harness the power of water in the Ifuago region to bring power to the valleys, safeguard the unique forest environment and reinvigorate the local economy.
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The Working Group on Climate Change and Development (WGCD)
The Working Group on Climate Change and Development is a unique coalition of the UK’s leading aid and environment groups, formed to fight the unprecedented threat climate change poses to human development. On 20 June 2005, the coalition published its second report - Africa: Up in Smoke?
(see
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/06/314528.html) The coalition are calling for new and deeper emission cuts in rich countries, and for the G8 to make significant new funds available to help poor countries adapt to the impacts that are already being felt.
The coalition believes that an either/or approach to climate change and poverty reduction is not an option, the two are inseparable. The recommendations laid out in Africa: Up in Smoke, are essential if the G8 is to make poverty history, the coalition warns. The report says climate change means that Africa needs a new approach to development based on resilient and locally-owned strategies. It also means that a new approach to economic development is needed in the G8 based on an agreed framework for emissions cuts that goes far beyond the targets laid out by the Kyoto Protocol.
