(These are cutting-edge statements, available at www.jubileesouth.org... As far as I can tell, they push the debate forward a great distance at great speed, especially in calling for decommissioning carbon markets. One crucial question is, whether the potential North-South payments for climate debt and indeed all climate-related financing should be mediated by national state elites. In Africa, I can't think of a single country where such funding would be properly allocated to victims of climate change and to a transformed economic/energy/transport/production system. The aid industry would continue making a mess. Would a 'Basic Income Grant' mechanism be appropriate? I hope the debate gets into payment mechanisms. When the SA reparations debate confronted this question, most in Jubilee didn't trust Pretoria to channel potential funding from apartheid-era profits back to the survivors, given the corruption-riddled character of the ruling party... so they suggested a fund for civil society to run, to make reparations payments in a more development mode. Is anyone taking this challenge further? Oh, another question begged immediately below, is whether the ultrahigh-emitting middle-income countries like South Africa - not in Annex 1 - should be brought into the climate debtor net. Most of us in the CJN!SA movement have been answering affirmatively.)

"We demand the enforcement of the payment of climate debt"

Final documents debated and approved in the working group on Climate Debt, during the World Conference of Peoples on Climate change and the Rights of mother Earth. CLIMATE DEBT CONCEPT

Climate debt is an obligation of compensation that is generated because of the damage done to Mother Earth by the irrational emissions of greenhouse gases. The primary responsible for these irrational emissions are the so-called “developed countries “, inhabited by only 20% of the world population, and which emitted 75% of historical emissions of greenhouse gases.

These states, which stimulated the capitalist development model, are responsible for climate debt, but we shouldn’t forget that within these states, there live poor and indigenous peoples which are also affected by this debt.

The most affected are the poorest developing countries, future generations and our Mother Earth.The colonization of atmospheric space has produced climate change, which poses a serious threat to the islands, coastal areas, glaciers in the Himalayas, the Andes and the mountains of the world, the poles of the earth, hot regions like Africa, water sources, growing natural disaster-affected populations, plants and animals, and ecosystems in general, generating climate debt.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change recognizes that obligation by affirming that developed countries are historically responsible for those emissions, and in sustaining that they should take the initiative to combat climate change. This fact is expressed in the existence of the Kyoto Protocol, under which countries obligated to reduce greenhouse gases are the developed countries listed in Annex 1 of the Convention.

2. CLIMATE DEBT COMPONENTS

The responsibility for the climate debt of each developed country is established in relation to the level of emissions, taking into account the historically emitted amount of tons of carbon per capita.

a-Emissions Debt We understand as the emissions debt the over-use of space atmospheric by greenhouse gases pollution by developed countries, taking into account the equal rights of all countries in the world to have access to the use and enjoyment of atmospheric space. Developed countries must compensate as follows:
• They are required to reduce high concentrations of greenhouse gases they caused,
• They also have to reduce their emissions and absorb greenhouse gases,
• They must ensure a space for development for poor countries.We express our rejection of the fact that developed countries decide to choose freely how deep cuts they intend to do, as proposed in the Copenhagen Accord.

b-Development Debt
Developing countries are entitled to the same opportunities for development, to provide basic services to the entire population, and a degree of industrialization which allows the country’s economic independence; But this development must not harm the environment and atmosphere. To achieve this development within a highly restricted access to the atmospheric space, they need access to all technologies -according to their worldview- for the development and funding required for its implementation.Among the technologies we require are: recycling of waste materials, improvement of traditional techniques with new technologies, access to clean energy sources – solar, wind and biogas digesters, forms of protection against natural disasters, research into vaccines and medicines diseases enhanced by climate change, among others.

c- Adaptation Debt
The impacts of climate change make the rain loose its seasonality, loss of fresh water sources, increased hail, frost, droughts, floods. They decrease crop and livestock production. The population is suffering from an increase in various diseases.These impacts have many implications on economical and development level, wherefore those who caused the climate crisis have the responsibility to compensate all damages, through: investing (with funding and technology) in the prevention of major impacts, full compensation for the negative impacts that actually happen and compensating opportunity costs, which involve the deviation of development funds, among others.

d- Migration Debt
Due to climate impacts, millions of people find their own land uninhabitable, converting them into climate migrants. The compensation of the migration debt implies that the so called ‘developed’ countries must drop its restrictive migration policies, receiving them in their countries with dignity, and recognition of their human rights and cultural rights.

e-Debt to Mother Earth
The debt to Mother Earth is impossible to compensate completely, because the atrocities committed by humanity have been too terrible. However, the minimum compensation of this debt consists in:
• In recognition of the damage done,
• the restoration of harmony with Mother Earth
• the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Mother Earth’s Rights, to ensure that the same abuses will never be repeated in future.This is to ensure that capitalism and the drive for profit does not contravene the ultimate interests of Mother Earth and the peoples of the world.

3 .- HOW CAN DEBT BE COMPENSATED

Compensation for climate debt is to be done through multiple ways, which complement each other. Indispensible minimal elements are:

• The re-absorption and cleaning the atmosphere by developed countries
• Payment in technology (eliminating patents) and in knowledge according to our worldview for both clean development and for adaptation to developing countries
• Financing,
• Changes in immigration laws that allow us to offer a new home for all climate migrants.
• The adoption of the Declaration on the Mother Earth’s Rights.In addition we need to work on the structural causes that caused the climate debt, providing education for children, political awareness, and respect for Mother Earth.

Climate debt is part of a larger ecological debt, which in addition to gas emissions includes all environmental damages that were made in developing countries for the benefit of developed countries.

4 .- STRATEGIES TO ENSURE THE CLIMATE DEBT COMPENSATION

To ensure full compliance with the climate debt are needed:
• The establishment of an international body that determines the responsibilities of polluter countries
• The creation of an International Tribunal for Climate Justice, impartial, which has jurisdiction in cases of default of repayment of the debtTo encourage a research study the responsibilities of climate change, determining the climate debtTo promote international awareness that the fulfilment of the climate debt is an obligation on the part of developed countries, and is not aid granted us.

CONCLUSIONS

- We hold the capitalist system and the developed capitalist countries as the main cause of climate change generated climate debt

- From this pre-conference we demand the enforcement of the payment of climate debt

- We, who live in harmony with Mother Earth, and we are her main defenders; from here we call on all humanity to join the struggle for the preservation of life.

***

Document debated and approved in the working group on Climate Finance, during the World Conference of Peoples on Climate Change and the Rights of mother Earth

A. Financing Commitments under the UNFCCC

1. Developed country parties included in Annex 1 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have committed to financing the costs incurred by developing country parties to cover the costs of mitigation, technology transfer and capacity building, including all adaptation costs. This financing constitutes an obligation in response to developed country parties historical emissions of greenhouse gases; and constitutes a part of reparations for their climate debt.

2. Developed country parties have failed to meet their climate finance commitments, in part because the current financing model - which includes both carbon markets and existing financial institutions outside the authority of the UNFCCC - is ineffective at meeting the needs of developing country parties to address climate change.

3. Under the UNFCCC climate finance must be new and additional to existing commitments to Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) toward the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals; however the vast majority of current climate finance by developed country parties is counted as both ODA and climate finance. This constitutes a double counting of financial assistance to developing country parties.In addition, this financing is channeled through financial institutions, the World Bank, and Regional Development Banks in the form of or attached to loans - even for adaptation, which increases the debt of developing country parties.

4. Financing for adaptation in developing countries must not be conditioned on mitigation actions.

5. All policy and program priorities, and eligibility criteria for funding must come from the parties to the UNFCCC.

6. Funding shall be available to all developing country parties without discrimination or conditionality, under the principles of common but differentiate responsibility and climate debt.

7. Financing must not undermine the sovereignty and self-determination of developing country parties. Financing must respond to country driven processes that involve communities in decision-making.

8. Funding priority must be given to those communities and countries most affected, that preserve nature, and that have contributed least to the emissions of greenhouse gases; and respond to the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC.

9. The outcome of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action at COP15 must be the basis for negotiations in Cancun (which continues the mandate established in the Bali Action Plan), and not the Copenhagen Accord, which is not a formal decision of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC.

B. Scale and Sources of Financing for Climate Change

10. The scale of existing financial resources currently allocated to developing countries parties for addressing climate change plus the Copenhagen Accord proposal to mobilize (US$10 billion per year between 2010 and 2012, and up to US$100 billion by 2020 annually – which represents only 0.8% to 8% of developed countries’ national defense budgets, respectively) is grossly inadequate.

11. Developed country parties must commit at least 6% of their annual GDP for climate finance in developing countries. The viability of mobilizing this amount of finance is evident –developed countries spend an equivalent amount each year on national defense. In addition, developed countries have mobilized trillions of dollars (equivalent to 5 times the 6% GDP proposed) to bail out failed banks and speculators. This is a question of political will, and the priority given to effectively combating climate change and protecting Mother Earth.

12. The finance required must be provided from public sources, and must be new and additional to ODA, to bilateral assistance, and to funds flowing outside the UNFCCC. Any funding provided outside the UNFCCC will not be regarded as meeting the commitments of developed country parties under the Convention.

13. The carbon market shall be eliminated as source of financing, because its capitalist logic promotes the paradox that those actors who will benefit most, are the same actors who have most harmed the environment. In addition, market mechanisms allow developed countries to evade their commitments to reduce emissions, while at the same time benefitting economically from the climate crisis. Moreover, this model impedes the equitable distribution of resources, can not guarantee a predictability flow of resources at scale, nor the timely availability or direct access to financing for those most affected.

14. Financing for climate change must be delivered as grants, understood as a part of the reparations for climate debt between parties. Loans cannot be considered as fulfillment of financial commitments. In the same way climate financing does not signify a donor/recipient relationship between developed and developing countries.

15. All Annex 1 funding allocated to military purposes and subsidies for fossil fuel producers shall be redirected to climate change. C. Functions and Structure of the Financing Mechanisms 16. A new financial mechanism shall be established under the authority of the UNFCCC, replacing the Global Environment Facility and its intermediaries such as the World Bank and the Regional Development Banks.

17. This financial mechanism must be under the authority of, and accountable to, the COP of the UNFCCC. There must be equitable representation of developing countries in all decision-making and technical bodies, with specific representation of most affected countries. Affected communities, sectors, classes, women, social movements, and civil society groups must also be formally represented; not financial institutions.

18. The management and administration of the financial mechanism must be transparent, inclusive, participatory and democratic.

19. The financial mechanism must respect the sovereign control of each country to determine the definition, design, implementation of policy and programmatic approaches to climate change. In addition, the mechanism must uphold human rights, including economic, social, cultural and collective rights, and other rights enshrined in international covenants and agreements.

20. The financial mechanism must be an operational entity that ensures the flow of resources to developing countries to address climate change in a timely and efficient manner.

21. A system to monitor, report and verify the fulfillment of developed country financial commitments must be established. Information must be publicly disclosed, and allow for independent evaluation and systems for redress for civil society through the climate justice tribunal.

22. The financial mechanism shall be defined and approved at COP16, and be made operational at COP17. Until that time, climate financing for developing countries must be ensured and increased through greater fulfillment of existing commitments.