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State Department Consultations on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples US Ambassador Susan Rice announced in April that the US was formally reviewing its position and solicited comments; only the US and Canada have yet to adopt UNDRIP, and some believe the US wants to do this before the UNFCCC’s December 2010 COP 16 in Cancun. As part of this formal review, the State Department is holding consultations with Indian and Alaska Native nations and NGOs to discuss the upcoming review process and receive comments. The State Department wants to receive comments from Indian and Alaska Native nations, NGOs and individuals. Message from the Office of the Spokesman, July 7, 2010 July 7, 2010: Tribal Leaders Consultation July 8, 2010: Meeting with Nongovernmental Organizations HOW TO PARTICIPATE: Members of federally recognized tribes can participate in the July 7th Consultation either in person or by conference call. RSVP to declaration@state.gov by July 2, 2010, and include "RSVP - July 7th Tribal Consultation" in the subject line. Please indicate if you will be attending in person or participating via conference call. Anyone can submit written comments to the State Department by July 15, 2010. By email to: declaration@state.gov By mail to: S/SR Global Intergovernmental Affairs
President Obama’s trade representative will host trade talks from June 14-18 in San Francisco to advance the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a new framework among eight (8) nations: Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States. (More on TPP)
Global Exchange and the California Fair Trade Coalition Present The election of President Obama promised to be a crossroads for U.S. trade policy. Nevertheless, after campaigning as a trade reformer, initial moves by the administration suggest continuity with Bush-Clinton-Bush-era free trade policies. with IFG's Victor Menotti Speaking in Point Reyes June 9th at 7:45pm
IFG's Maude Barlow in SF on June 3 at City Arts & Lectures
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| May 2010 Events |
0 Events May 2010 Events
Come Join IFG at:
"Planet or death! We shall overcome!"
Cochabamba People's Conference on Climate Change Report Back & Discussion
Wednesday, May 26th
6:30-8:30pm
522 Valencia St. (Btw 16th St. and 17th St.)
San Francisco, CA
Between April 19-22 approximately 33,000 people representing social movements from all over the world converged in Cochabamba, Bolivia for The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Convoked by Bolivian President Evo Morales, the conference put forward a People's Agreement and a proposal for a Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth in response to the deeply flawed Copenhagen Climate Change Accord recently forged at the COP Summit in December. Arguing that the proposals put forward in this accord "have led us to discuss climate change as a problem limited to the rise in temperature without questioning the cause, which is the capitalist system," the People's Agreement has become a new galvanizing point for the international climate justice movement.
Please join the Center for Political Education for a panel report-back and organizing strategy session with activists who attended the conference. We will be joined by Alberto Saldamando with the International Indian Treaty Council, Colin Rajah with the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Jason Negron-Gonzales with Movement Generation, and Evelyn Rangel-Medina with the Ella Baker Center, amongst others.
Following the report-back, we will have an organizing session to discuss and plan next steps after the conference and leading into the Mexico Climate Summit in November. Bring your questions, ideas, and inspirations for moving the climate justice movement forward!
$5-$10 Donation Requested. No one turned away for lack of funds. Venue is not wheelchair accessible.
| April 2010 Events |
IFG Executive Director, Victor Menotti at Peoples' Conference in Bolivia
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The World Comes to Cochabamba Over 35,000 people attended! After last week’s climate summit in Bolivia, it is now possible for the governments to express the agenda of the social movements and the world’s most threatened peoples within the next official climate conference in Mexico. Read more.
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| March 2010 Events |
Voluntary Standards for re-engineering the planet?: Are you out to lunch?
It may sound crazy, but from March 22-26, a group of scientists, corporations, think tanks, academics as well as some NGOs are meeting in Asilomar, working to establish "voluntary guidelines" for geoengineering. Geoengineering refers to large-scale intentional plans to modify the Earth's systems to fix climate change through techniques like dumping iron in the ocean or shooting sulphates into the stratosphere, genetically engineering biomass and turning forests into charcoal soil. The five-day event was convened by the Climate Response Fund, a new "non-profit" organization run by Margaret Leinen, well-connected with the San Francisco-based ocean fertilization firm Climos. The leading sponsor is the State of Victoria in Australia, where the world's largest reserves brown coal lie. The conference has been controversial from its inception and an international group of non-governmental organizations have issued an open letter saying it is the wrong people, discussing the wrong topic at the wrong time. Download and sign the letter. Come find out more about why civil society is concerned about geoengineering: What are the technologies at play? Who is backing geoengineering? What critical international and national meetings are happening on these schemes? And what we should be doing about them? |
| February 2010 Events |
Conversations from the Frontline of the Climate Justice Movement
Wednesday,
February 24, 2010 7-9pm (program) Marie Rose Taruc,
Asia Pacific Environmental Network; Alberto
Salamando, |
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| January 2010 Events |
Bay Area COP 15 Report Back
What went down in Copenhagen? What's next for a global climate deal? The United Nation's Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen not only failed to conclude new global climate deal but also to find a way forward. Contrary to what’s being reported in the US as a victorious American initiative, much of the world does not view President Obama’s forging of the "Copenhagen Accord" as the “rescue of a collapsing UN process.” In fact, some see it as an undermining of two years’ work toward good faith negotiations that defies established international principles of equity and shifts obligations onto developing countries. Given the continuing confusion, there is an urgent need to set straight the record on Copenhagen’s results, to reinforce the reasons why a UN climate process is so critical, and to point to some possible ways forward to a successful outcome at COP 16 in Mexico. Please join the International Forum on Globalization for an informal briefing, based on their team's two weeks time on the ground in Copenhagen. |
| December 2009 Events |
| November 2009 Events |
Join us for a special anniversary event on
Monday,
November 23rd 2009
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
TEN YEARS: FROM SEATTLE TO COPENHAGEN
The WTO Shutdownand what it means for a
UN Climate Deal in Copenhagen
Fifty thousand peaceful protesters on the streets of Seattle
stunned the world on November 30, 1999 when they shut down
the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) attempt to launch
a new round of world trade talks aimed at expanding global
corporate power over peoples. Ten years later, the WTO remains
on the ropes due to a sophisticated global network of activists—spanning
from Indian peasant farmers to South African HIV/AIDS activists
to Brazilian workers—who have kept the WTO from concluding
its negotiations. Though maybe less visible today, global
justice networks are morphing into new movements to turn
crises like global climate change into opportunities for
political transformation. We will also discuss one current
process toward global economic transition: the United Nations’ summit
to seal a climate deal next month in Copenhagen, where the “spirit
of Seattle” is again being invoked to inspire actions.
Please join us in recalling Seattle’s popular victory
through reflections with those who made history happen, and
all who see more change to come.
with
Jerry Mander, Victor Menottii, and Claire Greensfelder, IFG
Anuradha Mittal, Oakland Institute
Paul Hawken, David Solnit and Rebecca Solnit, local author-activists
Jia Ching Chen, youth-of-color organizer
Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange
Tim Robertson, California Fair Trade Coalition
First Unitarian Universalist
Church
1187 Franklin St (Geary @ Franklin)
San Francisco
For more information please
call IFG at 415-561-7650
www.ifg.org
info@ifg.org
Sliding scale of $10 -$25
No one turned away for lack of funds
| October 2009 Events |
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SAN
FRANCISCO BAY AREA JOINS |
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On Saturday, October 24th, the International
Day of Climate Action, join thousands around the world at
over 4400 actions in 178 countries in calling for climate
justice at the Copenhagen climate talks. Join us as the Bay
Area converges next to Justin Herman Plaza (Embarcadero BART)
at 3pm to tell our leaders that the world needs climate justice
action now!
IFG's Jerry Mander to speak at the Climate Action Rally in Pt. Reyes Station, CA Transition West Marin will hold a Climate Action Demonstration, Rally and PowerDown challenge. There will be a march starting at Third St. and Route 1 with signs at noontime demanding 350 ppm be adopted. The PowerDown will be a challenge to the community to not use any fossil fuels for one day (or to reduce as much as possible), encouraging stagecoach (bus), carpool, bicycles, electric bike and walking. The teach-in features Jerry Mander, Steve Kinsey and other speakers, who will speak on global warming,the significance of 350 ppm and peak oil. |
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Just South of Justin Herman Plaza at the foot of Market St (Embarcadero BART). NOTE: The event is NOT at Justin Herman Plaza, but is on the Plaza lawn a few hundred feet to the south, between Steuart St. and The Embarcadero, toward Mission St. from Market St. Look for the yellow flags and banners! Look for the IFG banner to meet up with IFG staff and volunteers! Read Out for Climate Justice: Hear Bay Area Spoken word performers from Youth Speaks “Green Team,” writer Rebecca Solnit and one of America’s most popular poets, Jane Hirshfield. Climate activist-analyst Gopal Dayaneni of Movement Generation will break down climate crisis and climate justice solutions, SF Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi will join the call for climate action and Greenpeace organizer Lauren Thorpe will tell us what other around the world are doing simultaneously. |
Be part of a Human Billboard:
Join hundreds of people to create a giant visual message,
spelling "350" and holding a giant parachute
banner. Aerial pictures will be taken and the 350.org folks
will in turn post them up on the mega screens in Times
Square in NYC on the same day and the photos will be delivered
to US and world government leaders.
Action Station: Sign a giant postcard or make a phone call to send a loud message to your representatives and to Obama. Sign up to participate in nonviolent civil disobedience and/or legal protest on Nov. 30, the final Global Climate Justice Action Day before Copenhagen!
SF Bike Action: 2pm
Bike the SF Shoreline! Get your bikes ready for
underwater pedaling! Pull out your floaties and snorkel masks!
Sign up to be one of 350 bicyclists to ride along SF’s
future post-climate-changed shoreline as part of this Global
Day of Climate Action. When you sign up, you’ll have
the option of receiving a number, being contacted with updates,
and getting a “The Tide is Rising” flag or Patch
to keep. This action will start at 2pm from Plaza lawn a
few hundred feet to the south of Justin Herman Plaza, at
the foot of Market St. between Steuart St. and The Embarcadero,
on the south side (toward Mission St). Look for the yellow
flags and banners!
Public Education Actions at Bay Area BART stations and transit hubs: Morning/Early Afternoon
Join or start an event at your local station! Pass out flyers on climate justice, plan a guerrilla poetry reading, plan an art build…the possibilities are endless.
If you can volunteer to help, please show up at 1:30
Why now?
From December 7-18, 2009, the world’s leaders
will meet in Copenhagen to decide what to do about climate
change. Sadly, if these leaders reached an agreement today,
it wouldn’t be strong enough to do much good.
Scientists tell us that the maximum level of CO2 our atmosphere can safely bear is 350 parts per million. Beyond that, our earth and its species are at imminent risk of catastrophic changes we’ll never be able to stop — meaning billions of people will die. Today, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is already at 390 worldwide — and it’s rising at 2 parts per million per year. In order to bring our climate back to the safe zone and avoid catastrophic consequences, we need a global agreement to make massive emissions cuts now. But we can’t wait for politicians to do the right thing. There’s only one way we can achieve that: we need to turn the political heat way up — and push back the corporate and big business lobbyists pushing false solutions (like clean coal and carbon trading) so they can keep polluting and keep profiting. Climate change is so serious, we can’t afford half measures or anything less than addressing the root causes. Climate Justice means that those most responsible for climate change (rich countries and climate polluting industries) must be made to take responsibility and those least responsible (developing countries and low income communities and communities of color) must not be the most impacted.
The good news is “street heat”—public pressure and protest—works. Over 1500 actions are planned in over 110 countries for Oct. 24th. Join the growing global movement creating “street heat” for climate justice in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate talks.
Click
here to check the call-out rap from Alliance for Climate
Education
| June 2009 Events |
Update on News from Niger Delta / Suit Against Shell Oil
Ken Saro-Wiwa (Greenpeace)
Oronto Douglas, Co-Founder of Nigerian
Environmental Rights Action
Speaking THIS WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 12pm - 1pm at
International Forum on Globalization
1009 General Kennedy Ave. 2nd Floor, Conference Room, San
Francisco
Recent headlines don't tell the real story about attacks by the Nigerian military on communities in the oil-producing Niger Delta, nor about how Royal Dutch Shell will appear before a federal court in New York to answer charges in connection with the execution of Nigerian author/activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by Nigeria's former military regime. Please join IFG in welcoming Oronto as our "African Scholar in Residence".
Download
the pdf flyer
Read more about
Oronto Douglas
| November 2008 Events |
IFG's
Climate Strategy Session on Copenhagen's Economic
Architecture
Photos
from the Talks (view
photos) Featured Event | Upcoming Events | Recent Events | Archive Events |
