In Lima change the system, not the climate!

Lima, Peru – December 9 – 12, 2014

Social movements and organizations, trade unions, peasants, indigenous peoples communities, women and environmentalist organizations, gathered in Lima, Peru, on the 12h and 13^th of August, invited by the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA), to support the organization of the Peoples Summit that will take place in parallel to the COP 20 of the UNFCCC, from 9 to 12 December 2014. We commit to work together and mobilize ourselves in this process. In this sense, we emphasize the call to participate in the demonstration organized by the Peoples Summit on December 10 in Lima.

The climate crisis that affects the planet is consequence of the capitalist system, its extractive model of production and consumption. This is a model that destroys natural resources, privileges the interests of transnational corporations and run over the rights of peoples.

The climate crisis shows the depletion of this system. Confronted with its structural crisis, the capital now seeks new ways out that allow its continuity, in order to produce greater concentration of wealth and power to guarantee profits for corporations and ruling classes.

As an expression of this strategy of the capital, in recent years, processes of privatization, commodification and financialization of nature, expressed in the principles of the green economy, have been intensified. It presents false solutions to the climate crisis. Some of these false solutions are: Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects, GMOs, agro fuels, geo-engineering, hydro-electric projects, nuclear power plants, fracking, climate-smart agriculture, among others.

We also believe that the model of domination and oppression that sustain the financial debt impacts the life and the rights of our peoples. Payment of the external and domestic debt consumes the already limited resources for social investment - resources which could be better used to deal with the consequences of climate change. Along with the pressure of debt survives the privatization and extractive neoliberal model of capitalist modernization, with strong impact also on the political and legal systems.

Moreover, transnational corporations have developed a network of agreements that allow them to ensure their privileges and wealth, while violating human and nature rights, which makes impossible the sustainability of life. We reject the architecture of impunity driven by large companies and multilateral agencies, in complicity with many governments and expressed in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), the Agreement on the Trade in Services (TISA), and all those that threaten peoples sovereignty and self-determination. We denounce and demand to stop the processes of persecution and even assassinations of social activists ordered by corporations in Latin America and around the world. We demand to stop the repression and the criminalization of social protests by governments.

We reject and resist to the false solutions to the crisis and propose alternatives for Buen Vivir, the sustainability of life, in defense of commons and of Mother Earth. In this sense, as part of the solution to the climate crisis, we identify indigenous ways of living and their ‘cosmovision’ which means absolute harmony with nature. The climate crisis has affected Latin America through extreme events, landslides, snowmelt, floods, droughts, among other forms. In Peru, where the People’s Summit will take place, as in many other parts of our region and the rest of the world, the survival of indigenous peoples, natives and peasants is seriously threatened.

We, organizations and social movements, propose real solutions to the climate crisis, based on principles of environmental and social justice, and particularly on climate justice. We support self-determination and territorial self-government and food sovereignty. We also support a global change of the energy matrix that leads to stop the use of fossil fuels and advance towards energy sovereignty (renewable energies, decentralized and controlled by the community), and solidarity and feminist economies. We fight for an equal relationship between men and women.

Thus, the defense of common goods involves the guarantee of human rights and rights of the nature.

The system change must involve a just transition, to be built with workers and peoples. Just transition implies expanding the concept of work, the recognition of women’s work and a balance between production and reproduction, so that the latter is not an exclusive burden for women in their dayly lives. This transition also involves the freedom to organize and the right of collective association, as well as the establishment of a wide social security and social protection system, understood as a human right, as well as public policies for decent jobs.

With regard to the UN negotiations on climate change, we demand a legally binding, democratic and participatory agreement, based on the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. The global temperature should not increase more than 1.5 degrees. Let us mobilize to support these claims!

We follow the path proposed by the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba (April 2010), the Declaration of the Peoples Summit Rio + 20 (June 2012) and the declaration of the PreCOP Social on the Isla Margarita (July 2014). We call all organizations and social movements around the world to join forces and continue this process of joint building and towards unified actions. As part of this process, we see The Peoples Summit in Lima as a key moment of mobilization in 2014. There are some fundamental events to strengthen our articulations: the international meeting of social organizations towards the COP 21 this month in Paris, the demonstrations in New York against the Climate Summit, the UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples in September, the global conferences for fair work conditions organized by the main workers unions in October, the Social PreCOP for Climate Change in November at the Isla Margarita, among other opportunities of convergence and mobilization.

The organizations and social movements and international networks, present here, reaffirm the commitment to support the organization of the People’s Summit in Peru. We build a group of international support that will be joined by other international groups, and regional and national entities.

Lima, August 13, 2014

Signed by: Confederación Sindical de los Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de las Américas (CSA), Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres, Amigos de la Tierra América Latina y el Caribe (ATALC), Jubileo Sur Américas, La Vía Campesina, Grupo Carta de Belem, Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú (CGTP), Transnational Institute (TNI)