International Call to Action

International Call for Solidarity Actions on the COP6 climate change talks – DEN HAAG 2000

November 12th-25th, 2000

Activists from diverse groups and movements around the world are discussing, networking and organising an international SEASON OF ACTION for the run-up to and duration of the next United Nations climate negotiations in The Hague this November. At this summit, officials of governments and corporate lobbyists plan to further exacerbate the climate change emergency by focusing on an agenda that seeks to transfer nuclear power to the southern hemisphere and trade carbon units, rather than concentrating on the real imperative of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.  Eighty per cent of which can be attributed to just 122 multinational corporations.

The climate cannot continue to warm forever. Society must come to see that without its intervention our birth rights to breathable air and drinkable water may be undone forever.  We are calling on concerned people, sympathetic communities, grassroots groups and individuals around the world to organise their own autonomous actions. 

A coalition of activists has been formed in the Netherlands to stage actions against the COP's corporate agenda. Months before the conference begins, public awareness and anger raising actions are planned. We call on people to organise and plan ACTIONS around the world before the conference and to come to The Hague to take action during the conference. Meanwhile various grassroots groups prepare to take action in their own parts of the world in recognition that behind the floods and famine in the 'third world' lies the transformation of rainforests into deserts and fertile earth into poisoned wastelands. And behind this devastation lies the pursuit of profit of 'first world' corporations and the reckless rate of fossil fuel consumption in the north. In fact at the root of climate change and other related injustices in the world is the absurd system of economics that destroys systematically and forever the resources on which life depends. The effectiveness of any solution proposed by the UN will be undermined by the process of economic globalisation, as promoted through the policies of international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Bank.  This economic process is deeply unsustainable and exacerbates climate change in its accelerating demand for the consumption of fossil fuels. 

Therefore it is time society recognized and took responsibility for its stake in the creation of global  warming. It is time for critical intervention and direct action by people amassing to achieve the legitimate and vital goals of environmental and economic justice.

Literally it is now or never. Start to organise in your own area and raise awareness. Join the effort to make COP6 a household name and to create a global  atmosphere so crisis and tension packed that it will force open the door to progress with climate protection. The November actions will be organised in a non-hierarchical way, as a decentralised and informal network of autonomous groups that struggle for solidarity and co-operation while employing non-authoritarian grassroots democratic forms of organisation. Each event or action will be organised autonomously by each group while coalitions of various movements and groups are also formed at the local, regional and national levels. A strategy that may be useful at the local level is that various groups co-operate in creating the surrounding atmosphere of emergency and discontent over climate change and COP6's response as a setting for their actions.

Examples of conceivable actions are:

Teach-ins, bike-ins, strikes, handing out flyers, street theatre, demonstrations, occupations, tree plantings at petrol stations, sit-ins at McDonalds, blockades and shut -downs, critical mass bike rides, handing out free food, music dancing poetry declaring oneself a mobile republic free from global capitalism and corrupted governments establishing grassroots community councils, vigils,
walks, and so on.

It may be sooner or it may be later but we must take action. Inaction would be indefensible. The escalation of the climate crisis in evidence demands it so. The death of 10,000 people in central America during hurricane Mitch demands we take action now. The plight of 16 million residents of the horns of Africa faced with drought-induced hunger and starvation demands we take action now. The loss of ten thousand lives in Orissa in India in a freak cyclone demands that we take action now. The massive floods in Mozambique, the mudslides in Venezuela, the floods in Peru all demand that we take action now. The fate of the millions yet unborn demands we take action. And if not now, then when?

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Rising Tide Festival / Arts of Resistance-> Den Haag N12-25 
www.risingtide.nl www.squat.net/climate
Climate Independent Media Center www.climateconference.org