The 12 Principles to a Climate Protocol
ARK (Amsterdam Radical Klimate Action)

In 1997 governments of the world agreed on an international treaty that aimed to reduce emissions and prevent climate change from destroying people and the environment. Despite being symbolic the treaty, called the Kyoto protocol, was a start.

Now, four years later the treaty remains unratified by any developed country, the US government has chosen to reject the Kyoto protocol, and the COP climate talks are floundering in a quagmire of corporate self-interest and lobby groups, and a focus on profit driven market solutions to climate change that will enhance the problems, not solve them. Meanwhile, people are already dying from the effects of climate change.

We call upon the people of the world to support the implementation of a new environmentally focussed treaty, based on the following crucial principles - and reject the Kyoto protocol.

And we launch this challenge to the world's governments and to Mr Bush and his Administration—to model your suggestions for an alternative protocol on these 12 principles:

1. Valuing the environment in its own right. 
Carbon trading perpetuates the concept that money is the only thing that people value. The environment is not for sale. Trading in pollution is not a solution. 

2. Protecting the atmosphere as a global commons.
The Kyoto protocol if implemented will essentially see the introduction of a new form of colonialism, since the commodification of carbon facilitates the appropriation of the global commons, the atmosphere, by private and public corporations. Future generations and indigenous peoples, both effectively ignored by the Kyoto Protocol and the UN process, have a stake in the atmosphere and we have no right to privatise it. Therefore, any alternative climate protocol must be based on the principle of equal rights for all human beings to a sustainable use of the Earth's atmosphere, with equal per capita allocation of carbon emissions for everyone.

3. Repayment of the ecological debt of the North to the South.
Historically, 'developed' nations have had a greater negative effect on the atmosphere which amounts to an 'ecological debt'. Ecological debt is caused by the extraction, use and degradation of southern resources such as petroleum, minerals, forest, marine and genetic resources. This is all for the development of export goods with unequal terms of trade - typically to pay back the third world debt.
There is a responsibility and obligation of industrialised countries of the north to repair and stop the damage caused to the biosphere and countries of the world through a reduction of emissions proportional to this debt, and through assisting other countries in dealing with the effects of climate change who are not responsible historically for its causes. Further, there should be an immediate cancellation of the third world debt and the beginning of a process of compensation from the global north to the global south for centuries of plundering of their natural resources (an exploitation that has fuelled northern economies and climate change) and which release from debt will help enable developing nations to protect themselves from the effects of climate change they are already suffering.

4. The prevention of cultural genocide.
Culturally rich communities, typically those that are economically poor, lack the financial and therefore the political weight to adapt and protect themselves from climate change. These communities are not only vulnerable to climate change but to the imposition of monocultures which work against cultural diversity and environmental sustainability. Ironically monocultures can also be imposed by sustainable development aid and adaptation funds. 

5. Dismantling the neo-liberal world order. 
Globalisation has exhausted the environmental and social wealth of the planet. The Neo-liberal world order is built on the colonial theft and appropriation of land, people and culture. There is no such thing as a market based solution to a market based problem. The current global economic system based has encourage the conception of profit as more important than people or the environment, particularly when the WTO has and uses the power to override national laws on environmental protection.  The idea that free-trade can solve the problems caused by free trade is absurd.  Any climate treaty can only succeed if it also restructures the global economy: including the abolition of the WTO, World Bank and damaging free trade agreements such as NAFTA.  The global economy must be restructured to focus on truly sustainable solutions, with less emphasis placed on industrialising for export and profit economies and more emphasis on producing for the domestic market and domestic needs. Local produce should always be used where possible, and fairtrade principles should be at the core of any international trade regimes. Wealth should be measured in sustainable terms, with countries feeding and clothing themselves, without the overuse and exploitation of natural resources.

6. Protection of the rights of environmental refugees 
Climate Change is a classic example of the industrialised countries causing displacement of people and therefore it is the responsibility of these industrialised countries to ensure the safety and dignity of these people through current and future support for all environmental refugees appropriate to their needs and situation. Any alternative protocol must include a clause ensuring that historical polluters are obliged to recognise environmental refugees as valid asylum seekers. 

7. Immediate use and introduction of available renewable energy.
A moratorium on bilateral and multilateral loans, export credit and on national credits and subsidies for hydrocarbon extraction projects and for fossil fuel energy generation projects. These subsidies should be reallocated to clean and low impact renewable energies, i.e. nuclear energy is excluded. Shift taxation from low-income labour to the non-renewable energy industries.

8. The negation of carbon sinks. 
Sinks in the CDM would constitute a worldwide strategy for expropriating indigenous lands and territories and violating fundamental rights that would culminate in a new form of colonialism. Sinks in the CDM would not help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, rather it would provide industrialised countries with a ploy to avoid reducing their emissions at source. All emissions reductions must be domestically achieved.

9. A commitment to a 60-100% reduction in carbon emissions : a Three Step Programme.
 

a) All Industrialised nations to implement 60-90% domestic reductions of emissions of carbon dioxide by 2005:

Why 60%?
The UN IPCC has repeatedly made it clear that carbon dioxide emissions must be cut by 60% a.s.a.p., with further reductions of up to 90% if global climate catastrophe is to be avoided and the effects of climate change reversed. The UN IPCC has therefore made it clear that any "first step" to avoiding climate catastrophe is to make an immediate 60% reduction in global warming emissions, not the completely inadequate 5.2% as discussed in Kyoto.

Why domestic reductions?
The Kyoto protocol includes flexible mechanisms, whereby emissions reductions by countries can be achieved, not through lifestyle changes at home, but through projects abroad which would give carbon credits to discount from the emissions achieved at home. Flexible mechanisms will not work. Studies predict that flexible mechanisms would lead to a net increase of 7% in emissions. 
Moreover, flexible mechanisms like Joint Implementation threaten to increase the number of nuclear power plants (with consequent risks of radioactive leaks, cancer clusters and nuclear disasters on the scale of Chernobyl) or massive hydro-electric dams, which through their creation actually release carbon dioxide stored in the forests which are either cut down or flooded and left to rot.  There can be no carbon emissions trading schemes or other systems which allow countries to escape responsibility for reductions.

Why by 2005?
Because it IS achievable and we ARE in a crisis situation. Simply invest money into public transport and switch to renewable energy, and massive reductions can be achieved. The rest can be achieved easily by adopting all of the principals laid out in this declaration.

Why only industrialised nations?
Industrialised countries are responsible for 80% of historical emissions of CO2 and currently emit over two thirds of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. To demonstrate their willingness to take responsibility for the environmental costs of industrial development, industrialised countries must take the first step in order to demonstrate the seriousness with which they take the problem they are largely responsible for. Only when this has been accomplished can developing countries with far less emissions be expected to commit to reductions.

b) All nations, industrialised and developing, to achieve a 100% cut in use of fossil fuels by the year 2025.

c) All nations, industrialised and developing, to limit emissions of other global warming gases, such as methane, to no more than 10% by 2035.

10. An end to fossil fuel exploration.
Oil, gas and coal are the main sources of CO2 emissions; despite this the supply of oil on the market continues to rise as a result of new reserves. The new oil reserves are mainly located in countries with large areas of natural forest and in deep seas. The extraction of oil in these cases has a double impact on climate change. Oil companies to be declared responsible for the impacts of globalisation based on fossil fuels, leading the process at every level, including production, distribution, processing and commercialisation of fossil fuels.

11. Effective public education campaigns.
Allowing people to take initiatives within their own lives to reduce their personal impact on the environment and enhance their enjoyment of life.

12. To protect and promote ecologically sustainable communities and practices and to learn practices from campensino and indigenous communities that ensure the preservation of both agricultural and wild diversity.
 

Other Essential Requirements 

The Ratification of an International Law to Punish Non-Compliance by Countries: There should be independent monitoring of targets with a fair and effective system of compliance which is enforceable. This body should see equal distribution of votes or voices between all nations and recognise its responsibility to protect the voices of the less powerful, rich and populous nations who are likely to be the first to suffer the consequences of climate change from domination by powerful industrialised countries.

The Ratification of an International Law to Restrict Profit-driven Destruction by Multinational or other Companies: The absence of consequences for polluting companies has been a major factor in non-compliance by multinationals and other organisations. This must change. 

Every nation should enact legislation to make corporations truly financially and legally responsible for their actions, with Managing Directors or Chief Executive Officers held legally accountable for corporations actions enacted under their leadership terms. Shareholders shall be financially liable for a percentage of clean-up costs, minimum 50%, which will increase the potential of people to invest only in companies they know and trust, encourage holding shares for longer periods instead of speculating and thereby, reduce pressure from stockmarkets on companies to increase share prices by undertaking destructive or dangerous projects in the name of profit.