Bolivia blog

Kirsty Wright, WDM climate justice campaigner

Last night, I met with Marcos from CIPCA, an organisation working with small farming communities around Bolivia, looking at the impacts of climate change and how to deal with it, at both a practical and policy level. We were discussing the Cochabamba cumbre and the resulting Cochabamba Accord, 'The People's Accord', that will be submitted to the UNFCCC.  

“What do you think of the Bolivian concepts of Vivir Bien ['living well'], and Mother Earth Rights that are being put forward to the UN,” he asked, “What do you think people in Europe think of them?” I paused before answering, wanting to be honest.
 
“To me, the concepts seem instinctive, but, truthfully, I think people in Europe find them hard to take seriously, they snigger – in part because of the name. I think for many people it has connotations of new age hippies," I tired to explain, "Which of course is ridiculous given that the concept of Pachamama has been around through the history of indigenous people.”
 
Marcos nodded, knowingly, “I think the easiest way to understand it is to think about the concept of human rights. When you think about it, the concept of human rights has only been around for about 60 years; these new ideas often come about after times of big upheaval”.
 
I reflected on this. “I think this is the issue in Europe” I answered, “I don't think people think of climate change in the same way, as something that is already happening, in the way that they felt the war right there, on their door steps. We are too disconnected from the elements that sustain us. It’s very different in Bolivia; you feel that climate change is happening, that it’s already here."
 
Marcos nodded, and asked me something interesting, which I’ve been reflecting on since. “I hear that in Europe, and the UK, the government is already spending a lot on their own adaptation. Like the Themes barrier. It would really useful to know how much they are spending. Really, this is all part of the broader dialogue of climate debt, don’t you think? It would be really useful for us to know this”. I committed to try and find out what I could. “I’m not sure how easy it will be to know in total, thought, beyond specific projects”, I mused, “After all, if the UK are open about what we’re spending, it would help make a much stronger case for what needs to be provided in reparations to the south!”

I asked if he knew similar figures for Bolivia.  “We have some estimates,” Marcos replied, “but really, this kind of information is something they don't know. For years now, neo-liberal policies have destroyed every aspect of the state that would enable these things to be estimated. But one estimate, just in terms of water, for the Altiplano region alone, estimates are at around US $ 1 billion. That just for water.”
 
Clearly the figures being talked about by rich country governments in Copenhagen are so far from inadequate its insulting, even without taking into account that the UK government is trying to give them as loans through the World Bank. Nowhere before have I met so many people who visibly react to the mention of the World Bank. Its clear that there is going to be some serious resistance from Bolivia to the UK's effort to make the World Bank the World's 'climate bank'. And judging from the last time Bolivian people took the World Bank on, they’ll have quite a battle on their hands.

Kirsty Wright, WDM climate justice campaigner

From what I have seen in the last few weeks, Bolivia seems to me to be one of the most politically engaged countries I have experienced. In my short time here, I’ve already stumbled across a number of impromptu demonstrations. Last week in Cochabamba, as I was walking to visit Marcella Olivera, an amazing and inspiring activist who played a significant role in the water wars of 2000 and an active campaigner on water ever since, and people were blockading the crossroads down from her office. It was hard to know why; even the people in Marcella’s office weren’t sure. It’s hardly surprising then, that 1st May, Labour Day, is a big event in La Paz, Bolivian’s capital.

The Labour Day march had started early in the morning in El Alto, one of the poorer districts on the outskirts of La Paz. Still struggling with the altitude (at over 4,000 metres, La Paz is the world’s highest city), I was glad to that I had friends from the cumbra arriving that morning, providing me with an excuse to join the march until a little later when it reached the city’s centre. Not familiar with the route, we went to Plaza Murillo, the march’s final destination, and followed the sound of the fire crackers in the distance. We came out of one of the small side streets, towards the footbridge that crossed La Prada, one of the city’s main streets. La Prada is usually crammed with congested traffic and dirty fumes, but today a brass band lead a sea of thousands down the main road.

We joined the march and the crowds were friendly, welcoming us in. As we turned the corner we noticed the crowd had split and, curiously I wondered if this represented a political division. But shortly after, one of our fellow marchers explained that we were with the ‘fabriles’, the factory workers, and the other part of the march were the ‘commerciantes’, the vendors, and that soon the two groups would meet again. These guys certainly knew how to make sure they take over the town.

People here know how to march. They march in blocks, some orderly, some less so, identifying themselves through dress, colour and large banners and chants, some in traditional dress, some in their uniforms. Some groups walking in lines of single files, some in rows. It turned out that we had initially joined the crowd in front of the coke-a-cola union workers, all carrying coke bottles, and large branded banners, demanding more pay. I’m not sure this was coke’s favoured advertising strategy. But, it must be said, that red coke workers block, each with their small plastic bottles of coke, certainly wasn’t as dramatic as the miners union just a bit further down the road, who bought their section of the march to life by periodically exploding dynamite. Rather different to the samba bands I’m more used to at home, but certainly one way to get attention. ‘One car less’ joked the man next to us. Fortunately, it was a joke.

As we marched onwards, the main concern of this year’s Labour Day became clear. The workers were protesting about the governments proposed pay increase for people on the minimum wage, the wage received by most of the people on the march. This year the proposed increase was only 5 percent. In the last few years the rise had been more, like seven, eight of nine percent. But costs were rising, and people were still struggling. The average wage of just 675 Bolivianos; about £67. The strength of feeling became clear as we walked past the building of the ‘Ministerio Del Trabajo’, the Labour Ministry, to see paint bombs being hurled against the walls, spatterings of red paint just missing us as bursts of red smashed against the walls, greeted by cheers from the other marchers. The leaders of the factory workers unions, someone explained, had been on hunger strike now for ten days now. These are a people who wont give up until they feel justice is reached.

Kirsty Wright, WDM climate justice campaigner

To the 'people of the world' gathered in Cochabamba, its becoming increasingly clear that climate change is not just an environmental issue but a matter of justice. This week, hearing the testimonies of people from across the world where the impacts of climate change are already pervading into daily reality, has been incredibly powerful. But climate justice is not just about the impacts of climate change, but also impacts from the causes of climate change; the deforestation that destroys the way of life for forest peoples, extraction of fossil fuels, all too often being pushed through the neo-liberal policies of institutions like the World Bank, and mined by transnational corporations, with no concern for the impacts of local people. Even many of the solutions being proposed and implemented are pushing people into displacement and deeper poverty. As I heard one African speaker said today, “As long as they keep pushing false solutions, the climate debt continues to increase.”

This morning I saw Naomi Klein speak about climate debt. She referred to what she called the ‘Kumbaya effect’, “the kind of environmentalism that erases difference and claims that everyone will be effected by climate change in the same way, ‘We’re all in this together. We all have grandchildren, we all have to just hold hands and save this fragile blue planet’” she mimicked. “On one level it’s absolutely true…we are all effected by climate change. But we’re not all affected in the same way or on the same timeframe.” in Bolivia she pointed out, climate change is not perceived as something happening in the future in the same way that its perceived in the north, but something that’s happening now, in real time as crops fail and glaciers that provide much of the countries drinking water irreversibly melts away before their eyes.

Governments from the rich world, with the resources to be able to do so, are already putting in place measures to secure resources for the future. Competing for energy and water security, fortressing their continents, patenting GMO seeds supposedly able to cope with more extreme weather. These are not being fought over so fiercely by coincidence. These same issues have been under discussion in Cochambamba over the past few days, in self organised workshops and panel discussions, as well as being thrashed out in detail by working groups made up of representatives of civil society, to create texts that the Bolivian governments will be submitting into the UN process on climate change later this year.

It is clear that rich governments are not concerned by climate change in the same way as people in the global south. Not only do they have the resources to cope, but neither have they had to undergo the same structural adjustment programmes that have reduced capacity to ensure people’s basic needs can be maintained as has happened in the global south. “We need to bring the reality home”, Naomi Klein called to people from the north. “At its most basic level, climate change is about reframing environmentalism as not just being about polar bears but about being the most pressing human rights issue of our time and, fundamentally, being about inequality. We have to find a way to tackle climate change that does not exacerbate inequality” This is where climate debt comes in. As a speaker from Nigeria said today, “Climate debt is not just a financial matter. We are talking about righting historical wrongs.”

Kirsty Wright, WDM Climate Justice Campaigner

Arriving in a new country is often a total sensory overload: sights, sounds, smells. And then, as you quickly get used to it, things that had once, not long before, seemed so different and fascinating fast become so normal you barely even notice them. With this in mind, having just arrived in Bolivia this evening, I thought I’d try to capture some of my feelings and thoughts.

Bolivia is a country that has long fascinated me, and I’m excited to be here. There’s a sense in the air of something exciting coming together, people from so many diverse backgrounds and experiences meeting to discuss where next for the global climate justice movement in a way that brings the people who should be at the heart of the discussions back into the picture. If this happens as intended, it will be quite the opposite of my experience at the flawed UN climate talks in Copenhagen when, by the end of the two week negotiations, the majority of civil society delegations were literally locked out of the proceedings, and even most southern government country delegations weren’t able to enter the room where the Copenhagen Accord was being negotiations.

On my way to Cochabamba I bumped into Isabel who I met in Copenhagen. Isabel works in Jakarta with the global peasant’s movement, La Via Campesina. She told me that along with the 20 peasant leaders from around the world that she had know were coming, she’s just found out that there’ll be at least another 600 people from the Latin American organisations of the La Via Campesina movement alone arriving over the next few days. A feat of coordination that makes my own trip seem quite straightforward in comparison. It’s quite amazing to feel the sense of momentum building up around the people’s conference.

Bolivia is the poorest country in Latin America. But in many ways, looking around, that seems a strangely loaded statement. There is, after all, a lot more to a rich life than money. After checking into my hostel I went to get some water, dehydrated after travelling for nearly 24 hours. Wandering through the colourful streets, the people are friendly, smiling. Cochabamba’s Plaza 14 Septembre, the city’s central square, is full of lush trees and the heavy smell of freshly cooking meat wafts by from the street food stalls. Murals of western brands painted onto the walls are slowly peeling away. Walking up to the streets pirated DVDs are laid out on cloths, ladies in traditional Bolivian dress are selling fresh popcorn and people are gathered, standing and giggling, in the square surrounding a story teller who was pretending to be sick in his hat as I walked past.

Cochabamba is particularly a place of fascination for me, the location of the water wars back in 2000, an amazing struggle of David and Goliath type proportions, that has been an inspiration to people across the world. Here, the people of Cochabamba rose up against the World Bank inspired privatisation of the water industry, a move that meant price hikes of over 50 percent in a matter of weeks. Their actions forced the newly arrived water company, Bechtel, out of town. This was ten years ago now, and this weekend there will be celebrations taking place across the town to mark the occasion. It’s stories like this, along with the spirit of the Cochabambinos, that make this the kind of place where you can feel that change is not only possible, but that, just maybe, its already on its way.