RA 10771 - Philippine Green Jobs Act of 2016

From: http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2016/04/29/republic-act-no-10771/

Republic Act 10771

Philippine Green Jobs Act of 2016

April 29, 2016

S. No. 3092

H. No. 6100

Republic of the Philippines
Congress of the Philippines
Metro Manila

Sixteenth Congress

Third Regular Session

Begun and held in Metro Manila, on Monday, the twenty-seventh day of July, two thousand fifteen.

[REPUBLIC ACT NO. 10771]

AN ACT PROMOTING THE CREATION OF GREEN JOBS, GRANTING INCENTIVES AND APPROPRIATING FUNDS THEREFOR

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled:

SECTION 1. Short Title. – This Act shall be known as the “Philippine Green Jobs Act of 2016”.

SEC. 2. Declaration of Policy. – It is the declared policy of the State to:

(a) Affirm labor as a primary social economic force in promoting sustainable development;

(b) Afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full and productive employment and equality of employment opportunities for all; and

(c) Promote the rights of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature.

The State shall identify needed skills, develop training programs, and train and certify workers for jobs in a range of industries that produce goods and render services for the benefit of the environment, conserve natural resources for the future generation, and ensure the sustainable development of the country and its transition into a green economy. In recognition of the participation of individuals and business enterprises in jobs creation, the State shall provide incentives therefor.

SEC. 3. Coverage. – This Act shall apply to all business enterprises unless otherwise provided herein.

SEC. 4. Definition of Terms. – As used in this Act:

(a) Business enterprises refer to establishments engaged in the production, manufacturing, processing, repacking, assembly, or sale of goods and/or services, including service-oriented enterprises. It shall include self-employed or own-account workers, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and community-based business enterprises;

(b) Climate change refers to a change in climate that can be identified by changes in the mean or variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period typically decades or longer, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity;

(c) Green jobs refer to employment that contributes to preserving or restoring the quality of the environment, be it in the agriculture, industry or services sector. Specifically, but not exclusively, this include jobs that help to protect ecosystems and biodiversity, reduce energy, materials and water consumption through high efficiency strategies, decarbonize the economy, and minimize or altogether avoid generation of all forms of waste and pollution. Green jobs are decent jobs that are productive, respect the rights of workers, deliver a fair income, provide security in the workplace and social protection for families, and promote social dialogue.

(d) Green economy refers to one which is low-carbon and resource-efficient, and results in the generation of green jobs and in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities;

(e) Green goods and services refer to goods and services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources, and may include research and development, installation and maintenance services;

(f) Green technologies refer to the development and application of products, equipment and systems used to conserve the environment and natural resources; and

(g) Sustainable development refers to development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.

SEC. 5. Incentives. – For the purpose of encouraging business enterprises to generate and sustain green jobs as certified by the Climate Change Commission, as provided in Section 6(o) hereof, business enterprises shall enjoy the following incentives:

(a) Special deduction from the taxable income equivalent to fifty percent (50%) of the total expenses for skills training and research development expenses which is over and above the allowable ordinary and necessary business deductions for said expenses under the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, as amended; and

(b) Tax and duty free importation of capital equipment: Provided, That the capital equipment is actually, directly and exclusively used in the promotion of green jobs of the business enterprise.

Incentives that will be granted under this Act shall be in addition to fiscal and non-fiscal incentives already granted or provided under existing laws, orders, issuances and regulations. Nothing in this Act shall be interpreted or construed to diminish or limit, in whatever manner, the incentives granted or provided under existing laws, orders, issuances and regulations which shall include, but not limited to, Republic Act No. 10121 or the “Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010”; Republic Act No. 10068 or the “Organic Agriculture Act of 2010”; Republic Act No. 9513 or the “Renewable Energy Act of 2008”; Republic Act No. 9367 or the “Biofuels Act of 2006”; Republic Act No. 9275 or the “Philippine Clean Water Act of 2004”; Republic Act No. 9003 or the “Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000”; Republic Act No. 8749 or the “Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999”; and Republic Act No. 8550 or the “Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998”.

SEC. 6. Role of Agencies. –

(a) The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) shall, in coordination with other government agencies, formulate a National Green Jobs Human Resource Development Plan on the development, enhancement and utilization of the labor force, both in the private and public sectors. The plan shall have the primary objective of enabling and sustaining the transition into a green economy and the generation of green jobs towards more employment and equal opportunities and the promotion of social justice and workers’ welfare. It shall include programs, projects, and activities pertaining to basic, higher and technical-vocational education and training, database that identifies and links green job opportunities with private and public entities, and information on knowledge and skill requirements of a green economy.

The DOLE, in coordination with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), shall also maintain a database of green careers, professions and skills, as well as a list of emerging business enterprises, which generate and sustain green jobs. It shall facilitate skills training assessment and certification, career advocacy, provide productivity and livelihood training, and extend technical assistance to enterprises to ensure labor law compliance.

(b) The Department of Finance (DOF) shall administer the grant of incentives as discussed in Section 5 of this Act to qualified individuals and business enterprises engaged in registered strategic activities, and shall maintain a database on the same.

(c) The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) shall establish and maintain a climate change information management system and network as reference in the formulation of strategies and approaches to develop potential green jobs.

(d) The Department of Education (DepED) shall implement faculty, facility and curriculum development for primary and secondary education in support of the knowledge and skills requirement of a green economy.

(e) The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) shall develop and implement curriculum and related standards and instructional materials in support of the green economy.

(f) The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) shall formulate the necessary training regulations for the implementation of skills training, program registration and assessment and certification in support of the requirements for skilled manpower of the green economy.

(g) The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) shall ensure the mainstreaming of green jobs concern in development plans.

(h) The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) shall develop a special business facilitation program for individuals and business enterprises that create green jobs.

(i) The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) shall encourage the development of qualifications framework that can facilitate the recognition of knowledge, skills, and competencies of professionals working in the green economy.

(j) The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) shall, together with the TESDA, assist the DOLE in analyzing skills, training and re-training needs in relation to the use of green technology that has the potential to create new green occupations and greener jobs, especially in industries or sectors undergoing structural changes due to climate change and greening of the economy. It shall also provide a range of business development support to MSMEs. These may include prototyping or modeling of technologies, conducting assessment to match technological needs and demands, subcontracting business to develop clean technologies, providing technical written guides, procedures as well as instructions and training on clean technology for business.

(k) The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) shall ensure the mainstreaming of green jobs concern in its sectoral development plan and encourage more investments in public transport infrastructure and services to optimize the potential of public transport to foster green growth and job creation. It shall also explore strategies of shifting to more environmentally friendly modes of transport and improving the efficiency of all modes of transportation.

(l) The Department of Tourism (DOT) shall outline sustainable tourism planning and integrated approach for the promotion of job rich sustainable tourism industry.

(m) The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) shall develop and implement programs that promote the importance of green building practices in safeguarding the environment and its role in sustainable economic development.

(n) Any provision in their respective charters to the contrary notwithstanding, government financial institutions (GFIs) shall, in consultation with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), provide preferential financial packages to business enterprises that create green jobs.

(o) The Climate Change Commission (CCC), in consultation with concerned agencies, such as the DENR, the DTI, the DOLE, the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Department of Energy. (DOE), the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), and the DOST, shall develop and administer appropriate standards for the assessment and certification of green goods and services, and green technologies and practices for the purpose of regulating the availment of incentives and ensuring green jobs content pursuant to the National Green Jobs Human Resource Development Plan as provided in Section 6(a) hereof.

SEC. 7. Role of the Secretary of Labor and Employment. – The Secretary of Labor and Employment shall be included as an additional member of the Climate Change Commission constituted under Section 5 of Republic Act No. 9729, as amended or the “Climate Change Act of 2009”.

SEC. 8. Appropriations. – The amount necessary to carry out the operation of this Act shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Act.

SEC. 9. Implementing Rules and Regulations. – Within one hundred eighty (180) days from the effectivity of this Act, the Secretary of Labor and Employment, in coordination with concerned agencies as may be deemed necessary, shall formulate the necessary rules and regulations to implement the provisions of this Act.

SEC. 10. Separability Clause. – Should any provision of this Act be declared unconstitutional, the remainder thereof not otherwise affected shall remain in full force and effect.

SEC. 11. Repealing Clause. – Section 5 of Republic Act No. 9729, as amended or the “Climate Change Act of 2009”, is deemed amended or modified by Section 7 of this Act. All other existing laws, presidential decrees, executive orders, proclamations or administrative regulations that are inconsistent with the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed, amended or modified accordingly.

SEC. 12. Effectivity. – This Act shall take effect fifteen (15) days following the completion of its publication in the Official Gazette or in two (2) newspapers of general circulation.

Approved,

(Sgd.) FELICIANO BELMONTE JR.
Speaker of the House
of Representatives

(Sgd.) FRANKLIN M. DRILON

President of the Senate

Senate Bill No. 3092, which was approved by the Senate on February 1, 2016, was adopted as an amendment to House Bill No. 6100 by the House of Representatives on February 2, 2016.

(Sgd.) MARILYN B. BARUA-YAP
Secretary General
House of Representatives

(Sgd.) OSCAR G. YABES

Secretary of the Senate

Approved: APR 29 2016

 (Sgd.) BENIGNO S. AQUINO III

Four laws of ecology versus 4 anti-ecological laws of capitalism

Please read the explanation at:

http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/04/02/four-laws/

MARXIST ECOLOGY

The four laws of ecology and the four anti-ecological laws of capitalism

Posted on April 2, 2012

by John Bellamy Foster

Climate & Capitalism is pleased to publish, with permission from John Bellamy Foster and Monthly Review Press, this excerpt from Chapter 6 of The Vulnerable Planet.

In the first part of the chapter, Foster discusses the “qualitative transformation in the level of human destructiveness” that characterized capitalist production after World War II. This transformation included massive increases in the use of synthetics that could not be readily reabsorbed by nature, accompanied by a radical expansion in the use of all forms of energy, particularly fossil fuels. These changes in the patterns of production, he writes, are “the chief reason for the rapid acceleration of the ecological crisis in the postwar period.”

In the rest of the chapter, published here, he discusses the factors that underlie capitalism’s ever-growing conflict with nature.

+++++++++++++++

Four laws of ecology

In order to understand the ecological impact of these trends, it is useful to look at what Barry Commoner and others have referred to as the four informal laws of ecology:

1. Everything is connected to everything else,

2. Everything must go somewhere,

3. Nature knows best, and

4. Nothing comes from nothing.

The first of these informal laws, everything is connected to everything else, indicates how ecosystems are complex and interconnected. This complexity and interconnectedness, Haila and Levins write, “is not like that of the individual organism whose various organs have evolved and have been selected on the criterion of their contribution to the survival and fecundity of the whole.” Nature is far more complex and variable and considerably more resilient than the metaphor of the evolution of an individual organism suggests. An ecosystem can lose species and undergo significant transformations without collapsing. Yet the interconnectedness of nature also means that ecological systems can experience sudden, startling catastrophes if placed under extreme stress. “The system,” Commoner writes, “is stabilized by its dynamic self-compensating properties; these same properties, if overstressed, can lead to a dramatic collapse.” Further, “the ecological system is an amplifier, so that a small perturbation in one place may have large, distant, long-delayed effects elsewhere.”[1]

The second law of ecology, everything must go somewhere, restates a basic law of thermodynamics: in nature there is no final waste, matter and energy are preserved, and the waste produced in one ecological process is recycled in another. For instance, a downed tree or log in an old-growth forest is a source of life for numerous species and an essential part of the ecosystem. Likewise, animals excrete carbon dioxide to the air and organic compounds to the soil, which help to sustain plants upon which animals will feed.

Nature knows best, the third informal law of ecology, Commoner writes, “holds that any major man-made change in a natural system is likely to be detrimental to that system.” During 5 billion years of evolution, living things developed an array of substances and reactions that together constitute the living biosphere. The modern petrochemical industry, however, suddenly created thousands of new substances that did not exist in nature. Based on the same basic patterns of carbon chemistry as natural compounds, these new substances enter readily into existing biochemical processes. But they do so in ways that are frequently destructive to life, leading to mutations, cancer, and many different forms of death and disease. “The absence of a particular substance from nature,” Commoner writes, “is often a sign that it is incompatible with the chemistry of life.”[2]

Nothing comes from nothing, the fourth informal law of ecology, expresses the fact that the exploitation of nature always carries an ecological cost. From a strict ecological standpoint, human beings are consumers more than they are producers. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that in the very process of using energy, human beings “use up” (but do not destroy) energy, in the sense that they transform it into forms that are no longer available for work. In the case of an automobile, for example, the high-grade chemical energy stored in the gasoline that fuels the car is available for useful work while the lower grade thermal energy in the automobile exhaust is not. In any transformation of energy, some of it is always degraded in this way. The ecological costs of production are therefore significant.[3]

Four laws of capitalism

Viewed against the backdrop offered by these four informal laws, the dominant pattern of capitalist development is clearly counter-ecological. Indeed, much of what characterizes capitalism as an ecohistorical system can be reduced to the following counter-ecological tendencies of the system:

1. The only lasting connection between things is the cash nexus;

2. It doesn’t matter where something goes as long as it doesn’t reenter the circuit of capital;

3. The self-regulating market knows best; and

4. Nature’s bounty is a free gift to the property owner.

The first of these counterecological tendencies, the only lasting connection between things is the cash nexus, expresses the fact that under capitalism all social relations between people and all the relationships of humans to nature are reduced to mere money relations. The disconnection of natural processes from each other and their extreme simplification is an inherent tendency of capitalist development. As Donald Worster explains,

“Despite many variations in time and place, the capitalistic agroecosystem shows one clear tendency over the span of modern history: a movement toward the radical simplification of the natural ecological order in the number of species found in an area and the intricacy of their interconnections…. In today’s parlance we call this new kind of agroecosystem a monoculture, meaning a part of nature that has been reconstituted to the point that it yields a single species, which is growing on the land only because somewhere there is a strong market demand for it.”[4]

The kind of reductionism characteristic of “commercial capitalism,” Indian physicist and ecologist Vandana Shiva states, “is based on specialized commodity production. Uniformity in production, and the unifunctional use of natural resources, is therefore required.” For example, although it is possible to ‘use rivers ecologically and sustainably in accordance with human needs, the giant river valley projects associated with the construction of today’s dams “work against, and not with, the logic of the river. These projects are based on reductionist assumptions [of uniformity, separability, and unifunctionality] which relate water use not to nature’s processes but to the processes of revenue and profit generation.”[5]

All of this is reflects the fact that cash nexus has become the sole connection between human beings and nature. With the development of the capitalist division of nature, the elements of nature are reduced to one common denominator (or bottom line): exchange value. In this respect it does not matter whether one’s product is coffee, furs, petroleum, or parrot feathers, as long as there is a market.[6]

The second ecological contradiction of the system, it doesn’t matter where something goes unless it re-enters the circuit of capital, reflects the fact that economic production under contemporary capitalist conditions is not truly a circular system (as in nature) but a linear one, running from sources to sinks-sinks that are now overflowing. The “no deposit/no return” analogue, the great ecological economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen has observed, “befits the businessman’s view of economic life.” The pollution caused by production is treated as an “externality” that is not part of the costs to the firm.[7]

In precapitalist societies, much of the waste from agricultural production was recycled in close accordance with ecological laws. In a developed capitalist society, in contrast, recycling is extremely difficult because of the degree of division of nature. For instance, cattle are removed from pasture and raised in feedlots; their natural waste, rather than fertilizing the soil, becomes a serious form of pollution. Or, to take another example, plastics, which have increasingly replaced wood, steel, and other materials, are not biodegradable. In the present-day economy, Commoner writes, “goods are converted, linearly, into waste: crops into sewage; uranium into radioactive residues; petroleum and chlorine into dioxin; fossil fuels into carbon dioxide…. The end of the line is always waste, an assault on the cyclical processes that sustain the ecosphere.”[8]

It is not the ecological principle that nature knows best but rather the counter-ecological principle that the self-regulating market knows best that increasingly governs all life under capitalism. For example, food is no longer viewed chiefly as a form of nutrition but as a means of earning profits, so that nutritional value is sacrificed for bulk. Intensive applications of nitrogen fertilizer unbalance the mineral composition of the soil, which in turn affects the mineral content of the vegetables grown on it. Transport and storage requirements take precedence over food quality. And in order to market agricultural produce effectively, pesticides are sometimes used simply to protect the appearance of the produce. In the end, the quality of food is debased, birds and other species are killed, and human beings are poisoned.[9]

Nature’s bounty is a free gift to the property owner, the fourth counter-ecological tendency of capitalism, expresses the fact that the ecological costs associated with the appropriation of natural resources and energy are rarely factored into the economic equation. Classical liberal economics, Marx argued, saw nature as a “gratuitous” gain for capital. Nowhere in establishment economic models does one find an adequate accounting of nature’s contribution. “Capitalism,” as the great environmental economist K. William Kapp contended, “must be regarded as an economy of unpaid costs, ‘unpaid’ in so far as a substantial portion of the actual costs of production remain unaccounted for in entrepreneurial outlays; instead they are shifted to, and ultimately borne by, third persons or by the community as a whole.” For example, the air pollution caused by a factory is not treated as a cost of production internal to that factory. Rather it is viewed as an external cost to be borne by nature and society. [10]

By failing to place any real value on natural wealth, capitalism maximizes the throughput of raw materials and energy because the greater this flow-from extraction through the delivery of the final product to the consumer-the greater the chance of generating profits. And by selectively focusing on minimizing labor inputs, the system promotes energy-using and capital-intensive high technologies. All of this translates into faster depletion of nonrenewable resources and more wastes dumped into the environment. For instance, since World War II, plastics have increasingly displaced leather in the production of such items as purses and shoes. To produce the same value of output, the plastics industry uses only about a quarter of the amount, of labor used by leather manufacture, but it uses ten times as much capital and thirty times as much energy. The substitution of plastics for leather in the production of these items has therefore meant less demand for labor, more demand for capital and energy, and greater environmental pollution.[11]

The power of profit

The foregoing contradictions between ecology and the economy can all be reduced to the fact that the profit-making relation has become to a startling degree the sole connection between human beings and between human beings and nature.

This means that while we can envision more sustainable forms of technology that would solve much of the environmental problem, the development and implementation of these technologies is blocked by the mode of production-by capitalism and capitalists. Large corporations make the major decisions about the technology we use, and the sole lens that they consider in arriving at their decisions is profitability.

In explaining why Detroit automakers prefer to make large, gas-guzzling cars, Henry Ford II stated simply “minicars make miniprofits.” The same point was made more explicitly by John Z. DeLorean, a former General Motors executive, who stated, “When we should have been planning switches to smaller, more fuel-efficient, lighter cars in the late 1960s in response to growing demand in the marketplace, GM management refused because ‘we make more money on big cars.'”[12]

Underlying the general counter-ecological approach to production depicted here is the question of growth. An exponential growth dynamic is inherent in capitalism, a system whereby money is exchanged for commodities, which are then exchanged for more money on an ever increasing scale.

“As economists from Adam Smith and Marx through Keynes have pointed out,” Robert Heilbroner has observed, “a ‘stationary’ capitalism is subject to a falling rate of profit as the investment opportunities of the system are used up. Hence, in the absence of an expansionary frontier, the investment drive slows down and a deflationary spiral of incomes and employment begins.”

What this means is that capitalism cannot exist without constantly expanding the scale of production: any interruption in this process will take the form of an economic crisis. Yet in the late twentieth century there is every reason to believe that the kind of rapid economic growth that the system has demanded in order to sustain its very existence is no longer ecologically sustainable.[13]

From The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment. Monthly Review Press, 1999. Published with permission from the author and publisher.

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review. His recent books include The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet and (with Fred Magdoff) What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism.

Notes

[1] Commoner, The Closing Circle, pp. 29-42; Edberg and Yablokov, Tomorrow Will Be Too Late, p. 89; Haila and Levins, Humanity and Nature, pp. 5-6. Although Commoner refers to the fourth law as “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” the Russian scientist Yablokov has translated this more generally as “nothing comes from nothing.”

[2] Commoner, Closing Circle, pp. 37-41; and Making Peace with the Planet, pp. 11-13. Commoner’s third law should not be taken too literally. As Haila and Levins write, “The conception that ‘nature knows best’ is relativized by the contingency of evolution.” Haila and Levins, Humanity and Nature, p.6.

[3] Ibid., pp. 14-15; Herman E. Daly and Kenneth Townsend, eds., Valuing the Earth (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), pp. 69-73.

[4] Donald Worster, The Wealth of Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 58-59.

[5] Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive (London: Zed Books, 1989), pp. 23-24, 186.

[6] Haila and Levins, Humanity and Nature, p. 201.

[7] Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 2.

[8] Commoner, Making Peace, pp. 10-11.

[9] Haila and Levins, Humanity and Nature, p. 160.

[10] Georgescu-Roegen, Entropy Law, p. 2; K. William Kapp, The Social Costs of Private Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 231.

[11] Chandler Morse, “Environment, Economics and Socialism,” Monthly Review no. 11 (April 1979): 12; Commoner, Making Peace, pp. 82-83; and The Poverty of Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), p. 194.

[12] Ford and DeLorean quoted in Commoner, Making Peace, pp. 80-81.

[13] Robert Heilbroner, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect (New York: W.W. Norton, 1980), p. 100.

Justice for Gloria Capitan! Stop the Killing of Climate Justice Activists!

JUSTICE FOR GLORIA CAPITAN! STOP THE KILLING OF CLIMATE JUSTICE ACTIVISTS!

We condemn the killing of Gloria Capitan, Filipino woman  leader-activist of KILUSAN, a member organization of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice. Ate Glo, as she is called by people close to her, was shot by motorcycle-riding gunmen last July 1.  She was 57 years old, a mother and a grandmother.

Ate Glo was very active in the fight against coal and led in a series of mass actions and petitions calling for a permanent closure of a coal stockpile in their village.

If this is an attempt to silence other anti-coal activists like her, then they are mistaken. On the ground where Ate Glo's body fell, where the blood from her body flowed, more anti-coal and climate justice activists will sprout.

We are activists and movements from all corners of the world.  Ate Glo’s sacrifice only further strengthens  our  solidarity and our conviction that this evil menace which is coal must end.  We will persevere in this fight and see to it that our children and the children of our children will be free from coal.

We join the clamor for the Philippine government to immediately launch a thorough investigation of her killing and bring the perpetrators  to justice.

SIGNED :

Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ)
Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD)
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM)
Freedom From Debt Coalition (FDC)
Sanlakas
Our Rivers Our Life Philippines (OROL)
Gitib Mindinao
Bukluran ng Manggawang Pilipino (BMP)
Kongreso ng Pagkakaisa ng Maralitang Lungsod (KPML)
Youth for Climate Justice Pilipinas (Y4CJ)
Koalisyon Pabahay Pilipinas (KPP)
Makabayan Pilipinas
Kalayaan Pilipinas
Green Convergence for Safe Food, Healthy Environment and Sustainable Economy
Bishop Broderick Pabillo
RECON Phils.
FPE-Mindanao Regional Unit
The Climate Reality Project Philippines
Ecological Society of the Philippines
Germelino M. Bautista
Greenresearch
FR. JOEL TABORA, S.J.
PROMISI
UNLAD
SASFA
Tess Tabada
Focus on the Global South
Aniban ng Mangagawa sa Agrikultura (AMA)
Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM)
No Nukes Asia Forum
Pambansang Koalisyon ng Kababaihan sa Kanayunan (PKKK)
FDC-Western Mindanao Region
PALAG Mindanao
PMCJ-Western Mindanao Chapter
Sanlakas Misamis Occidental
APL Youth-SENTRO
Tambuyog Development Center
Philippine Human Rights Information Center (PHILRIGHTS)
Center for Energy, Ecology and Development (CEED)
Socsargen Cared
World March of Women - Pilipinas and Coalition Against Trafficking in Women - Asia Pacific (CATW-AP)
Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (SENTRO)
Citizens' Environment Network (CEN).

Hustisya para kay Ate Glo Capitan!

HUSTISYA PARA KAY ATE GLO CAPITAN!

ni Gregorio V. Bituin Jr.

15 pantig bawat taludtod

nabasa ko ang balita, di ko siya kilala

ngunit nakaliligalig ang nangyari sa kanya

aktibo siyang kumilos para sa climate justice

coal stockpile sa lugar nila'y nais mapaalis

coal ay batid niyang isa sa mga pangunahing

malaking nakaambag sa pangkalikasang krimen

hustisya sa klima ang mayor nilang panawagan

hustisyang pangklima ang adhika nilang makamtan

hangarin ng pagkilos na pinangunahan niya

coal stockpile malapit sa nayon nila'y masara

marangal na adhika para sa kinabukasan

ng nayon nila, ng madla, para sa kalikasan

limampu't pito ang edad, walang awang binaril

ngunit sa kanyang adhika'y walang makapipigil

sa kinabagsakang lupang binahiran ng dugo

tiyak maraming susulpot na tulad ni Ate Glo

magpapatuloy ang laban sa coal, magpapatuloy

at kaisa akong ang laban niya'y itutuloy

ang hiyaw ngayon nitong aming diwa't kalooban

hustisya! hustisya para kay Ate Glo Capitan!

(ang tula ay batay sa ulat ng Philippine Movement for Climate Justice)

FILIPINA ANTI COAL ACTIVIST KILLED. Her name is Gloria Capitan, Ate Glo to people close to her. She was a very nice person, always with a smile. At 57 years old she was very active in the fight against coal, and led their village last year in a series of mass actions and petitions calling for a permanent closure of a coal stockpile near their village. Her life was cut short last night, July 1, by a bullet from motorcycle-riding gunmen. If this is an attempt to silence other anti-coal activists like her, then they are mistaken. On the ground where Ate Glo's body fell, where the blood from her body flowed, more anti-coal activists will sprout. Instead of silencing us, it will only strengthen our conviction that this evil menace which is coal must end. And we will persevere in this fight and see to it that our children and the children of our children will be free from it. ~ Philippine Movement for Climate Justice

June 5 is World Environment Day

Participants with Al Gore in Manila

Mga upos sa pasô

Pagsasanay sa Climate Reality ngayong Marso 14-16, 2016

PAGSASANAY SA CLIMATE REALITY NGAYONG MARSO 14-16, 2016

ni Gregorio V. Bituin Jr.

Ilang taon na rin akong inimbita para mag-training sa Climate Reality Project with Al Gore. Ang problema ko noon ay sa ibang bansa gaganapin at kailangan ng malaking halaga para sa spnsorship. Libre ang training, ngunit bahala ka sa gastos sa eroplano mo at hotel booking. Hindi kaya ng bulsa ko ang gastusin.

Ngayong 2016, gaganapin na ito sa Maynila sa Marso 14-16. Kaya agad akong nagpasa ng application form at nagbakasakaling isa sa mga mabigyan ng pagkakataong makapag-training kay Al Gore. Libre ang training at di na magastos dahil Maynila lang ito, malapit sa CCP Complex. Mas maliit ang gastos kumpara sa libreng training sa ibang bansa. Di ko na rin kailangang mag-hotel booking dahil di na ako sa hotel tutuloy kundi sa bahay ng nanay ko sa Maynila.

Ang kalaban ko lang dito sa atin ay traffic. Kaya matulog ng maaga, ayusin ang alarm clock, agahan ang gising at pagkilos upang makarating ng on time sa training.

Maraming salamat at natanggap ako bilang isa sa mga magte-training kay Al Gore. Una kong narinig na sinabi niyang ilulunsad ang next training ng Climate Reality Project sa Marso 2016 dito sa Pilipinas nang makadaupang-palad namin siya sa Green Zone ng COP 21 sa Paris nitong Disyembre 2015, kasama ang iba pang mga naglakad sa climate pilgrimage.

Sa muli, maraming salamat sa pagkakataong ito na ibinigay sa inyong lingkod.

Nuong nakaraang Enero nang ako ay mag-apply sa training na ito ay nakasulat sa application form kung ano ang sampung gagawin ko matapos ang tatlong araw na training na ito. At ito ang aking isinagot:

1. Organize a climate event on April 22 (International Earth Day), June 5 (World Environment Day), and other days relating to the climate and the environment)

2. Write an article, whether it be news article, features and essay, about the climate.

3. Interview people and conducting researches on areas devastated by climate change in the Philippines.

4. Write a blog about climate and sharing it to social media.

5. Research certain laws on climate, form a group to review and analyze it, and then give a suggestion on congress and senate.

6. Give a talk on climate forum in schools, offices, and communities.

7. Organize mass mobilizations for the issue of climate justice.

8. Write a poem twice a week about the issue of climate.

9. Talk with village chieftains in the rural areas about the issue of climate change.

10. Publish a book of poems, stories, and essays, regarding climate.

Ang sampung ito ang ipinangako kong aking gagawin matapos ang training. Kaya pagbubutihan ko ang pag-aaral na ito, dahil bihira ang pagkakataong ibinigay na ito, at masarap sa pakiramdam na isa ako sa nabigyan ng bihirang pagkakataong ito. Kaya maraming, maraming salamat sa lahat ng mga sumuporta upang isa ako sa matanggap na mag-training sa Climate Reality Project with Al Gore.

Tinanong din ako ako sa application form kung anu-ano ang mga samahang ire-representa ko sa Climate Reality Project, at ito ang mga inilagay ko. Isinulat ko muna ay Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ). Akala ko, sapat na iyon. Nagtanong uli kung ano pa. Isinulat ko naman ay Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP). Enter sa computer. Ano pa raw organisasyon. Kaya inilagay ko naman ay SANLAKAS. Enter uli sa computer. Akala ko, marami pang itatanong na org, pero hanggang tatlo lang. Kaya ang tatlong iyan ang nire-represent ko sa training ng Climate Reality Project ngayong Marso. Para kumpleto, nagpasa rin ako ng aking litrato at resume.

Maraming salamat sa mga kasama sa PMCJ, Climate Walk from Manila to Tacloban (2014), People's Pilgrimage from Rome to Paris (2015), Jubilee South - Asia-Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JS-APMDD), SANLAKAS, BMP, Kongreso ng Pagkakaisa ng mga Maralita ng Lungsod (KPML), Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM), Zone One Tondo Organization (ZOTO), Alyansa ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (AMA),  Metro Manila Vendors Alliance (MMVA), at sa itinayo kong grupong pampanitikan na Maso at Panitik, sa Green Collective, Green Convergence, Green Peace, Green Coalition, Diwang Lunti, Nuclear-Free Pilipinas, Consumer Rights for Safe Food (CRSF), at marami pang iba.

Nawa'y malaki ang maitulong ng training na ito sa ating kampanya para sa climate justice. Tulad ng isinisigaw namin sa 1,000 km na Climate Walk noong 2014 mula Maynila hanggang Tacloban, "Climate Justice, Now!"

Kahit pitong bundok pa ang akyatin

Pagtahak sa anumang matarik na bundok

Pagtahak sa landas na makitid

Pagbati sa unang anibersaryo ng umpisa ng Climate Walk 2014, mula sa Kilometer Zero (Manila) hanggang Ground Zero (Tacloban), Oktubre 2, 2014 hanggang Nobyembre 8, 2014, ang unang anibersaryo ng daluyong at bagyong Yolanda.

Puno mang walang lilim

Tula sa Climate Pilgrimage

magkasama sa Climate Walk noon
hanggang sa Climate Pilgrimage ngayon
upang ipagpatuloy ang misyon
para sa Climate Justice na bisyon

magpapatuloy sa bawat hakbang
daanan man ay gubat at parang
ang matataas mang kabundukan
ang patag at magulong lansangan

pumarito na at paparoon
dala sa puso'y mabuting layon
dala sa diwa'y kamtin ang bisyon
dala sa paa'y tupdin ang misyon

danas man ay sakripisyo't luha
damhin ma'y malasakit at tuwa
tangan sa dibdib yaong adhika
para sa daigdig, kapwa't bansa

sadyang nagkakaisa ngang tunay
na itutuloy ang paglalakbay
ihahasik sa kapwa ang gabay
na Climate Justice na aming pakay

- gregbituinjr.

Laudato Si, naisalin na sa wikang Filipino

LAUDATO SI, NAISALIN NA SA WIKANG FILIPINO
ni Gregorio V. Bituin Jr.

Maraming salamat sa mga kasama sa Climate Walk. Nang dahil sa kanilang pagtitiwala sa kakayahan ng inyong lingkod ay pinagsikapan kong isalin sa wikang Filipino ang Laudato Si, ang bagong Ensikliko ni Pope Francis. Sa ngayon ay natapos na ang salin sa wikang Filipino ng Laudato Si. Ilang editing na lang at maaari nang ilathala.

Ang Climate Walk ay isang mahabang lakaran mula Kilometer Zero (Luneta) hanggang Ground Zero (Tacloban) na ginanap mula Oktubre 2, 2014 hanggang Nobyembre 8, 2014, ang unang anibersaryo ng matinding bagyong Yolanda.

Nitong Hunyo 18, 2015, naglakad ang ilang kasapi ng Climate Walk mula sa Kilometer Zero hanggang Simbahan sa Remedios Circle sa Malate, kasama na ang ilang parishioner nito. Nagkaroon ng programa sa loob ng simbahan hinggil sa Ensiklikong pinamagatang Laudato Si, o "Praise Be!" na isinulat ni Pope Francis. Ito'y sulatin ng Simbahan hinggil sa kalagayan ng ating mundo, tungkol sa kahirapan at di pagkakapantay-pantay sa daigdig, at anong dapat nating gawin sa nagbabagong klima, o climate change.

Matapos ang programa, napag-usapan ng ilang kasapi ng Climate walk kung gaano kahalaga ang nilalaman ng Laudato Si at dapat itong maipaunawa sa mamamayan. Kaya kinausap ako nina Rodne Galicha ng Climate Reality at Naderev "Yeb" Saño, dating Commissioner ng Climate Change Commission, na maisalin ito sa wikang Filipino, na agad kong sinang-ayunan. Isang malaking karangalan na sa akin ipinagkatiwala ang pagsasalin ng mahabang dokumentong iyon, na umaabot ng 246 na talata at 82 pahina sa pdf file. Kaya agad kong sinaliksik ang dokumentong iyon sa internet at ang-download ng pdf file, na siya kong isinalin.

Sinimulan ko ang pagsasalin noong Hunyo 24 at ginawan ko ito ng blog sa internet upang makita na ng mga kasama ang unti-unting pagsasalin ng Laudato Si. At natapos ko naman ang salin noong Setyembre 16, 2015. Kaya umabot ito ng higit sa dalawa't kalahating buwan. Makikita ito sa http://laudatosi-bersyongpinoy.blogspot.com/. Bawat araw ay isinasalin ko muna ang limang talata, at ina-upload. Kumbaga, isinisingit ko sa gabi, o sa libreng oras sa araw ang pagsasalin.

Kung nagsimula ako ng Hunyo 24, at limang talata kada araw, dapat matatapos ko ang 246 na talata ng Agosto 12, 2015. (246 talata divided by 5 equals = 49.2 o 50 days)  Ngunit dahil sa dami ng trabaho, at may isinasalin ding ibang dokumento, ay nabinbin din ang pagsasalin ng Laudato Si. Nais ko sanang matapos iyon nang maaga. Noong Hulyo ay nakapagsalin ako ng 50 talata, Hulyo ay 120 talata, Agosto ay 25 lamang, at Setyembre ay 51 talata.

Mahirap din ang magsalin, dahil kinakailangan mong hanapin ang angkop na salin at kahulugan ng salita, at kung mayroon ba itong katumbas sa wikang Filipino. Nakatulong ng malaki sa pagsasalin ang English-Tagalog Dictionary, ni Fr. Leo English, ang UP Diksyunaryong Filipino, at ang Wikipedia.

Sa Wikipedia ko nakita ang salin ng Holy See, o Banal na Sede. Nakita ko naman sa English-Tagalog Dictionary, ni Fr. Leo English, ang salin ng dam sa Filipino, at ito'y saplad. Sa pahina 175 ng UP Diksyunaryong Pilipino nakita ko naman ang angkop na salin ng biodiversity (bá-yo-day-vér-si-tí) na nangangahulugang pagkakaiba-iba ng mga haláman at hayop, at ito'y saribuhay. Sa Wikipedia ay nakita kong ang salin ng cereal ay angkak o sereales.

Bilang makata, mahalaga ang mga salin sa wikang Filipino upang magamit sa pagtula, at maipaunawa sa iba na hindi dapat laging ginagawang Kastila ang mga wikang Ingles pag isinasalin sa wikang Filipino. Ang community na isinasalin ng komunidad (na sa Kastila ay comunidad) ay may salin pala sa wikang Filipino, at pamayanan ang tamang salin ng community sa wikang Filipino.

May mahirap ding hanapan ng salin, tulad ng aquifer - akwiper na nasa talata 38. An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt) from which groundwater can be extracted using a water well. Hinanap ko ang katumbas nito sa UP Diksyunaryong Filipino at sa English-Tagalog Dictionary, ni Fr. Leo English, ngunit wala ito roon. Marahil may katumbas na salita ito sa wikang Filipino na alam ng mga mangingisda.

May salin din na tila hindi angkop, tulad ng salitang collateral sa talata 49 na ang salin ay ginarantiyahan, ayon sa English-Tagalog Dictionary, ni Fr. Leo English, p. 167. Kaya pag isinalin natin ang collateral damage, ito'y magiging ginarantiyahang pinsala, na palagay ko'y hindi talaga angkop. Dahil sa digmaan, ang sinumang sibilyang madamay sa digmaan, minsan ay itinuturing na collateral damage, o sa pagkaunawa agad, ito'y mga nadamay lang ngunit hindi dapat mamatay. Subalit pag isinalin mo na sa wikang Filipino, kung ang mga sibiliyang nadamay na iyon ay collateral damage, ibig sabihin ba, ginarantiyahan ang pinsala sa kanila? Hindi angkop.

Kaya mahalaga sa pagsasalin ang buong pag-unawa sa buong pangungusap at buong teksto upang hindi sumablay sa pagsasalin.

Gayunman, dadaan pa sa mas madugong editing ang natapos na salin upang matiyak na akma ang mga salin. Marami pang dapat gawin matapos ang buong pagsasalin, dahil bukod sa madugong editing ay ang pagdidisenyo nito bilang aklat at pagpapalathala.

Halina't tingnan ang salin ng Laudato Si sa:

http://laudatosi-bersyongpinoy.blogspot.com/.

Why we need a more explicitly anti-capitalist and feminist ‘climate justice’

Why we need a more explicitly anti-capitalist and feminist ‘climate justice’

Reflections for the First National Congress of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice 

By the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP)

We at the BMP join the PMCJ in celebrating our National Congress. In the spirit of comradely discussion, we would like to share our reflections on how to further advance our struggle:

Since its beginnings, PMCJ has contributed to the struggle for climate justice by challenging the taken-for-granted terms of the national and global debates on climate change. Against the dominant discourse which reduces the climate crisis into a narrow and technical “environmental” problem, having to do with finding the most “efficient” ways to reduce carbon emissions, PMCJ re-defined the crisis as a broader moral political and social problem, having to do with finding the most egalitarian ways to organize our societies. 

Thanks in part to the efforts of PMCJ and other climate activists around the world, we hold our Congress in the context of a changed political and ideological terrain: To put things schematically, reformists, or those state managers, business executives, foundation officials, moderate NGO activists and other dominant-class intellectuals from both developed and developing countries who seek to ‘solve’ global ecological problems by subjecting capitalism to “global management” and by providing limited concessions to dominated groups—have essentially capitulated to the conservatives, or those elites from all countries who oppose even their mild reformist measures, by conceding to non-binding reductions “pledges” and by offering “flexibility” through market-based schemes such carbon trading.

On the one hand, this combination of conservative intransigence and reformist acquiescence significantly bolsters the ability of businesses from both developed and developing countries to push for even weaker, more unjust “solutions” to the problem. On the other hand, however, this also significantly discredits the ruling classes and demonstrates their inability to provide moral and intellectual leadership in the face of this global crisis. The world’s elites are struggling to secure hegemony or popular support for the system—a situation that paradoxically creates more conducive conditions for more effective and more just, because more radical, solutions to the climate crisis. 

Redefining climate justice

In this context, we at BMP think PMCJ could better advance the struggle by further clarifying and sharpening our vision of climate justice: that is, by more explicitly linking it to questions of class, gender, and other social antagonisms, and by more unambiguously using it to challenge capitalism and the patriarchal and other forms of domination with which it combines and which it reinforces.

“Climate justice” is of course one of those intrinsically contested terms and even among PMCJ members or supporters there is perhaps no single uniform definition that commands universal agreement. But it is possible to discern a dominant definition by examining the content of our discourse and practice. For the most part, PMCJ seems to have been using a predominantly ‘nationalist’ definition of “climate justice”: i.e. that those ‘most responsible’ for climate change are the developed countries and that they are obliged to pay their ‘ecological debts’ to the developing countries. The term “developed countries” here has been ambiguous: it is understood by some as shorthand only for developed-country governments, elites and/or corporations, but certain texts or pronouncements indicate that they refer to the entire population living in developed countries. The latter is what is suggested, for example, in one formula that some advocate as a concrete way to determine how climate justice could be operationalized: the amount of emissions reductions and financial and other transfers that countries are obliged to contribute (or receive) are calculated using the total emissions of entire population of countries, without breaking down or differentiating these emissions by class or other categories. Hence, for example, the “climate debt” of the United States is computed by adding up the emissions made by say, the Kochs, a conservative billionaire family, with the emissions made by an African-American working-class family. 

From a certain perspective, we can see how this nationalist conception of climate justice could be justified: “developed countries” have indeed been seeking to evade their responsibility in the negotiations and holding them “responsible” is useful for fostering unity among “developing countries” seeking to resist them, as well as for broadening the PMCJ’s constituency domestically. It justifies and enables PMCJ efforts to form a “united front” with Filipino and other Third World elites, middle classes, or with more moderate individuals who could also potentially benefit from the financial, technology, and other transfers demanded from “developed countries.” 

But we at BMP have also become increasingly concerned about the dangers of this dominant definition—and the underlying strategy it may be associated with—and we hope to have a broader conversation about its implications on our efforts to affect the social balance of forces today.

The dangers of ‘climate justice’ 

First, we fear that, intentionally or not, such a definition obscures—or does not do enough to highlight—the issue of class and gender  “responsibility.” In suggesting that entire populations are responsible or blameless, aren’t we being constrained from highlighting the fact that it is the dominant groups of these populations in both developed and developing countries that have actually been disproportionately contributing the most to “their” country’s total emissions? Aren’t we failing to counter the problematic view that the nineteenth-century African slave is just as liable as the American billionaire for causing climate change because both happen to be “Americans” or that the Ayalas are just as “blameless” as their construction workers because both happen to be “Filipinos”? Aren’t we unwittingly reinforcing an understanding that may pave the way for a different kind of climate injustice: the African-American working-class mother being made to pay for the “excesses” of the male Filipino CEO who flies around the world using his private jet?

Second, we fear that thinking of climate justice in terms of countries or populations obscures the systemic causes of climate change because it does not do enough to counter the interpretation that we are suffering from the problem because the population of particular countries were just “too greedy” or excessively “consumerist”—rather than because a particular class in all countries have been driven to foster consumerism and to over-produce due to the pressures of market competition, something unavoidable under a historically-contingent set of property relations which ties up with and reinforces patriarchal, racial, and other relations of domination. Aren’t we reinforcing the view that the problem has to do simply with individual morality or with people’s “lifestyles” rather than with the historically-specific way by which we organize production, one in which those who control the resources for production are forced to accumulate or maximize profits endlessly in order to survive market competition, thus driving them to intensify their exploitation of nature and create the socio-ecological conditions that ultimately lead to global environmental problems? Aren’t we being constrained, in short, from highlighting that it is capitalism and the other forms of domination that ultimately breeds climate injustice?

Third, we are concerned that conceiving of climate justice along nationalist lines obscures the real social divisions and antagonisms among the world’s peoples in the face of climate change: Doesn’t this understanding reinforce the notion that the “principal enemies” are still just the developed countries or developed-country elites or corporations and that, against these “principal enemies,” developing countries or developing-country elites or corporations can somehow be our “friends” or “allies”? Does this not impair our ability to underscore how our real allies are the working classes and other oppressed groups in developed countries: the African-American working-class mother rather than the male Filipino tycoon? And, as shown by the lack of support for, if not outright opposition to, demands for paying “climate debt” as they understand it (i.e. as resources that will go to governments) even among working peoples in the North, isn’t this putting up an unnecessary barrier that stands in the way of cross-border solidarity among workers everywhere?

Finally, we are concerned that our current conception of climate justice obscures certain courses of actions or strategies that could be more helpful in advancing our struggle. In putting all or most of the blame on “developed countries” rather than on dominant classes everywhere, are we not ending up focusing too much of our limited energies struggling with “external” forces and consequently directing less of our attention and resources on countering the “internal” forces (local elites and their corporations, including their ‘external’ partners from abroad) who are perpetrating forms of climate injustice concretely affecting working people in the country? Why, for example, have we as PMCJ not done more to connect the violence that people experience daily in our unjust public transport system to the question of climate change and climate justice? Why are we not at the forefront of the campaign for a more convenient and more dignified public transport system as a way of countering climate change and of achieving climate justice? There are no doubt many valid reasons, among them our resource constraints, but might it also be because we think “climate injustice” is something done to us from the “outside” by “developed countries” rather than here “inside” by Filipino and non-Filipino members of the global ruling class? 

Against cooptation

Perhaps our concerns above could be assuaged by assurances that demanding “climate justice” from developed countries at the global level does not necessarily stop us from demanding it from dominant classes or groups at the national level. “We need to stand with our government at the UN but we can and should fight with them at home” is an argument we have often heard, and indeed PMCJ has commendably stood at the forefront of challenging Filipino elites’ promotion of dirty energy, for example. But we still have apprehensions with this line of reasoning: Does this not impose an artificial division of our struggles at the “global level” and at the “national level”—as if the two levels can be separated in practice? Can there really be a harmony of interests between capitalists and workers at one “level” and conflict at another? Do Filipino workers really have no choice but to demand that reparations from the rich countries go to “their” government, knowing fully well that “their” government is systematically dominated by capitalists and is likely to mobilize all their power to keep those ‘reparations’ in their hands? And shouldn’t we be prioritizing “united fronts” with all oppressed groups in all countries before, or rather than, with our country’s elites? 

Besides, if what we really mean when we demand ‘climate justice’ is for reparations to end up in the hands of oppressed groups everywhere, then why don’t we just say so? Why, in short, do we not just articulate the principle and the demand in the following terms: ‘We demand that those most responsible—i.e. the dominant classes and groups in all countries—pay back their climate debts to those least responsible—i.e. the dominated classes and groups in all countries”?

From our perspective, this unambiguously internationalist definition of climate justice does a better job of helping us avoid some of the dangers we outlined above: First, it foregrounds the issue of class and gender responsibility in that it leaves absolutely no room for holding working-class and other oppressed groups in developed countries liable for climate change. Second, it promotes discussion on the systemic causes of climate justice in that it raises questions about why dominant classes and groups have been driven to engage in ‘over-production’ or encourage ‘over-consumption.’ Third, it highlights the fundamental division between the exploiters and the exploited in all countries and it stands a better chance of exciting and gaining the support of working peoples across the planet. Finally, it does a better job of drawing our attention to the many different ways by which climate injustice is being experienced by working people—in the lack of decent public transport, housing, health care, etc.—and alerts us to the kinds of locally-grounded grassroots struggles by which we can make “climate justice” less abstract to the people we seek to mobilize.

Why is this redefinition of climate justice so important today? How does using it to think about our strategy and to define our relations with others—such as the Philippine government and other NGOs and social movements—help us in our daily struggle? We think it is crucial because, at a time when more and more people are desperate for fresh and out-of-the-box solutions, the ideas we have been offering are increasingly being coopted by dominant groups in the service of failed, ineffective and unjust solutions to climate change: by reformists from all countries who support calls for inter-national redistribution but are averse to any discussion of the systemic causes of and the systemic solutions to climate change—those who only want to change the system in order to keep it the same—on one hand, as well as by conservatives from all countries who cynically instrumentalize the demand for climate justice to perpetuate the existing order. And for as long as we do not clarify what distinguishes us from these two more powerful camps, we only end up serving yet again as “warm bodies” to their mobilizations and as transmission belts of their ideologies, unable to offer alternatives and to attract people to our own autonomous camp. 

What would be the point of building ‘united fronts’ if, in order to do so, we have to dilute our message, fail to counter dominant ways of thinking, and therefore fail to foster anti-capitalist and feminist attitudes or subjectivities? What would be the point of our demonstrations, of our campaigns, and of our popular education efforts if we only end up echoing and unwittingly being used to support those determined to prop up the very system that causes climate change? 

Towards an anti-capitalist, feminist conception of climate justice

We at BMP believe that, with the more explicitly internationalist, radical, and feminist conception of climate justice we favor, with its sharper critique of class, gender, and other forms of domination, and with its clearer stance against capitalism and the patriarchal and other relations of domination it combines with and reinforces, our movement would be much less vulnerable to being hijacked in support of the very system we are struggling against—a system that is intrinsically driven to prioritize profitmaking over the welfare of people and the planet. 

By pointing to those ultimately responsible for causing climate change and for blocking just and effective solutions, by highlighting the systemic, patriarchal origins of climate injustice, and by pointing to unapologetically socialist, feminist, and radically democratic solutions to achieve climate justice, we might have a better chance of countering the dominant ideologies that prevent people from supporting our cause and, thus, of developing the kind of attitudes or subjectivities needed to forge a radical anti-capitalist, counter-hegemonic global mass movement: still the only social force that could counter the power of those who stand in the way of climate justice. 

Building such a movement is not as unrealistic as pessimists in the movement think. Indeed, thanks in part to PMCJ and others’ efforts to change the terms of the debate, this movement is already stirring. In Copenhagen in 2009, in Lima last year, in Paris this December, and in many other places around the world, more and more people are rallying behind the call: “System-change not climate change!” Further strengthening this movement is not something we can keep postponing. Faced with a planetary emergency, we simply have no time to waste being coopted in support of false solutions such as the idea that climate justice could be achieved by “greening” capitalism.#