With the countdown on for the upcoming United Nations climate talks known as COP21, an international movement is demanding an end to what they see as the corporate domination of the conference and that a food sovereignty approach—a “just solution to a global climate crisis”—be prioritized.
La Via Campesina, which unites global organizations that work to defend small-scale farmers, released its call in a statement last week.
The groups write governments at previous COPs “have continuously failed to protect and advance people’s most fundamental human rights—including the Right to Food—sending delegation upon delegation to climate talks that prioritize private interests over public welfare.”
But those “[c]orporate solutions are false solutions, and will not solve the climate crisis,” their statement declares. “Our solutions are real solutions, and should be prioritized by the UN.”
Not only does the corporate food system not offer a climate solution, it has helped cause the climate crisis. The statement continues:
Ryan Zinn, political director of the Fair World Project, lays out the difference between the two approaches, and their differing climate impacts, thusly:
Despite the benefits the approach advocated by La Via Campesina possesses, it faces significant obstacles, the group notes, like the potential TTIP and TPP trade deals that many groups have said will favor corporate interests. Yet this paradigm shift is what is needed to achieve climate justice, they write: