By:  Marijke Colle

This article was used by Marijke Colle in her lecture on the Marxism and Ecology during the 7^th Asian Global Justice School on July 15, 2015 in Quezon City, Philippines.

This end of the year, from the 30^th of November until the 11^th of December, the 21^st meeting of the “Conference of Parties” (COP) will take place in Paris, France.

What is the history of these negotiations?

The UNFCCC = United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is the main treaty on climate.It recognizes the human origin of the current climate change and the main historical responsibility for it by the industrialised rich nations in the past.This convention was adopted during the Rio de Janeiro summit in May 1992 and was activated on the 21^st of March 1994 after ratification by 195 states (and also by the EU).

The COP (conference of Parties) is the main body of this convention, and it meets every year to take decisions in order to respect the aim of the fight against climate change. In those meetings, all decisions have to be reached by a unanimous vote!

COP 21 will take place at Le Bourget, near Paris and about 40,000+ participants are expected: delegations from civil society – NGO’s working on climate change, private companies, scientists, local authorities, indigenous people delegates, as well as the official government representatives. The media will also be present in big numbers.

By:  Marijke Colle


This article was used by Marijke Colle in her lecture on the Marxism and Ecology during the 7^th Asian Global Justice School on July 15, 2015 in Quezon City Philippines.

La Via Campesina was founded in 1993. It is now the largest international social movement present in more than 70 countries organising around 200 million farmers. We can call it the first anticapitalist international of farmers against agribusiness in history.

In 1986, the so called “Uruguay round” of trade negotiations was nearly finished. Agriculture was at the centre of the discussion because agriculture was going to undergo the next wave of commodification. In the name of efficiency, farmers had to compete against each other and the least competitive should disappear!

The farmers resisted and decided to unite against this new pressure from the global marketplace and the large agrifood and agribusiness companies behind it.  They proposed food sovereignty as opposed to efficiency which in fact means solidarity and cooperation instead of competition. Food sovereignty was in total contrast to the food wars waged by agribusiness.