Racist plan to reduce emissions

Briggs:  Tense situation threatens UNPFII promiseThe forum began in late April seeming sometimes to be like a honeymoon at the end of the 30-year battle for the adoption last September of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the U.N. General Assembly.

But the confidence in the proceeding began eroding midway through the two-week forum when U.N.-appointed leaders released a draft report endorsing a World Bank plan that the indigenous participants opposed. By the forum's last day, May 2, indigenous peoples were frustrated with Permanent Forum Chairman Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, an indigenous leader from the Philippines.

The World Bank plan, called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, allows global fossil fuel corporations to pollute in one part of the world in exchange for preventing greenhouse emissions elsewhere on the globe.Comment:  The parties involved should accept this plan only if everyone agrees to it.

For more on the subject, see Global Warming Is Racist.