Alternatiba harnesses citizen mobilisation ahead of COP21

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They started out from Bayonne, in southwest France, four months earlier and pedalled 5637 kilometres.

To the applause of the crowd, the Tour Alternatiba pedalled the final stretch of its journey into Paris on 26 September, for a rally to stop climate change. The occasion marked the launch of the citizen mobilisation in the run-up to COP21 in December.

And it was a success: 50,000 people came to welcome the Tour and to find out about local solutions to protect the environment.

The Alternatiba movement was launched in October 2013 in Bayonne. During their journey to promote action and awareness, the avid cyclists covered 187 stages in France and Europe, with conferences, concerts and meals at lunchtime and in the evening.

Their aim, after 20 years of failed international negotiations? To raise public awareness about climate change, to show that taking action at your own level is possible, to put social justice at the heart of the battle and, above all, to put pressure on heads of state and government.

“The message we want to share is: don’t expect a miraculous agreement to fall from the sky at COP21 or at any of these summits held one after another,” said Txetx Etcheverry, founder of the Bizi association, set up following the failure of the 2009 Climate Summit in Copenhagen, in an interview on the French news channel, LCI.

“To take action against this disaster in the making, we can all do something at our own level. It’s what we call the alternatives.”

 

“Building an even stronger climate movement”

Alternatiba activists, visibly moved, spoke to the crowd about the urgency of the situation, with just two months to go before the United Nations conference: “This battle has to be played out now, and the aim is clear: to build an even stronger climate movement. The next stage is COP21 and we need to build a movement grouping millions of people all across the world.”

“It is a moment that reminds me of Copenhagen. It is very exciting, because Alternatiba is taking the initiative and saying to the leaders: ‘Follow us!’” said Naomi Klein, journalist and social activist, in a video message.

The idea behind the Alternatiba tour was to establish on-going mobilisation to capture the attention of political leaders. After a two-month endeavour, on 10 September, Etcheverry was invited to the Elysée along with several hundred other representatives from NGOs and associations, to launch COP21.

But the activist remains cautious: “What we are seeing on the ground is that here is a huge disconnect, with leaders all saying they want to protect the climate at the same time as they continue to support policies that are destroying it. France is steering the way in terms of speeches, but on the ground we’re seeing the opposite.”

Emblematic of the environmentally destructive policies in France is the plan to build an airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, near the north-western French city of Nantes .

Other battles include the campaigns against the “1000 cow farm”, the Lyon-Turin railway tunnel project, the nuclear industry, intensive farming and fossil fuel subsidies.

COP21, to be held from 30 November to 11 December in Le Bourget, in Seine-Saint-Denis in Paris aims to achieve a universal, legally-binding agreement, applicable as of 2020, to keep global warming below 2°C.

Alongside the official UN conference bringing together state negotiators, NGOs such as WWF, Green Cross International and the Fondation Nicolas Hulot will gather at the “Climate Generation Space”.

The Alternatiba movement is also planning to take part in the negotiations.

On the fringes of the COP, Alternatiba will be hosting the “QG” or “Quartier Génial”, a big global village of alternatives, in Montreuil, to the east of Paris.

This venue, designed to be the mobilisation hub for civil society from France and Europe as a whole, will welcome the 111 Alternatiba groups already in operation, including the latest one set up in Haiti.

“It’s amazing. Everyone is already asking us if we are holding an Alternatiba 2016, when we had initially only planned to hold a single edition ahead of COP21,” said Etcheverry in Libération.

“We’ll think about it in good time.”

 

This article has been translated from French.