The action was organized by Friends of the Earth International, the Panafrican Climate Justice Alliance and Jubilee South.

“We totally disagree with the trading of carbon, with these Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) and all those things. What we are hoping for is the extension of the Kyoto Protocol, binding commitments”, Faith ka-Manzi said in interview with Real World Radio. She represents the Panafrican Climate Justice Alliance.

CDM is an instrument provided under the Kyoto Protocol that helps Northern countries compensate their polluting emissions through the funding of supposedly “clean” projects in the Global South.

These projects give way to the so called “emission reduction certificates”, which are acquired by developed countries and commercialized in the carbon market. The purchase of these certificates allows rich countries to be exempted from reducing their emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. For this reason the social movements and organizations from around the world expose “CDM and carbon trading as “false solutions to climate change”, since rich nations avoid reducing their domestic emissions.

Ka-Manzi demanded the countries to “leave fossil fuels in the soil” and to invest funds on renewable energies instead of promoting these dirty industries. She added that the World Bank should not be involved in the global climate fund and criticized the UN “because we ignore which interests it is representing”.

The South African activist and journalist also reclaimed the need for the Climate Tribunal to try the industrialized nations who are “expanding climate change”. He referred to them as “irresponsible” and “criminal”. “We want to say to them: stop stealing tomorrow’s future today”

You can watch the interview with Faith ka-Manzi below.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/foei