International civil society says no to geoengineering – “Hands off Mother Earth!” manifesto issued

110 organizations and social movements, including renowned environmental activists, Friends of the Earth International, La Via Campesina, Indigenous Environmental Network, Third World Network, ETC Group, and the Heinrich Böll Foundation have issued a manifesto today speaking out against the large-scale manipulation of climate and earth systems with unproven technologies – so-called geoengineering.

The Hands Off Mother Earth! Manifesto is available in English, Spanish, and French.

HOME builds on a decade of resistance against geoengineering:

At the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 2010, a broad coalition of popular movements, civil society groups and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations from around the world launched the first global campaign against geoengineering. Hands Off Mother Earth (HOME) became a global campaign to defend our communities and our common home, Planet Earth, against the threats of climate manipulation.

The HOME Campaign provided a common platform for organizations around the world to express their opposition to geoengineering. The HOME manifesto 2010 asserted that geoengineering is a set of dangerous false solutions to climate change, and that the seas, skies and soils of our home planet should not be used as a laboratory for these unjust and risky technological endeavors, that no one can or should be in control of the global thermostat and that we movements and organizations stand united to defend our lands and our rights.

We believe that a re-launch of the HOME campaign is more urgent today than before. In the last few years, we have witnessed increasing support for geoengineering proposals. A small but growing group of governments, corporations and scientists, the majority from the most powerful and most climate-polluting countries in the world, have been pushing for research into and political consideration of geoengineering.

Several outdoor experiments on Solar Radiation Management (SRM) are planned in North America, where an alliance between climate skeptics, fossil fuel interests and techno-solutionists seems to be providing a fertile ground for this new hype. At least two of these experiments are planned on indigenous land. Other open-air, marine and terrestrial field experiments have been announced in Latin America, Asia, Canada and the Artic.

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies, which are currently being discussed and used in climate models and government plans to implement the Paris Agreement, would imply building gigantic industrial complexes and infrastructures with an excessive demand for land, water, energy and other resources. Impacts on human rights, vulnerable populations, indigenous peoples, peasant communities, as well as risk of conflict over adverse impacts and unintended side-effects are high and real.

Until the geoengineering agenda resurfaced in the climate context in the mid-2000s, decades-long research into attempts at manipulating and controlling the weather and regional climates (“weather modification”) has largely been pursued in government and military quarters. Today, public debates about geoengineering in international fora such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), explore whether it is a means to combat climate change rather than combat other nations. But the original interest in geoengineering and its potential as a military tool has not decreased. Quite the opposite: geoengineering remains a potential dual-use technology.

With the onset of the growing climate crisis, the spectrum of geoengineering proposals, the number of research projects and planned outdoor experiments as well as the political appetite to consider it as “part of the toolbox” to address the climate crisis has increased significantly. And since geoengineering technologies have the potential to disrupt our natural ecosystems and global geophysical processes, with large impacts on natural resources, livelihoods and the survival of marginalized communities, they pose a threat with implications as serious as war.

We call upon you – civil society allies, popular movements, Indigenous People’s movements, ecologists and concerned citizens – to join us in filling the relaunched Hands Off Mother Earth Campaign with renewed vigour.

If your organization would like to join the fight against geoengineering and endorse the HOME Manifesto, please send an email to manifesto@geoengineeringmonitor.org.

First signatories to the 2018 HOME Manifesto:

International and regional organizations

Alianza por la Biodiversidad en América Latina

Amigos de la Tierra de América Latina y el Caribe (ATALC)

Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD)

Biofuelwatch

Climate Justice Alliance

Corporate Accountability International

Corporate Europe Observatory

ETC Group

Focus on Global South

Friends of the Earth International

Global Forest Coalition

Grain

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

Heinrich Böll Foundation

Indigenous Environmental Network

La Via Campesina

Navdanya, international

Oilwatch Latinoamérica

Third World Network

Transnational Institute

World Indigenous Women’s Alliance

World March of Women, Americas

World Rainforest Movement

National Organizations

350Bcn, Barcelona, Spain

ABA, Associação Brasileira de Agroecologia, Brazil

Acción Ecológica, Ecuador

Acción por la Biodiversidad, Argentina

Agenda Latinoamericana Mundial, Panamá, Panama

AGHAM-Advocates of Science and Technology for the People, Philippines

Amigos de la Tierra ,Spain

Amigos de la Tierra, Argentina

ANAA, Asamblea Nacional de Afectados Ambientales, Mexico

Asamblea Comunitaria del Pueblo de Alpuyeca, Morelos, Mexico

Asociación Red de Coordinación en Biodiversidad, Costa Rica

Association For Promotion Sustainable Development, India

ATTAC, France

Base-Is, Paraguay

CECCAM, Centro Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano, Mexico

CECOEDECON, India

Censat Agua Viva – Amigos de la Tierra, Colombia

Centar za zivotnu sredinu/ Friends of the Earth, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Centre for Environment and Development, Sri Lanka

Centro de Análisis Social, Información y Formación Popular, Mexico

Centro de Desarrollo Agropecuario, Mexico

Centro de Encuentros y Diálogos Interculturales, Mexico

Centro Ecológico, Brazil

Centro Fray Julián Garcés Derechos Humanos y Desarrollo Local, Tlaxcala, Mexico

CeProNat, Centro de Protección de la Naturaleza, Argentina

CESTA Amigos de la Tierra, El Salvador

ClimateWatch, Thailand

Coalición en Defensa de la Cuenca de la Independencia, Guanajuato, Mexico

COECOCEIBA-Amigos de la Tierra, Costa Rica

Colectivo por la Autonomía, Jalisco, Mexico

Consejo Regional de Pueblos Originarios en Defensa del Territorio de Puebla e Hidalgo, México

Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia

Coordinadora de los Pueblos en Defensa del Río Atoyac, Veracruz, México

DESMI -Desarrollo Económico y Social de los Mexicanos Indígenas, Mexico

Earth In Brackets, United States

Ecologistas en Acción, Spain

EJES, Enlace por la Justicia Energética Socioambiental, Argentina

Ejido San Isidro, Mpio. San Gabriel, Jalisco, Mexico

Espacio Estatal en Defensa del Maíz, Oaxaca, México

Fórum Mudanças Climáticas e Justiça Social, Brazil

Free and Equal Rights, Indonesia

Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra y el Agua, Región Malinche, Puebla , Mexico

Friends of the Earth Ghana

Fundación Solón Bolivia

Fundación Terram, Chile

Global Justice Ecology Project, United States

Grupo de Estudios Ambientales, Mexico

Grupo Semillas, Colombia

GWATÁ -Núcleo de Agroecologia e Educação do Campo, Brazil

HOME Foundation, Nigeria

IBASE – Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas, Brasil

IDIS (Interface Development Interventions), Philippines

Instituto de Estudios Ecologistas del Tercer Mundo, Ecuador

La Asamblea Veracruzana de Iniciativas y Defensa Ambiental (LAVIDA), Mexico

Les Amis de la Terre-Togo

Marcha Mundial de Mujeres, Capítulo Cuba, Cuba

MASIPAG (Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development), Philippines

Movement Generation, Justice and Ecology Project, United States

MST, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Brasil

Navdanya, India

NOAH, Friends of the Earth Denmark

Observatorio de Ecología Política de Venezuela

Observatorio Petrolero del Sur, Argentina

ODG, Observatori del Deute en la Globalització, Spain

Oficina Pro Defensa de la Naturaleza y sus Derechos, Ecuador

PAIRVI, India

Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT), Pakistan

Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), Philippines

Philippine Social Enterprise Network (PhilSEN), Philippines

Plataforma Boliviana frente al Cambio Climático, Bolivia

Pronatura- Friend of the Earth Switzerland

RAPAL, Uruguay

Red Intercultural de Acción Autónoma, México

REDES Amigos de la Tierra, Uruguay

RENACE, Red Nacional de Acción Ecologista de Argentina

Roots for Equity, Pakistan

Russian Social Ecological Union/ FoE Russia

Sahabat Alam Malaysia, FOE Malaysia

Save the Forest, Germany

Sciences Citoyennes, France

Taller Ecologista, Rosario, Argentina

Tonatierra,Nahuacalli, Embassy of Indigenous Peoples, Arizona, United States

Universidad de la Tierra en Oaxaca, Mexico

UNORCA, Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autónomas, Mexico

UNOSJO, Unión de Organizaciones de la Sierra Juárez de Oaxaca, México

UPVA, Unidos por la vida y el medio ambiente, Argentina

YFEED, Youth For Environment Education And Development Foundation, Nepal

Justiça Climática, Mozambique

Individuals

Vandana Shiva, India, Right Livelihood Award recipient

Ricardo Navarro, El Salvador, Goldman Environmental Prize

Pat Mooney, Canada, Right Livelihood Award recipient

Nnimmo Bassey, Nigeria, Right Livelihood Award recipient

João Pedro Stédile, MST, Brazil, MST is a Right Livelihood Award recipient

Fernando Funes, Cuba, Right Livelihood Award recipient