The Cumbre Social for the Climate presents the “Climate Manifesto”

In concomitance with the COP25 of Madrid, the “Cumbre Social por el Clima” (Social Climate Summit) is being celebrated from the 6th to the 13th of December 2019. This event has been organized by social organisations and indigenous communities: a space that breaks away from the institutional one to discuss about the climate.

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This year, the Cumbre presents a rich agenda of events despite being very simple in its organization. Among others, interventions by indigenous leaders and stories of local activists have occupied and will occupy the large white marquee at the Complutence University of Madrid.

Next to the pavilion, there is the collaborative vegetarian kitchen which offers vegetarian dishes and where people are asked to wash their own plates in multiple rinsing basins to avoid water waste.

On the 9th of December, the Climate Manifesto of Latin America has been released and presented. It is a political document drafted by various Latin American associations coordinated by FIMA, the International Federation for the Environment. FIMA is an organization from Chile that, since last June, has been leading a participatory process which involves different actors from South America with the purpose of creating a joint and united declaration on environmental protection and climate change response across the region.

The Manifesto is full of contents: from environmental protection and climate change to human rights, indigenous peoples’ rights, women’s rights, and the concept of “multinational” states protecting local communities and diversity. The document firmly condemns the exploitation of the territory, of the workers, and of the peoples and it demands with determination the protection of the Amazon ecosystem, a key point of the Manifesto.

The fight against extractivism is the motto that stands out in the declaration which was read by Pino Pepe, member of FIMA and leader of the process, during the third General Assembly of the Climate Summit. He stated that the people are united, “el pueblo es unido”, to address the climate crisis.

This Manifesto represents a real political breakthrough for the South American context not only for the methodologies adopted for its co-creation but also for the “values of the future” that it carries.