*[Enwl-inf] Join our global campaign - Rivers for Recovery
ENWLine
От: Maureen Harris <mha...@internationalrivers.org>
Date: ср, 25 нояб. 2020 г. в 21:52
Subject: Join our global campaign - Rivers for Recovery
Dear all,
I'm reaching out to you as a signatory of our campaign last year to call
on the Climate Bonds Initiative to scrap its "green bond" standard for
hydropower. While the CBI hydropower standard is yet to materialize, the
International Hydropower Association (IHA) recently announced concerning plans
to develop a "Sustainable Hydropower Standard" which would risk
greenwashing more destructive dam projects.
In response to this and the
industry's efforts to promote new hydropower dams as a key part of the Covid-19
economic recovery, International Rivers, Rivers
without Boundaries and other partners are seeking your support for our latest
campaign, 'Rivers for Recovery', a global call for a just and green recovery.
This global action focuses on calling out and confronting efforts to use the post-COVID-19 pandemic economic recovery to push for more destructive dams and prop up the failing hydropower industry. At the same time, it highlights alternative pathways for a truly “green recovery” through river protection and other nature-based solutions, valuing community-based initiatives, that should be supported by governments and financiers.
Our intention is to send the global call to financiers, governments of dam-building countries, international organizations, and publicize it widely in social and traditional media. We hope you’ll join us in signing the statement, and helping circulate it widely to partners, networks and the media. You can sign either as an organization or individual.
The global call is supported by a “Rivers for Recovery” report, to be published soon. This report explores the urgent need for river protection during the pandemic and beyond, overcoming the troubling legacy of large dams, and the availability of truly sustainable and just energy and development options. The report supports the global call in demanding a recovery that is rooted in climate justice and that protects our rivers as critical lifelines –- supporting biodiversity, water supply, food production, Indigenous peoples, and diverse populations around the world –- rather than damming and polluting them in pursuit of profit and economic growth.
The report will be formally launched on 3 December. In the meantime, we are already collecting signatories on the global call in advance of the launch. The signatories will be the first to receive the report when it becomes available.
You can read the global call and sign on HERE. Please note that we are still adding translations of the statement - if you would like to arrange to translate into a regional language please let us know. Please also help us circulate the global call widely within your networks.
To mark the launch of the report on Thursday 3 December, we are planning an online media event highlighting key messages from the #Rivers4Recovery global call and report. Stay tuned - more details to follow soon!
READ THE STATEMENT TEXT BELOW AND SIGN ON HERE
Rivers for Recovery: A global call to protect rivers and rights as essential for a just and green recovery
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting public health and economic crises are devastating populations around the globe, affecting marginalized and vulnerable groups most acutely. The massive, transformational shocks these crises have produced for our current economic, energy, and food systems require an equally transformational response, to address widespread economic collapse, hunger, unemployment, and environmental damage, centered in concerns for social justice and ecological integrity.
Rivers and freshwater ecosystems are vital to a post-COVID global economic recovery. They underpin our natural systems, provide critical ecosystem services, and work as an economic safety net for the poor and vulnerable in many low- and middle-income countries. Yet, for generations, these arteries of the planet have been dammed, diverted, and polluted at a catastrophic cost to people and Earth’s living systems. One in three freshwater species is now threatened with extinction.
Today’s tragic pandemic sheds new light on the fundamental inequities and challenges of our time, providing an opportunity to change course on the historic degradation of our rivers and freshwater systems into the future. Our natural systems are integral to life on earth; for too long we have taken them for granted, and exploited them to drive profit and “development” for the primary benefit of a privileged minority. Globally, we understand that this trajectory has been unsustainable.
A new paradigm in river stewardship is critical, not only to safeguard the water sources that are indispensable to life and public health, but to help prevent countries bankrupted by COVID-19 from taking on calamitous new debt, speed a just energy transition, and effectively confront the climate crisis. The current push to escalate dam-building in many low and middle income countries threatens such progress—a false energy solution that the hydropower industry is promoting under the guise of a “green” economic recovery.
A false path to economic recovery is one that expands crippling debt for countries already struggling under massive debt burdens, prioritizes “green-washed” solutions that divert scarce funds away from better alternatives, promotes large centralized grids designed around destructive projects, such as mega-dams and fossil fuels, weakens environmental and social safeguards, and continues the abuse of our freshwater resources.
Hydropower dams carry extremely high environmental and social impacts—they are a false solution and cannot deliver a green recovery. By comparison, investments in solar and wind technologies are affordable, quickly deployable, and can deliver jobs cost-effectively in the economic recovery. In order to rebuild towards a better future, economic stimulus packages should invest in low-impact technologies and those that benefit vulnerable populations and ecosystems, prioritizing community rights and participation rather than bailing out destructive industries that are rapidly losing relevance and financing.
We call for a recovery that is rooted in climate justice and protects our rivers as critical lifelines—supporting biodiversity, water supply, food production, Indigenous peoples, and other culturally diverse populations around the world –- rather than damming and polluting them in pursuit of profit and economic growth.
We call for a green economic recovery that includes:
● A moratorium on new hydropower dams as an essential step towards a sustainable and just economic recovery. This should be accompanied by a comprehensive review of energy systems and pipeline projects to ensure priority to protecting freshwater ecosystems and the community livelihoods and economies that depend on them.
● A rapid upscale of investment into non-hydropower renewables and storage, together with policies to facilitate socially and environmentally responsible investment. Investment should kickstart renewable energy projects, roll out centralized and distributed connectivity, build jobs, and deliver low-cost and low-impact electrification to those experiencing energy poverty. Governments can use subsidies and grants to foster upstream value chain investment in local renewable energy manufacturing and assembly.
● Upgrades to existing hydropower projects to increase efficiency instead of building new dams. This can include retrofitting turbines, improved pumped storage, and grid-integration with wind, solar, and other energy innovations, including co-generation. Upgrades should be accompanied by concrete steps to reduce damage to freshwater ecosystems and local livelihoods through robust mitigation compensation, and reparations. Dam removal and river restoration should be undertaken when the adverse social and environmental impacts of existing dams cannot be effectively mitigated.
● Investment in green infrastructure that protects and restores freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity, alongside laws governing freshwater protection. To ensure priority to ecosystem services and job opportunities for local communities, facilitate dialogues between government, private sector, and Indigenous and community water users. Green infrastructure and renewable energy investments must be in line with international human rights standards and environmental safeguards , including the right of Indigenous peoples and other traditional communities to Free, Prior, and Informed Consultation and Consent.
● New energy development plans that emphasize investment in energy conservation and efficiency, participatory demand-side modelling, and options for smart, distributed energy and mini-grids located close to energy sources and end users, with a focus on community grids and expanded energy access. Governments should halt expensive and long-timeline hydropower projects to review and update energy plans and reassess options for electrification, ensuring transparency and public participation at all stages of planning and implementation.
● Safeguards for protected areas in stimulus and recovery plans. This includes adopting policies supporting “no go” zones for environmentally destructive investments in protected areas, endangered and vulnerable species habitat, free-flowing rivers, and the territories of Indigenous people and other traditional communities. Identify and halt destructive uses and development pressures on protected areas. Instead of backtracking on existing legislation, governments should strengthen policies to protect rivers, biodiversity and people’s rights.
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