Cochabamba Caput Mundi

Starts today in Cochabamba – Bolivia – the World People's conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth convoked by Evo Morales after the failed meeting held last December in Copenhagen.

Over 90 governmental delegations coming from the five continents will be attending as well as about 15 thousand delegates. Among them, Nobel prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the journalist and researcher Naomi Klein, the French farmer Josè Bove, the president of the United Nation General Assembly Miguel D'Escoto … And for the closing day, presidents Morales, Chavez, Correa, and Lugo will join the conference too.

This world conference is a major moment of debate for the 170 countries represented, but not only for them: for the first time ever, social groups, the academic world and governments will gather together to analyse and elaborate solutions to the climate change issue. What is expected by these days of confrontation is a shared position to be upheld in Cancun at the upcoming COP16. Core issues faced will be approval of the Universal Declaration of Mother Earth rights, the proposal for a climate justice tribunal, a world referendum on climate change, and the request to recognize the climate debt of northern countries towards the world south.

Following the 17 working groups:
- Structural Causes
- Harmony with Nature
- Mother Earth Rights
- Referendum
- Climate Justice Tribunal
- Climate Migrants
- Indigenous Peoples
- Climate Debt
- Shared Vision
- Kyoto Protocol
- Adaptation
- Financing
- Technology Transfer
- Forests
- Dangers of Carbon Market
- Action Strategies
- Agricolture and Food Sovereignty

The event starts in quite an important date for Bolivia: 10 years since the war on water when Cochabamba people started a mass mobilization against water privatization managing to have back water as a common resource. Moreover, the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth will end on April, 22nd: right on the Earth date. There’s no better omen!

Follow the conference on http://pwccc.wordpress.com/