This is what activist Nicola Bullard, from Focus on the Global South, said in an interview with Real World Radio last week at the COP16 on Climate Change, which will end on Friday 10th. The activist made reference to the Peoples´ Agreement which came out as a result of the World Peoples´ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in April, 2010, in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Focus on the Global South is a non governmental organization based in Bangkok, Thailand. It combines policy research, advocacy, activism and grassroots capacity building in order to generate critical analysis and encourage debates on national and international policies related to corporate-led globalization, neo-liberalism and militarization.

Bullard said she was happy because Bolivia brought the Peoples´ Agreement to the official climate negotiations a few months ago, but was disappointed with the continuous attempts to get rid of the Cochabamba language in the negotiation texts. The member of Focus on the Global South said that it is necessary to “defend the legitimacy of the voices of the peoples”.

The activist also made reference to the work of the social movements outside the official framework of the UN and the need to bring the voices of the people into the negotiations. “We have to see how we can build the movement outside, how we can build the alliances, perspectives and interrelations between the different movements of the outside, and how we can actually bring those voices into the negotiations”.

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