Welcome to BASE21

Joining other environment activists around the world fighting for global climate justice, Korean environment activists have been extremely active during the last couple of weeks, campaigning and demonstrating against the deceptive COP7 meeting that recently took place in Marrakesh, Morocco.

Korean climate activists from KEY(Korea Ecological Youth), Korea Eco-Center, and network of student environmental groups, the 'Radical Ecologists', formed a network for climate action last September. From then on, the Korea Climate Activist Network has been campaigning to inform the public about the essence of the COP7 climate talks -its market based solutions like carbon trading on climate change and the plans to privatise the atmosphere- and to criticise the superficial energy and climate policies of the Korean government.

Campaigns went fully underway, as government representatives and businesses opened up the climate talks on 29th October. The network has been performing teach-ins and debates, while student groups also organised campaigns on each campus.
On 3th of November, the day the business representatives were leaving for Marrakesh, activists went to the Inchon International Airport for direct action at the airport. The business representatives are those from big corporations in Korea, who intend to take the 'solution' of climate change through carbon trading and SINK. In fact, to them, the issue of climate change is really a rhetoric -corporations will be able to benefit profitably from the COP7 and also prefabricate a loophole through which to evade the coming pressure for the reduction of CO2.
Actions continued throughout the 7th and 8th, as the Korean Climate Activist Network held simultaneous one-person rallies in front of significant anti-climate bodies, such as the Ministry of Commerce, Industry & Energy, Shell Korea, the US Embassy, the Korean Chamber of Commerce and the National Congress. These industrial circles and the government are far from making efforts to solve the climate change, and they also collaborate with global carbon businesses. Activists rounded off their series of activities on climate change on the final day of the COP7 conference, 9th of November, by joining in the rally against the WTO and with a cultural festival in the central of Seoul.

The activities by the Korea Climate Activist Network ended with the COP7 conference, but it also heralded the start of a movement in Korea based on international solidarity against climate change and the connection it has with globalization and the strategies of transnational companies to gain profit from privatization of the atmosphere and carbon trading.