Less than two kilometres away from Vigyan Bhawan, the venue of
the eighth Conference of Parties (COP-8) to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the most
marginalized people of the Indian sub-continent gathered to
redefine climate change. Even as international bureaucrats,
politicians and corporate representatives at the COP-8 quibbled
over the wording of the Kyoto Protocol, adaptation and trading
carbon emissions, participants at the Climate Justice Summit
(October 26-28,2002) made connections between the degradation of
their living environments, loss of livelihoods and climate
change. This unique summit, organized by the India Climate
Justice Forum (ICJF), a coalition of mass organizations and
groups - both Indian and international - was designed to provide
a platform for communities most vulnerable to climate change –
fisher-folk and coastal communities, farmers, Adivasis
(indigenous peoples), Dalits and the urban poor. "The biggest
injustice of climate change is that those le