Climate Justice

We Need A Climate Movement That Addresses The Trauma Of Fighting

March 7, 2023 Charlie Wood, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Environment, Trauma

I used to think trauma was something that only applied to people exposed to extreme situations like war, genocide, abuse or crime. Yet, living on planet Earth pretty much guarantees you some trauma. Trauma comes from the Greek “traumat,” which means “wound.” It is an emotional wounding that results from experiencing or witnessing a highly stressful, horrifying event or series of events where one feels a lack of control, powerlessness and threat of injury or death. This sounds disturbingly similar to what humans are increasingly living through with climate change.

2022 Was A Big Year For Climate Action In The Courts

January 27, 2023 Dana Drugmand, DeSmog. Resist! climate crisis, Climate Justice, EPA, Legal System

A pair of climate cases from opposite sides of the country appear to be the closest yet to holding fossil fuel companies accountable in court. Lawsuits filed by Honolulu, Hawaii, and by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have both overcome initial procedural hurdles and are advancing in state courts, despite dogged attempts by lawyers for the fossil fuel firms to punt the cases into federal courts where they hoped to find an easier path to dismissal. And the two cases have each taken a big leap forward in state courts with judges denying fossil fuel defendants’ requests to dismiss the litigation. Earlier this year, a Hawaii state court judge issued several rulings denying oil companies’ motions to dismiss Honolulu’s case, originally filed in March 2020. In a press release, the Honolulu City Council explained, “with these favorable rulings [Honolulu’s] case is now set to become the first in the country to move into a trial phase and begin the all-important process of discovery, where the oil companies must begin opening up files to show what they knew.”

Why The Climate Justice March In South Korea Could Be A Game Changer

January 12, 2023 Alice S. Kim, Globetrotter. Resist! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Environment, South Korea

On September 24, 2022, more than 30,000 people occupied the main roads of downtown Seoul, South Korea, for the nation’s largest climate justice march. The sheer turnout of people from all walks of life and the participation by a wide range of advocacy groups were a testament to the impact of climate change on every aspect of life: human rights, women’s rights, religion, food insecurity, and labor rights. For many of these advocacy movements in Seoul, recent crises like COVID-19 have brought home the urgent need to address the climate crisis. Opening with a rally in Namdaemun Plaza at 3 p.m., the two-hour march occupied four out of six lanes of Seoul’s main Sejong-daero Boulevard. Standing on moving flatbed trucks, people spoke about the intersectionality of the climate crisis and other issues, including labor insecurity, housing instability, and social discrimination.

Pakistan Demands Debt Cancellation And Climate Justice

December 13, 2022 Tanupriya Singh, Socialist Project. Create! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Debt, Global South, Pakistan

Even as the floodwaters have receded, the people of Pakistan are still trying to grapple with the death and devastation the floods have left in their wake. The floods that swept across the country between June and September have killed more than 1,700 people, injured more than 12,800, and displaced millions as of November 18. The scale of the destruction in Pakistan was still making itself apparent as the world headed to the United Nations climate conference COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November. Pakistan was one of two countries invited to co-chair the summit. It also served as chair of the Group of 77 (G77) and China for 2022, playing a critical role in ensuring that the establishment of a loss and damage fund was finally on the summit’s agenda, after decades of resistance by the Global North.

IEN Denounces COP27 Lack Of Progress For Indigenous Peoples And Climate Justice

November 29, 2022 Last Real Indians. Educate! climate crisis, Climate Justice, COP27, Indigenous Rights

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt - The UNFCCC Conference of the Parties concluded its 27th session in the early hours of Sunday, November 20, 2022 with the adoption of the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan. Despite the extended COP, Parties failed to take adequate steps and action to address climate change. The most glaring omission in the Plan is a failure of the Parties to cut fossil fuel emissions at the source and there were only vague references towards achieving the Paris Agreement temperature goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius. False solutions such as REDD+, carbon markets, carbon offsets, climate-smart agriculture, climate geoengineering technologies, and nature-based solutions were focal points at COP27. Additionally, climate finance, adaptation and mitigation as well as loss and damage were at the forefront of negotiations at this year’s session.

Why The Inflation Reduction Act Is Less A ‘Climate Bill’

August 20, 2022 Anthony Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report. Educate! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Finance and the Economy, Inflation, Inflation Reduction Act

The brother El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (aka Malcolm X) once explained, “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” The tale of two narratives associated with the recent signing into law of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) accentuates his words at a critical moment. Communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis find themselves entrapped in a cycle of climate cataclysms and cumulative pollution derived from legacy and systemic environmental racism and classism. While attending a meeting in Bogota, Colombia with the newly elected Vice President, Francia Marquez, one of her advisors expressed to me that she was questioning why the demographics of those celebrating passage of a bill purported to address the climate crisis don’t match the demographics of those most impacted by the crisis?

Why The Climate Justice Movement Should Put Decoloniality At Its Core

July 30, 2022 Winne Van Woerden, Resilience. Create! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Decolonization

We live in a world that is on track for a global temperature rise of 3.2 degrees celsius, at least. We know that rich countries bear the biggest responsibility for the carbon in the atmosphere that is leading to this ecological catastrophe. We also know that the burden of the crisis is falling disproportionately on people living in the poorest countries in the global south who contributed least to the problem. Grappling with this reality, climate movements across the global North are increasingly putting justice at the heart of their fight for a sustainable world. This narrative, reflected in a term like ‘ecological debt’ has amongst others made climate movements to call for climate adaptation and reparations programs in the south paid primarily by the north.

Young Workers Are Bridging The Climate And Labor Movements

July 27, 2022 Leanna First-Arai, Truthout. Organize! Climate Justice, Labor Movements, Unions, Youth Activism

New momentum is buzzing through the North American labor movement, driven by the same age group which, across party affiliations and the urban-rural divide, has expressed majority-to-outsize support for advancing a climate policy overhaul with economic justice at its core. After ticking up slightly in 2020, the overall union membership rate in the United States fell back to where it’s been hovering the past few years, in 2021. But in spite of the stagnancy of other age groups, union membership among workers between 25 and 34 years old was on the rise, climbing from 8.8 percent in 2019 to a still-modest 9.4 percent in 2021. That bump does not account for the surge in union drives over the past eight months — including in the midst of this writing — many of which have been led by young workers.

Climate Justice Groups Take Their Pipeline Fight To City Hall

June 1, 2022 Springfield Climate Justice Coalition, Popular Resistance. Resist! Climate Justice, Massachusetts, Oil and Gas, Pipelines

The Springfield Climate Justice Coalition and Longmeadow Pipeline Awareness Group held a press conference on the steps of Springfield City Hall on May 31, highlighting the opposition of many Springfield and Longmeadow residents and organizations to Eversource Gas’ proposed high-pressure gas expansion pipeline that would run beneath the streets of Springfield and Longmeadow. The press conference was held in response to Eversource initiating the process it must go through to obtain all necessary permits to build and operate the pipeline. Speakers included Springfield City Council member Zaida Govan, Kristen Elechko from Senator Ed Markey’s office, Terry Gibson from Neighbor to Neighbor, Tanisha Arena from Arise for Social Justice.

The Climate Justice Movement Must Be Anti-War

April 24, 2022 Jasmine Butler, Power Shift Network. Educate! Anti-War, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Wars and Militarism

No matter your specific organizational or ideological affiliation, anyone who cares about climate change today ought to understand the critical connections between war, imperialism, and the climate crisis. In the 21st century, where conflicts between the world’s rich and powerful are often waged via the lives of the poor, we have to look at the human and environmental impacts of war and refuse any claims that war is ever a necessary evil. We’ve seen again in recent months how the United States and other powerful nations use military power to gain control over resources, particularly oil, and capital. While issues such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are incredibly nuanced, with much blame to go around for both Putin and NATO’s aggression over time, it is important to remember that those who suffer in times of war are poor and working-class people.

Debt Justice For Climate Reparations

April 20, 2022 Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò and Patrick Bigger, Climate and Community Project. Create! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Environment, Global South

The world faces twin debt crises. On the one hand, a well-publicized financial debt crisis looms for countries across the Global South, limiting governments’ ability to take public health action, alleviate poverty, adapt to a warming world, or pursue ambitious low-carbon development. Policy makers in the rich world seldom discuss the other debt crisis: the ecological and economic debts the Global North owes for historical and ongoing plunder, extraction, and climate pollution threatening lives and livelihoods in the Global South—all of which are key components driving the financial debt crisis. These intertwined crises require urgent action beyond the paltry steps taken since the start of the pandemic.

Sufficiency And Interdependence In The Wake Of A Degrowth Future

April 4, 2022 Jere Kuzmanić, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Organize! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Economic Justice, Finance and the Economy

Even if one didn’t have an immediate experience of disaster at the doorstep — like flood, storm or wildfire, which are happening globally on a weekly basis affecting many millions of people — we all share an experience of global surge of mutual aid during the COVID-19 pandemic. In many places, it implied a different relation to material reality such as provision of food, medics and, in peculiar cases, toilet paper. In non middle-and-up-class contexts, the pandemic increased risk of losing the roof over head or being stuck below dignifying conditions in at home. This intense period became a sharp reminder of local sufficiency, the scale of our community, and the importance of understanding a home as space that goes beyond our rented or owned four walls.

Legal Action Against Shell Board Previews Wave Of Lawsuits

March 17, 2022 Isabella Kaminski, DeSmog. Resist! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Legal System, Shell Oil

Boards should prepare for legal action based on their response to climate change, a DeSmog investigation has found. Lawyers, insurers, and campaigners have been anticipating litigation against company directors for some time and say the chances are only growing as corporate requirements to address climate risks get tougher. Today, March 15, ClientEarth announced it was taking legal action against energy giant Shell’s board of directors, arguing that their failure to properly prepare the company for net zero carbon emissions breaches their legal duties. The environmental law non-governmental organization, which has bought shares in Shell, claims the company’s 13 executive and non-executive directors failed to adopt and implement a climate strategy that truly aligns with the Paris Agreement and says this is a breach of their legal duties under the UK Companies Act.

Why The World Needs Eco-Socialism

March 14, 2022 Max Ajl, Green New Deal Media. Create! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Ecosocialism, Green New Deal

Climate change affects everyone, but it does not affect everyone the same way. It hammers a capitalist world rampant with inequality and exploitation. This is the case because capitalism neither exploits nor develops evenly. Some nation-states are centers for accumulating wealth and development. Some nation-states are peripheries, and are underdeveloped. Development and underdevelopment are two sides of the same process: accumulation on a world scale. Climate change, in turn, is a human-made process, a product and accelerator of uneven accumulation. Because it is human-made, some states (as well as some within those states) are more responsible than others. And the very poorest simply bear no culpability at all.

More Than 1,100 Groups Tell Biden: Stop Fossil Fuels Now

February 25, 2022 Build Back Fossil Free, Popular Resistance. Resist! climate crisis, Climate Justice, Fossil Fuels, Joe Biden

Washington, DC - After his first year in office, President Biden and his administration have failed to take meaningful action to keep fossil fuels in the ground. We are sending a powerful, unified message to Biden and demand that he use his executive authority to stop approving fossil fuel projects and exports, end new federal fossil fuel leasing and development on public lands and waters, and declare a national climate emergency. We also delivered Biden a gigantic presidential pen and executive order at the White House. The Build Back Fossil Free campaign has organized a huge letter to Biden reiterating our demands for bold executive action to keep fossil fuels in the ground, protect communities from the toxic impacts of coal, oil, and gas development, and declare a climate emergency* to advance energy justice.

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