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Climate Justice

‘Orca’ Activists Arrested In Front Of Wall Street Bank Over Fossil Fuels

June 14, 2024 Saul Elbein, The Hill. , , , ,
New York police arrested dozens of climate activists dressed as orcas Tuesday morning in front of the Citigroup headquarters as they protested the bank’s ongoing investment in fossil fuel expansion, according to group Climate Defenders. “Arrests continue at [Citibank] because wanting corporations to put planet over profit is a crime,” activists wrote Tuesday morning on the social platform X. That caption went out above a video of orca-clad protesters, their fins cuffed behind their backs, being escorted from in front of the bank’s glass-walled Manhattan office building. “Banks like Citi set the planet (and oceans to boil),” the group added in another post. “Now we’re bringing the heat to Wall Street.”

Top Human Rights Court Urged To Tackle Corporate Climate Crimes

May 4, 2024 Isabella Kaminski, DeSmog. , , ,
In a landmark hearing at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, legal experts and campaigners argued that businesses, such as the fossil fuel and agriculture industries, have legal duties to stop climate-related human-rights breaches. A panel of six judges met starting April 23 in Barbados at the University of West Indies for the hearing, which was dubbed “The climate emergency and human rights.” It opened with statements from Chile and Columbia, which had requested that the court provide an advisory opinion on climate change and human rights in 2023.

New Evidence Of Big Oil’s Decades-Long Campaign To Deny Climate Science

May 2, 2024 Adam M. Lowenstein, DeSmog. , , , , ,
Oil and gas companies and their top trade groups were aware for decades that carbon emissions contribute to climate change, according to a scathing new report from congressional investigators. Moreover, industry giants knew that many of the technologies they presented publicly as solutions to the climate crisis – such as algae-based biofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS) – were neither as green nor as feasible as they promised, the study reveals. The Senate Budget Committee and Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability published the report and related documents on April 30

Taxing Fossil Fuel Companies Could Be ‘Powerful Tool’ To Cut Emissions

May 1, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. , , , , ,
According to the new Climate Damages Tax report, introducing a fossil fuel tax on companies in the richest countries in the world could generate hundreds of billions to aid the most vulnerable nations in coping with the climate crisis. The impacts of climate change disproportionately affect poorer nations that have contributed to it the least. “Climate change is a war. A category five hurricane releases energy equivalent to 10,000 times the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Dozens Of Climate Activists Arrested At Citibank Headquarters

April 27, 2024 Keerti Gopal, Scheer Post. , , , ,
New York—Climate demonstrators blocked entrances to Citibank’s headquarters in Manhattan at the start of the workday on Wednesday and Thursday, part of a series of Earth Week actions pressuring the bank to end its financing of fossil fuels. On both mornings, it took the New York Police Department less than 10 minutes to start making arrests. Climate activists, citing Citibank as the second largest financier of fossil fuels in the world, are engaged in a multi-year campaign to pressure the bank to stop financing oil, gas and coal projects. The week’s protests follow a mock environmental justice hearing at a New York church on Monday, where advocates spoke about the health harms and human rights violations of Citibank-financed fossil fuel projects in Peru, Canada and domestically.

Report: Debt-For-Nature Swaps Could Help Fight Climate Crisis

April 16, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. , , , ,
According to a new analysis by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), more than $100 billion of developing countries’ debt could be made available to spend on nature restoration, protecting ecosystems like rainforests and coral reefs and climate change adaptation. The research is part of IIED’s “hidden handbrakes” campaign, designed to reveal and explain unseen obstacles to climate action. “Many of the countries most threatened by rising temperatures have huge debt burdens, and are forever paying interest to wealthier nations that have contributed much more to the climate crisis,” said Laura Kelly.

Scientists For XR, Youth Action For Climate Justice Occupy Science Museum

April 13, 2024 The Canary. , , , , ,
Late on Friday 12 April, more than 30 protesters – including Chris Packham – led by young people from Youth Action for Climate Justice and members of Scientists for Extinction Rebellion have occupied the Science Museum’s new climate gallery, Energy Revolution, over its sponsorship by the coal giant and arms manufacturer, Adani. Naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham joined the group as they began their protest, with scientists and young people now intending to remain in the museum over the weekend, with the first school visits to the gallery beginning on Monday 15 April.

The GKN Workers’ Fight Continues

April 10, 2024 Lorezno Fe, Grassroots Economic Organizing. , , , ,
On 9 July 2021, Melrose Industries announced the closure of its GKN Driveline (formerly FIAT) factory, which produces car axles in Campi di Bisenzio, Florence, and the layoff of more than 400 workers. While in many cases the workers and unions would settle for negotiating enhanced redundancy benefits, the GKN Factory Collective took over the plants and kickstarted a long struggle against decommissioning. However, what makes the Ex GKN Florence dispute really unique is the strategy adopted by the workers.

Bus Drivers Strike With Climate Activists In 57 German Cities

April 9, 2024 Berit Ehmke and Yanira Wolf, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Public transit workers across Germany have broken new ground by coordinating our contracts—nearly all of them nationwide have expired over the last four months—and shutting down bus systems with strikes in 57 cities. To add to the pressure, we’ve done something new for our union and for Germany: we’ve formed an alliance between local transport workers and climate activists, including the students who have been leading massive school walkouts. The devastating effects of climate change are already rocking Germany: major heat waves, flooding, and water shortages.

Climate: ECHR Judges Side With Swiss Group In Rights Ruling

April 9, 2024 Deutsche Welle. , , ,
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday delivered rulings in a group of landmark climate change cases aimed at making national governments meet treaty obligations to cut greenhouse emissions. In one of the three cases, it upheld a complaint by a group of elderly Swiss women that government failures to properly oversee emissions did violate their human rights. While activists have enjoyed past success in domestic proceedings, the verdict marks the first time an international court made such a ruling on climate change.

Climate Movement Elders Revive Monkey Wrench Tactics

April 6, 2024 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
Earlier this year, seven activists entered the site of a proposed timber sale in Washington State, intent on halting — or at least delaying — the destruction of trees with immense carbon storage potential. Over the course of several hours, they hiked off-trail through the dense understory, removing signs and flagging tape marking the boundaries of the controversial Carrot timber sale. The creative nonviolent direct action seemed to pay off, as a couple days later Washington’s Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, announced it was cancelling the Carrot sale for the time being.

Climate Justice Means Holistic Transformation, Not Tinkering

April 5, 2024 Helen Yuill, Orinoco Tribune. , , , , ,
‘The climate crisis has many dimensions: social, political, economic, environmental, moral, ethical, and ideological. The way out of the crisis must address the root cause: the endless, limitless, mindless accumulation and concentration of capital on a planet with finite resources,’ Valdrak Jaentschke, head of the Nicaragua delegation, said in his speech at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai. In turn, climate justice must be multi-dimensional recognising that climate justice is an integral part of social, political, environmental, and ethical justice.

Student-Led Climate Action Is Flourishing In Florida

March 22, 2024 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
The University of Florida made history last month when its student senate became the first at a public university to pass a climate resolution in support of Green New Deal policies. The “Green New Deal for UF” is a statement of support for bold, progressive climate action put forward by students at a time when the far-right holds a near monopoly on power in the state. “This is big news for the climate movement at universities — not just in Florida, but everywhere,” said Cameron Driggers, a UF freshman. “It’s a first of its kind resolution that pushes back against the narrative that some states are lost causes for climate action.”

Climate Cases Against Big Oil Are Merging Into One Super Suit

February 21, 2024 Dana Drugmand, DeSmog. , , ,
Several California municipalities are merging their climate deception litigation with the state’s climate case, to jointly pursue a super-sized lawsuit against the fossil fuel industry, according to recent court filings. This development comes as Chicago joins the growing list of U.S. municipalities suing the fossil fuel industry. On February 5, Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Charles S. Treat approved California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s petition to link the state’s climate accountability case with lawsuits brought by the counties of Marin, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz, and the cities of Imperial Beach, Richmond, and Santa Cruz.

Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks To Climate Action

February 14, 2024 Michaela Herrmann, DeSmog. , , ,
Professor Dana R. Fisher answers this critical question in her new book, Saving Ourselves: Climate Shocks to Climate Action. Building upon years of research on activism, democracy, and climate politics, Fisher explores the state of the climate movement today to understand how radical direct action is evolving as the climate crisis worsens. In an interview with DeSmog’s Michaela Herrmann, Fisher outlines why she thinks “severe, durable climate shocks” will be required to shake the world out of the fossil fuel status quo once and for all. She draws upon years of data gathered from climate protests as early as COP6 in 2000 and lessons from the world’s response to COVID-19 to understand how civil society has responded to 30 years of ineffectual international climate negotiations.
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