Climate justice is the fight of our lives

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Hi John,

In order for the Covid-19 recovery to be just and green, we need to ensure that the world doesn’t go ‘back to normal’. For too many people around the world, ‘normal’ has meant death.

This time next year the UK government will host the 26th UN Conference of Parties on climate change (COP26) in Glasgow. This gives us in the UK a focus and a responsibility to educate people about what is happening and what is at stake. First and foremost, climate change is built into the global economy, and without major transformation, we have no hope of limiting the damage.

That’s why we’re part of the ongoing 5-day global online gathering “From the Ground Up”, which brings together climate justice movements from the UK and globally. There are 53 sessions taking place organised by groups and organisations from around the world. More than 6,000 people are already registered and still registering. Find out more and register now:

The COP process has regularly failed to deal with the scale of the climate change challenge, because it isn’t, in practice, about states negotiating on an equal footing. Egged on by corporate lobbying, COP reflects the power dynamics which govern our world. Too often this means a handful of former colonial powers trying to maintain their economic dominance while dodging their responsibility for global warming.

That doesn’t mean we can ignore it, or accept ‘that’s how things are’. The COP is a space where we must campaign for a very different type of politics. That’s why over the next year we will be mobilising for COP26, using the opportunity to explain the changes we need to the public, and countering the power of big business over the debate.

As part of this, we’re organising three sessions at From the Ground Up this weekend:

Trade Deals Are Causing Climate Change: Organising against the trade rules

2.30pm-4pm, Saturday 14 November

A session looking at precisely what it is about our trade regime that is driving us towards climate crisis while funnelling wealth into the hands of a tiny elite.

101: What is System Change?

1.30pm-2.30pm, Sunday 15 November

This workshop will look at why ‘system change’ is necessary to deal with climate change, what we mean by it and what struggles will get us there. With Shalmali Guttal (India), Pablo Solon (Bolivia), Christophe Aguiton (France) and Samantha Hargreaves (South Africa).

Financing the End of the World

2.30pm-4pm, Sunday 15 November

On how governments and multilateral institutions in the global north are financing fossil fuel expansion in the south. Speakers include Lidy Nacpil (Philippines), a representative of Justiça Ambiental (Mozambique) and others. This session is a chance to find out more about our aid and fossil fuels campaign.

As well as these sessions, we will be attending as much of the rest of programme as possible to learn from our allies in the global movement. Unless we can make the voices of those on the front lines of climate change central, we will fail to pursue sufficiently transformative policies.

So we have much work ahead – but it is the fight of our lives. Glasgow will simply be the latest chapter.

In solidarity,

Dorothy Guerrero
Global Justice Now

The US-UK trade deal could give corporations everything they want. Help us stop it.

We are campaigning to stop the toxic US trade deal which is likely to lower food standards, weaken chemical regulation, increase medicine prices and block climate action.

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