Mani Tese has always promoted environmental justice in the world, as the right of communities to exercise full control over the natural and energy resources of their territory.
In recent years, however, climate change is altering access to these resources, causing serious harm especially to indigenous peoples in the global South.
As is often the case, it is the most vulnerable who pay the price for the wicked choices of big business and politics.
For this reason we have decided to join the Climate Open Platform, a network of organizations and individuals who want to have a voice at the COP26 next November in Glasgow (Scotland), where nations from around the world will gather to decide on the future of all the inhabitants of the planet.
Read the appeal below
The 2015 COP21 Paris Accords seemed like an important first step in the right direction. Six years later, the results achieved are largely unsatisfactory.
The goal of limiting global warming to below 1.5 degrees has been called into question, so much so that there is now talk of not exceeding 2 degrees. But between the two values there is a huge difference with respect to the impact on ecosystems and the lives of people living in areas most at risk. We are tired of the climate crisis not being taken seriously and we are tired of the empty promises of politicians and governments around the world. Some timid steps forward have been taken, but no action has yet been taken with the necessary urgency and concreteness, while extreme weather, desertification and many other cataclysmic events are already bearing down on us. We are tired of the pollution and greenwashing of the public debate by oil companies, private lobbies and all the other great devastators of the planet. We think it is important that life on the planet be defended from the predatory and extractivist approach that the powerful of the earth have carried out in the last centuries.
That’s why it’s essential to have a voice at COP26 next November, in Glasgow (Scotland), where nations from around the world will gather to decide on the future of everyone on the planet.
The steps towards this event will be held in our country, in Milan, between September 28 and October 2. The Youth4Climate and PreCOP are called to make recommendations and define key issues for the negotiations of the following month.
We therefore give life to the Climate Open Platform. As civil society and movements we want to do our part, monitoring and trying to influence the institutional processes, in accordance with the associations and movements that will act in Glasgow and that share the guiding principle of our action: Climate Justice.
By climate justice we mean the social, economic and political change aimed at halting and reversing the effects of climate change and redistributing resources and well-being in a fair way at a global level, through a strong role of states and the centrality of real democracy and participation.
A commitment to justice that gives global warming an ethical and political dimension, as well as an environmental one, and that requires considering the disproportionate impact of climate change on citizens and communities, in both rich and impoverished economies. The most vulnerable social groups and peoples are in fact the ones who suffer the greatest impact even though they are the least responsible for overall climate-changing emissions. The rights of peoples, especially in historically and/or still exploited areas of the world, must be protected.
Premising:
- In the IPCC reports (in particular “Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5°C”), the abandonment of fossil fuels is a constant for the development scenarios that would allow to reach the 1.5°C target. Therefore it is necessary that no new projects of research, extraction, processing (transformation) and consumption of fossil fuels are authorized, and that a gradual reconversion of the existing ones is carried out, proceeding towards a just transition.
- UNFCCC argues that the transition to a circular economy is necessary: production and consumption must follow the rhythms dictated by the real human needs compatible with natural resources. Abandoning the idea of infinite growth in a finite world, finance must radically change its approach by disinvesting from fossil fuels and extractive projects incompatible with the protection of the planet and those who live on it, redirecting resources towards initiatives that are truly sustainable and supportive.
- For the fight for climate justice to follow the scientific consensus by relying on the best available science and for the scientific community to play an active role in helping to determine the goals and steps of the transition to a stable and safe climate scenario for the planet and those who live on it, scientific knowledge must be free, free, accessible and participatory. No one should profit from scientific knowledge and that is why we also reiterate the need for Covid vaccines to be free of intellectual property rights.
- Numerous studies and statistics underline the link between climate crisis and human rights violations: climate change puts at risk the security and livelihoods of billions of human beings. Human rights (including but not limited to those enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights) and the rights of working men and women must be guaranteed for everyone everywhere. Along with human rights, the rights of nature must be recognized, as advocated by indigenous cosmogonies.
- The peoples and territories that are suffering first and hardest from the effects of the climate crisis have in common a past of exploitation by colonial powers and are those who bear the least responsibility for the climate crisis. The struggle for climate justice is therefore an anti-racist and anti-colonialist struggle. It is necessary to dismantle the system that continues to perpetrate inequality and exploitation on a global scale. Reparations must be made to Global South and indigenous communities around the world, demanding immediate funding for the Green Climate Fund and repaying them in full through a redistribution of power and resources, as well as debt cancellation for the poorest countries.
- The struggle for climate justice is a transfeminist struggle that promotes the abolition of gender roles and patriarchal dynamics in the family, society, economy, politics, and every other context.
- The link between pandemics, zoonoses and ecosystem destruction is well established. The protection of ecosystems is the protection of human welfare and health, and since there is a relationship of interdependence between every living being, it is important that it is protected. The COP15 on Biodiversity will be fundamental to the pursuit of this goal. It must define more stringent limits for the conservation of biodiversity and oppose all interventions that alter it, from the introduction of invasive species to the pollution of soil, water and air.
- The climate crisis puts millions of jobs at risk around the world. A just ecological transition is needed to protect workers, and it cannot happen at their expense. Just transition plans must be established through participatory pathways to plan a new model of sustainable development and create new jobs and just transition measures, universal social safety nets, lifelong learning and retraining. Workers’ rights must be protected and their livelihoods guaranteed during and after the transition to a sustainable economy.
- Our planet, the only one we have, is a common good shared by everyone who inhabits it. Every individual has the right to freedom of movement and every migrant must have their fundamental rights recognized, especially in a situation of pandemic and climate crisis that increases inequalities on a global scale. COP26 must move forward expeditiously to recognize environmental migrants and support programs for adaptation and repair of loss & damages.
- The projects of useless, harmful and polluting large works are no longer sustainable and should be favored more localized interventions that ensure the health of the territories and those who live there.
- We recognize the critical role that a free education free of private funding has in giving us and the next generation the essential tools to imagine and practice ecological transition and just and equitable change.
Starting from these premises, the Climate Open Platform aims to be a space of political and organizational convergence, in which to continue a collective work based on confrontation and consensus among all the realities and individuals who want to take part in the construction of this path.
During the last week of September, at the same time as the Youth Cop and Pre Cop meetings, Climate Open Platform will organize in Milan the Eco-social Forum, a week of events, initiatives, debates, actions, which will focus on the battle for climate and social justice, and will take to the streets on October 1st and 2nd, bringing back the fight for a fairer world.
In addition, Climate Open Platform will consider participation or solidarity in non-violent climate justice actions and mobilizations organized by other activists, organizations, and movements that promote a horizon of claims consistent with this call.
Towards and during these important events we want to build a path that makes our voice heard, the voice of all and everyone, the voice of those who want to give a different future to the planet.
Let’s spread the word, let’s participate, let’s get organized!
