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For Immediate Release
October, 22 2018, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Seth Gladstone – sgladstone@fwwatch.org, 917.363.6615
RL Miller – rlm@climatehawksvote.com, 818.518.3470
With Urgency of Climate Crisis in Sharp Focus, Many Congressional Candidates Now Pledge to Support Ambitious "Vote Climate" Package
Candidates in Key Races are Backing the Off Fossil Fuels Act and No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge
WASHINGTON
As this month's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has intensified focus on the alarming nature of the planet's fossil fuel-driven climate crisis, dozens of Congressional candidates from across the county have pledged to support two key climate initiatives if elected or reelected in November. 46 current Congress members and an additional 38 Congressional candidates have co-sponsored or formally pledged to co-sponsor the Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future (OFF) Act (HR 3601), the most aggressive, comprehensive climate legislation yet introduced in Washington. Simultaneously, 85 Congress members or candidates have signed the No Fossil Fuels Money Pledge, a public commitment to refuse campaign funding from the fossil fuel industry.
A comprehensive list of candidates backing these two "Vote Climate" measures was released today in a report by Climate Hawks Vote and Food & Water Action, two political organizations that have been organizing support for these complementary climate initiatives and tracking their endorsers.
"As our planet fast approaches the point of no return on devastating climate catastrophe, only an urgent, aggressive transition away from fossil fuels and onto a clean, renewable energy future will save us. Congressional candidates that have pledged to both support the OFF Act and reject dirty campaign cash from the oil and gas industry are our true climate champions. As voters head to the polls in November - or vote early now - they need to know which Congressional candidates are actually fighting for the health and stability of future generations. We've identified them clearly right here," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Action, a co-author of the report.
"The OFF Act and No Fossil Fuel Money pledge are the two fiercest measures in today's political climate. And this report provides voters with a simple Venn diagram of those climate hawk politicians who have pledged to immediately transition to a fossil fuel free-future, those who have pledged not to listen to the fossil fuel industry's blandishments, or both," said RL Miller of Climate Hawks Vote, a co-author of the report.
The OFF Act would place a moratorium on new fossil fuels projects and move our electricity and ground transportation systems to 100 percent clean, renewable energy by 2035, with 80 percent of that transition occurring in the next decade. It would also provide for an equitable, just transition for environmental justice communities and those currently employed in the fossil fuel industry.
Taking the No Fossil Fuels Money Pledge means that a politician or candidate's campaign will adopt a policy to not knowingly accept any contributions over $200 from the PACs, executives, or front groups of fossil fuel companies -- companies whose primary business is the extraction, processing, distribution, or sale of oil, gas, or coal.
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
Amnesty Says Pakistan Must 'Immediately Rescind' Shoot-on-Sight Order Against Protesters
Jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan commended "the Pakistani nation and PTI's political workers, who are fighting for their rights by participating in this peaceful protest."
Nov 26, 2024
Amnesty International on Tuesday joined people around the world in pressuring the Pakistani government to revoke the "shoot-on-site" orders given to troops responding to tens of thousands of protesters in Islamabad who are demanding the release of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Khan has been behind bars for over a year due to various charges that he and his allies argue are politically motivated. So far, at least six people, including four paramilitary soldiers, have been killed and dozens more injured as supporters of the 72-year-old and his political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by his wife Bushra Bibi, have converged on the country's capital in recent days.
In addition to Khan's release, the protesters "seek the resignation of the current government over what they call
rigged general elections this year," Reutersreported Tuesday. "Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's government has given no indication yet of bending to the demands. Authorities have used shipping containers to block major roads and streets in Islamabad, with police and paramilitary patrolling in riot gear."
NDTVexplained that "when the Pakistan Army stepped in, it issued 'shoot-at-sight' orders under Section 245—which is a clause meant for the armed forces 'to defend Pakistan against external aggression or threat of war.' The clause also gives the army an open hand as it nullifies any judicial intervention or future proceedings."
"Any use of force must be lawful and no more than is necessary and proportionate and the authorities must take all necessary measures to prevent arbitrary deprivation of life."
Responding to the developments on Tuesday, Amnesty's South Asia office said that "the government must fully protect and ensure the rights of protesters and immediately rescind the 'shoot-on-sight' orders that provide undue and excessive powers to the military... The authorities must exercise maximum restraint, aiming to prevent and de-escalate violence and to avoid the use of force. Any use of force must be lawful and no more than is necessary and proportionate and the authorities must take all necessary measures to prevent arbitrary deprivation of life, including by ensuring that law enforcement actions are adequately planned to minimize the risk to life."
"There must also be effective accountability for any unlawful use of force," Amnesty continued. "The severe restrictions on assembly, movement, and mobile and internet services as well as arbitrary detentions of thousands of protesters across Pakistan, particularly in Islamabad, are a grave violation of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, movement, and expression. As protesters enter the capital, law enforcement officials have used unlawful and excessive force including tear gas, live ammunition, and rubber bullets against PTI protesters."
"Even if protests become nonpeaceful, the authorities must respect and ensure the protesters' rights to life and freedom from torture and other ill-treatment," the group added. "The Pakistani authorities have obligations under international human rights law to provide an enabling environment for the protesters. Amnesty International urges the government to ensure that the right to freedom of peaceful assembly is respected and protected. Those detained solely for exercising their right to peaceful assembly must be released immediately."
Pakistani poet and journalist Ahmed Farhad has used social media to share protest updates in Urdu, but also posted a message in English on Tuesday: "I don't know if I'll be alive or free to report further. I've been riding on bike for several kilometers to share these updates. I request international and national media to show the situation at D-Chowk. People are being shot at with heartless brutality. I don't know how many more people have been injured or killed by the time this post reaches you."
D-Chowk, a popular square in the capital near multiple government buildings, was "the final destination of PTI's main convoy," according toDawn. As midnight neared in Pakistan Tuesday night, the newspaper reported that "rangers have regained control of Islamabad's D-Chowk after beginning arrests and pushing back PTI protesters from the venue of the party's much-touted power show."
Meanwhile, Khan on Tuesday
issued a new statement from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, commending "the Pakistani nation and PTI's political workers, who are fighting for their rights by participating in this peaceful protest, and resolutely standing before the mafia that has imposed itself upon our country, to demand their rights and genuine freedom."
"My message for my team is to fight until the last ball is bowled. We will not back down until our demands are met!" he continued, taking aim at the Pakistan's interior minister. "On Mohsin Naqvi's instructions, paramilitary rangers and police relentlessly fired tear gas shells and even shot at our political workers, resulting in the martyrdom of and injuries to peaceful, unarmed citizens. Let me tell you, they will have to answer for this! The protesters were not only peaceful, but they even assisted the very police officers and rangers who were shooting and firing teargas shells at them (when they were in need of help)."
"My thanks go to overseas Pakistanis around the globe, who are not only mobilizing Pakistanis and contributing funds, but also holding historic protests in their respective countries," he said. "Social media warriors around the globe should continue to vigorously reiterate our demands and show the world the ongoing oppression in Pakistan! To those threatening to try me in military court: Do what you must; I will not back down from my stance. Those who haven't yet joined the protest must also head to D-Chowk. All Pakistanis participating in the protest must remain peaceful, stay united, and stand firm until our demands are met. Remember, this is a struggle for Pakistan's survival and true freedom!"
Several solidarity protests were held around the world on Sunday and multiple U.S. political leaders weighed in the past few days.
"The brutal repression of protesters in Pakistan and growing political violence is an attempt to suppress democracy and human rights," U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said Tuesday. "I stand with the brave Pakistanis who are rising up and protesting for change."
Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) declared Monday that "freedom of speech and the freedom to peacefully protest are essential to democracy—that holds true in the United States, in Pakistan, and around the globe. I stand with pro-democracy advocates in Pakistan as they fight for justice and human rights."
Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said Monday that "I am moved by the bravery demonstrated by the Pakistani people as they protest for electoral integrity, and judicial fairness—and I condemn any violent suppression of them exercising their fundamental rights. Everyone deserves to speak out and demand democracy."
In a pair of social media posts on Sunday, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
noted his support for recent letters led by Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas), Susan Wild (D-Pa.), and John James (R-Mich.) "urging for the release of all political prisoners in Pakistan and for the U.S. to stand up for human rights," and specifically sounded the alarm about communications blackouts.
"Deeply concerned by reports that Asim Munir's regime in Pakistan is cutting internet, blocking roads, and abducting activists this weekend," he
said. "As the congressman for Silicon Valley, I am committed to standing up for freedom of speech including a free internet."
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As US Approves Landmines for Ukraine, Victims Demand 'Mine-Free World' at Global Summit
"Every landmine planted is a child, a civilian, a woman, who is just waiting for their legs to be blown off, for his life to be taken," said one survivor who lost a leg to a landmine in 2005.
Nov 26, 2024
"Look what anti-personnel landmines will do to your people," read a sign displayed by two of the protesters who gathered in Siem Reap, Cambodia this week to confront delegates at a conference on the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty.
The people holding the sign were among those who took part in the demonstration while using wheelchairs or crutches due to the amputations and serious injuries they have suffered from landmine attacks.
More than 100 people lined a walkway leading to the conference venue on Sunday as the Siem Reap-Angkor Summit on a Mine-Free World opened.
The conference began days after the Biden administration announced a reversal of its own policy and approved a plan to provide anti-personnel landmines to Ukraine—a decision that was condemned by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and other human rights groups.
As Amnesty International USA advocacy direct Ben Linden said last week, the weapons are "inherently indiscriminate" because they cause explosives to scatter across a wide region, putting people at risk long after conflicts end. The majority of landmine victims are children.
In 2023, at least 5,757 people were killed or maimed by landmines, 84% of whom were civilians. Over one-third were children.
Alex Munyambabazi, who lost a leg to a landmine in 2005 in Uganda, was among those who assembled at the landmines summit.
"We don't want to see any more victims like me, we don't want to see any more suffering," he toldAgence France-Presse (AFP). "Every landmine planted is a child, a civilian, a woman, who is just waiting for their legs to be blown off, for his life to be taken. I am here to say we don't want any more victims. No excuses, no exceptions."
The U.S. and Russia are not signatories to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, but Ukraine is. According to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Ukraine "asked" for anti-personnel landmines.
Tamar Gabelnick, director of ICBL, told AFP that Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied landmines would signify a "blatant disregard for their obligations under the mine ban treaty."
Ukrainian delegates were present at the Siem Reap conference this week.
In a message delivered to delegates in Siem Reap, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres acknowledged the "important progress" made by the treaty, "with over 55 million anti-personnel devices destroyed across 13,000 square kilometers in over 60 countries, and thousands of people receiving lifesaving awareness education and victim assistance services."
"I call on states parties to meet their obligations and ensure compliance to the convention, while addressing humanitarian and developmental impacts through financial and technical support," he said. " I also encourage all states that have not yet acceded to the convention to join the 164 that have done so."
"A world without anti-personnel mines is not just possible," Guterres said. "It is within reach."
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Third Death Tied to Texas Abortion Ban as 'Stigma and Fear' Disrupt Miscarriage Care
"The only reason she is not with us is because of Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, and every single Republican politician who helped put Texas' abortion ban in place," said one advocacy group.
Nov 26, 2024
Friends and family of Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother of two in Houston, were stunned last year to learn that she had died in a hospital after suffering a miscarriage when she was 11 weeks pregnant—and medical experts who spoke to the investigative outlet ProPublicaon Monday had the same reaction.
"All she needed was a [dilation and curettage]," one friend told Ngumezi's grieving husband, Hope Ngumezi, referring to a standard procedure which is often given to pregnant patients who have first-trimester miscarriages. Commonly called a D&C, it is also diagnose or treat other health conditions and provide abortion care.
Dr. Daniel Grossman, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at University of California, San Francisco, toldProPublica that "at every point" of Ngumezi's visit to Houston Methodist Sugar Land, a hospital outside Houston, medical providers' response to her case was "kind of shocking."
"She is having significant blood loss and the physician didn't move toward aspiration," Grossman told ProPublica.
Like at least two other Texas women—Nevaeh Crain and Josseli Barnica—Ngumezi's death in June 2023 was the result of the abortion ban that went into effect in Texas in 2022, according to medical experts who reviewed her case.
Ngumezi arrived at the hospital on June 11, 2023 after experiencing heavy bleeding 11 weeks into her pregnancy with her third child. Doctors noted that Ngumezi had a blood-clotting disorder and that she was experiencing "significant bleeding" with large clots.
"Doctors assume that a D&C is not standard in Texas anymore, even in cases where it should be recommended. People are afraid: They see D&C as abortion and abortion as illegal."
An ultrasound showed a "sac-like structure," but no fetus or cardiac activity were detected, indicating that she was having a miscarriage.
But instead of providing a D&C, in which a small tube is inserted into the uterus to gently remove any remaining fetal tissue, doctors took a "wait-and-see approach [that] has become more common under abortion bans," according to the medical experts who spoke to ProPublica.
Dr. Gabrielle Taper, who has worked as an OB-GYN in Austin, told ProPublica that since Texas' abortion ban went into effect in 2022—two months after the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—there has been "much more hesitation [among doctors] about: When can we intervene, do we have enough evidence to say this is a miscarriage, how long are we going to wait, what will we use to feel definitive?"
For Ngumezi, that hesitation meant that Dr. Andrew Ryan Davis, the obstetrician on duty, prescribed misoprostol to help Ngumezi pass the fetal tissue without a D&C.
Dr. Alison Goulding, another OB-GYN in Houston, told ProPublica that because misoprostol can also be used for women in labor or to treat postpartum bleeding, under Texas' abortion ban, "stigma and fear are there for D&Cs in a way that they are not for misoprostol."
"Doctors assume that a D&C is not standard in Texas anymore, even in cases where it should be recommended," Goulding said. "People are afraid: They see D&C as abortion and abortion as illegal."
But more than a dozen doctors told ProPublica that considering Ngumezi's blood-clotting disorder, doctors should have provided a D&C.
"Misoprostol," reported ProPublica, "is an effective method to complete low-risk miscarriages but is not recommended when a patient is unstable."
Some critics who support abortion bans have dismissed Ngumezi's case—and that of other women who have died because of the laws—as the result of medical malpractice that had nothing to do with recently passed state laws. They claim Texas' law protects women who have miscarriages.
But ProPublica noted that Ngumezi had a similar case to one described on social media by podcast host Ryan Hamilton earlier this year. Hamilton's wife experienced bleeding while miscarrying at 13 weeks, and was prescribed misoprostol and sent home after an ultrasound at Surepoint Emergency Center Stephenville showed no fetal cardiac activity. The bleeding got worse, but an emergency doctor told the couple they couldn't provide a D&C because of "the current stance" in Texas.
Greer Donley, a law professor at University of Pittsburgh, said that "the antiabortion movement wants us to blame the doctors and sometimes that is warranted. But abortion bans are the ultimate cause of this harm."
"When life in prison is the penalty for violating a ban, doctors will understandably be risk averse. And that chill in care will cause death," said Donley.
ProPublica reported that "performing a D&C attracts more attention from colleagues, creating a higher barrier in a state where abortion is illegal."
Doctors, added Goulding, "have to convince everyone that it is legal and won't put them at risk [of prosecution]."
In Ngumezi's case, the bleeding continued after she took misoprostol, and her heart stopped three hours later—a "preventable" death, according to the experts.
"The only reason" Ngumezi died, said Reproductive Justice for All, is that Republican politicians including President-elect Donald Trump helped put Texas' abortion ban in place.
"We are heartbroken and enraged by the tragic, preventable death of Porsha Ngumezi," said Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. "This nightmare reality, where political agendas outweigh patients' lives, has left another family shattered."
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