April, 09 2021, 12:00am EDT
Global Just Recovery Gathering Launches
GLOBAL
April 9th-11th, 350.org and hundreds of organizations have kick-started a three-day online Global Just Recovery Gathering. The program events are free, online, multilingual and will be running six-hour cycles over three different time zones to make it a truly global event.
The opening session, live-streamed here, is taking place on April 9th, 2021 7.15 UTC featuring Hakima Abbas, Naomi Klein, Amitav Ghosh, Dominic Palmer. The session launched a global petition calling on world leaders meeting at Biden's climate summit on the 22nd of April to do what the science demands, stop funding the problem, get serious about the transition, and ensure no one is left behind.
Choices are being made right now that will shape our society for decades to come; the gathering will bring together speakers who will explore what we need for a just recovery from the climate and COVID-19 crises. Including Vandana Shiva (India), Hakima Abbas (Kenya), Ailton Krenak (Brazil), Nnimmo Bassey (Nigeria), Greta Thunberg (Sweden), Eriel Deranger (Canada), Noelene Nabulivou (Fiji), Naomi Klein (Canada), Sharon Burrows (ITUC), Bill McKibben (United States) and many more.
For a full list of the panel sessions and links to the live stream, please see the end of the media advisory.
Cultural sessions that accompany each six-hour cycle of the gathering will include artists and musicians such as Gilberto Gil, Patti Smith, Angelique Kidjo, Ana Tijoux, Jazzmeia Horn, Rocky Dawuni and many more.
In addition to the panels and cultural sessions, there are over 180 workshops and training events to support individuals and campaign groups in designing a new path towards a better future for all. The full list of workshops on offer is listed on the website.
There will be interpretation in Bahasa Indonesia, Deutsch, English, Espanol, Francais, Portugues, Turkce, and Ri Ben Yu .
Namrata Chowdhary: Head of Public Engagement at 350.org
"The solutions to the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 must also be the solutions to the climate crisis. A Just Recovery means re-building our economy in a way that works for the many, not just the already-wealthy few. It means guaranteeing universal access to healthcare, education, and a clean environment as basic human rights. It means creating millions of well-paying jobs in industries that don't hurt the environment and don't pollute our communities. It also means demanding equitable solutions to the climate crisis, so that no member of our society will be forgotten or unjustly bear the costs of climate change."
Fenton Lutunatabua : Head of Regions at 350.org
"People around the world are coming together to collectively reimagine our future. The Global Just Recovery Gathering is an invitation for us all to build a movement that is massive and that shakes the foundations of power and money and greed that seem to hold all the cards right now. We must move with grace and patience with each other to build lasting relationships that truly build collective power. We must be continually willing to do things differently and learn from each other. We want to stop the worst effects of climate change, we want to see every fossil fuel project on Earth stopped, and the just transition take hold. We want the social license of the fossil fuel industry gone forever-- and we need this to happen soon."
Notes for Editors
Registration is open here.
Full list of workshops, cultural sessions and panels here.
Full list of Partners here.
Panel Sessions
Panel #1: Just Recovery for All : April 9th, 2021 7.15 UTC
Hakima Abbas, Naomi Klein, Amitav Ghosh, Dominic Palmer.
The pandemic has exposed the deep inequities of our existing economic system and opened a pathway to leave these injustices behind. We need to come together and push for a world that puts people before profit. Now is the time to turn the corner away from harmful practices that destroy our climate and the living world around us."
Panel #2: How to Postpone the End of the World? April 9th, 2021 UTC 15:15 UTC
Vandana Shiva, Ailton Krenak, Tasneem Essop, Adriana Calderon.
We are going through a major crisis. Its deepest roots are related to our continuous war against nature. This disconnection with nature has caused damage to the planet and ourselves. We need radical changes in our way of being in the world.
Panel #3: Grounding Ourselves: Science Updates & Our Mental Health April 9th, 2021 23:15 UTC
Luisa Neubauer, Ko Barrett, Renee Lertzman, George Marshall.
How do we cope with the most up-to-date data from climate scientists without getting trapped by anxiety-related responses and mental health disorders? Sharing ways to process this information and remain steady to keep on fighting.
Panel #4: Hearing the Guardians of the Earth April 10th, 2021 7:15 UTC
Eriel Deranger, Noelene Nabulivou, Francisco Javier Vera Manzanares
Nature is sacred and so we need to treat it accordingly. We need to learn from the ancestral wisdom of those who have stayed attached to the multiple forms of life and existence on Earth.
Panel #5: The Urgency of Intersectional Organizing: BIPOC Voices on Climate April 10th, 2021 15:15
Chibeze Ezekiel, Pennie Opal Plant, Patricia Wattimena, Ayakha Melithafa
How our struggles link altogether? To face the crisis in the urgency and proportion that it needs to be faced, we need everyone, at the same time and now. Combining efforts is a fundamental task among movements in search of freedom and dignity.
Panel #6: End Fossil Finance
April 10th, 2021 23:15 UTC
Bill McKibben, Mitzi Jonelle Tan, Sharan Burrow, Demond Drummer.
To prevent a devastating climate breakdown, we have to end all finance to fossil fuels. The only way to stop this is through sustained public organising and people power.
Panel #7: Climate solutions can only succeed with justice at the heart April 11th, 2021 07:15 UTC
Nnimmo Bassey, Lidy Nacpil, Teresa Anderson, Sohanur Rahman.
We cannot be distracted by false solutions allowing the climate crisis to continue to escalate, disproportionately affecting those who have contributed the least to the real problem.
Panel #8: Building power through youth organizing April 11th, 2021 15:15 UTC
Greta Thunberg, Brianna Fruean, Vanessa Nakate.
They ask us to have hope, in a clear attempt to imprison us, but the world is on fire and this requires immediate action. We won't stop.
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
Six Island Nations Commit to 'Fossil Fuel-Free Pacific,' Demand Global Just Transition
"As Pacific leaders shoulder the burden of climate leadership," this call "is a reminder that despite the doom and gloom, another world is possible, a fossil fuel-free world that is just, equitable, and sustainable."
Mar 17, 2023
Climate justice advocates celebrated Friday after a half-dozen island nations committed to building a "fossil fuel-free Pacific" and urged all governments to join them in bringing about an equitable phaseout of coal, oil, and gas.
From Wednesday to Friday, Vanuatu and Tuvalu co-hosted the 2nd Pacific Ministerial Dialogue on Pathways for the Global Just Transition from Fossil Fuels in Port Vila, Vanuatu. The summit came amid an ongoing state of emergency in Vanuatu, which was hammered earlier this month by a pair of Category 4 cyclones. Participants described the current devastation as "just the most recent example of the extensive and ongoing fossil fuel-induced loss and damage suffered by" Pacific Islanders.
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"Every second wasted on climate inaction and clinging to fossil fuels puts lives, homes, livelihoods, cultures, and ecosystems in jeopardy."
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In a statement, Oil Change International global policy lead Romain Ioualalen said, "Faced with devastating climate impacts resulting from the world's continued addiction to fossil fuels, Pacific governments have once again demonstrated what true leadership looks like."
"The contrast between the U.S. and other rich countries approving new oil and gas fields in clear defiance of science, and the commitment to build a prosperous and resilient fossil fuel-free Pacific could not be more obvious and highlights the complete disregard the fossil fuel industry and its enablers have for people and communities most affected by the climate crisis," said Ioualalen. "Countries must urgently heed the call for an immediate end to fossil fuel expansion that is emanating from the Pacific. We look forward to Pacific countries continuing to be vocal champions for a just and equitable phaseout of fossil fuels on the global stage, including at COP28 later this year."
Samoan climate justice activist Brianna Fruean said that "this dialogue of Pacific ministers is stepping outside of the box and acknowledging that we must try new ways to save ourselves—and that is going to require a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty."
"While the guilty continue to reap profit off the expansion of fossil fuels behind our backs," said Fruean, "the meeting is bringing renewed energy to Pacific leadership that will not just echo across our islands but drive action with our allies globally."
Despite bearing almost no historical responsibility for the climate crisis, Pacific Islanders are acutely vulnerable to rising sea levels and increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather. Policymakers from the region have long been leaders in demanding ambitious efforts to slash greenhouse gas pollution at speed and scale, including by putting the idea of a FFNPT on the table in 2016. Just last year, Vanuatu and Tuvalu became the first national governments to endorse such a measure, while Tuvalu also recently joined the BOGA as a core member.
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The region's new resolution states that "we have the power and responsibility to lead, and we will. Pacific leaders called for the Paris agreement to limit warming to 1.5°C, and have demanded an end to the development and expansion of fossil fuel-extracting industries, starting with new coal mines. Pacific civil society has challenged the world to step up the fight for urgent fossil fuel phaseout and effective climate action."
In recent weeks, Vanuatu has been leading an ongoing push for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on "how existing international laws can be applied to strengthen action on climate change, protect people and the environment, and save the Paris agreement."
The document unveiled Friday calls for "redoubled efforts to reaffirm, strengthen, and codify legal obligations with respect to the global phaseout of fossil fuels," including by supporting the adoption of the Vanuatu-led ICJ resolution at the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly at the end of this month.
"The contrast between the U.S. and other rich countries approving new oil and gas fields in clear defiance of science, and the commitment to build a prosperous and resilient fossil fuel-free Pacific could not be more obvious."
According to Seru, "The phaseout of fossil fuels is not only a challenge, but an opportunity to promote economic development and innovation in the Pacific region."
To that end, the Port Vila document calls for "new Pacific-tailored development pathways based on 100% renewable energy."
350.org Pacific managing director Joseph Sikulu welcomed this week's developments, saying in a statement that "our people need global leaders to follow the innovation of Pacific representatives at the Pacific Ministerial Dialogue, it is a matter of survival."
"Our people also need energy to power their homes, their fishing boats, and their schools, which is where we are ready to work with governments in their commitment to progress the development and implementation of fossil-free development pathways at the grassroots level," he added.
In order to make that a reality, the document calls for increasing "public and private finance for the just transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy at the scale required, with innovative, simplified mechanisms and reforms of existing financial institutions."
Cansin Leylim, 350.org associate director of global campaigns, applauded Pacific Island nations for "once again showing immense leadership in the fight against the climate crisis, a crisis they had no part in creating."
"Pacific leaders have told us time and again—in order to stay below 1.5°C, the historically responsible countries need to immediately commit to a fossil fuel-free future without loopholes," said Leylim. "This means ensuring adequate and grant-based climate finance is swiftly mobilized to both adapt to the crisis and limit the heating to survival limits, ensuring energy independence and resource resilience with renewable energy."
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"Had this been a serious country, everybody at the transport ministry would be in handcuffs."
Much of the Greek left blames the disaster on railway staffing cuts, outdated technology, and infrastructure neglect and degradation caused by years of severe fiscal austerity measures.
Rallying under the slogan "this crime will not be forgotten; we will be the voice of all the dead," demonstrators shouted "murderers" and "the tears have dried up and turned into rage" as they marched in central Athens.
"This was mass murder," Pavlos Aslanidis, the father of one of the passengers killed in the crash, toldAlphaTV. "Had this been a serious country, everybody at the transport ministry would be in handcuffs."
According toWorld Socialist Web Site:
Demonstrations were replete with anti-government slogans and chants rejecting the initial claims of New Democracy Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that the disaster was the result of the errors of a single station master in Larissa—the passenger train's last stop before the crash. Some banners in Syntagma Square outside Parliament read, "It was no human error, it was a crime" and "Our dead, your profits."
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Video footage posted on social media showed what appeared to be unprovoked attacks by police on demonstrators. Other footage showed people throwing Molotov cocktails and projectiles at police.
Among those participating in Thursday's demonstrations was Yanis Varoufakis, the leftist lawmaker and former finance minister who is recovering from a brutal assault last Friday.
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Days after U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren expressed outrage over the bonuses that Silicon Valley Bank executives were handing out hours before the bank failed, President Joe Biden on Friday called on Congress to strengthen regulatory powers to hold officials at failed banks accountable.
The president said in a statement that the White House's authority to hold SVB executives directly responsible for the failure is limited, but said Congress can and should pass legislation granting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) broader powers to take action against former SVB CEO Greg Becker and other executives.
He called on lawmakers to allow the FDIC to claw back compensation from executives, impose civil penalties, and bar executives from working in the financial services industry if their banks failed "due to mismanagement and excessive risk taking."
"I'm firmly committed to accountability for those responsible for this mess," said Biden. "No one is above the law—and strengthening accountability is an important deterrent to prevent mismanagement in the future. Congress must act to impose tougher penalties for senior bank executives whose mismanagement contributed to their institutions failing."
SVB and Becker himself raked in significant profits by largely serving wealthy tech companies, and took a risk by holding an "abnormally large ratio of uninsured deposits," as Warren said earlier this week. They also invested a large share of the funds into long-term Treasury bonds whose value plummeted as interest rates rose, causing the bank's clients to withdraw their money only to find SVB did not have sufficient funds on hand.
In addition to giving out bonuses hours before SVB collapsed, Becker sold roughly $3 million worth of shares of the bank in the weeks before the failure.
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Biden called for Congress to allow the regulatory agency to penalize executives for "negligent" conduct as well.
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