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"A just transition is not a luxury or a campaign to be used for greenwashing; it's a matter of survival and securing our future," said a movement member in the host country.
The Fridays for Future movement announced this week that it is planning the next Global Climate Strike for November 14, the first Friday during the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil.
The movement began in 2018, with then-teenage Greta Thunberg's solo protest at the Swedish parliament, which inspired millions of people to hold similar school strikes for climate action around the world.
The U.N. summit, COP30, is set to run from November 10-21. Brazil's website for the conference states that "the main challenges include aligning the commitments of developed and developing countries in relation to climate finance, ensuring that emission reduction targets are compatible with climate science, and dealing with the socio-economic impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations."
On November 14, "under the banner #JustTransitionNow, young people around the world will mobilize to demand urgent, justice-centered action to phase out fossil fuels and build a sustainable future for all," according to a Monday statement from Fridays for Future.
"Global leaders must stop listening to fossil fuel lobbyists... It's time they start listening to science, to young people, and to traditional communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis."
According to the movement, the upcoming global strike will highlight the urgent need to:
"Global leaders must stop listening to fossil fuel lobbyists or seeking alliances with groups like OPEC+," said Daniel Holanda of Fridays for Future Brazil, referring to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other leading oil exporters.
"It's time they start listening to science, to young people, and to traditional communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis," Holanda added. "A just transition is not a luxury or a campaign to be used for greenwashing; it's a matter of survival and securing our future."
The movement's announcement of the next strike follows last week's landmark advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—the U.N.'s primary judicial organ—that countries have a legal obligation to take cooperative action against the "urgent and existential threat" of human-caused planetary heating.
"We now have a common foundation based on the rule of law, releasing us from the limitations of individual nations' political interests that have dominated climate action," said Ralph Regenvanu, a minister in Vanuatu, which introduced the U.N. General Assembly resolution that led to the opinion. "This moment will drive stronger action and accountability to protect our planet and peoples."
Plans for the strike also come as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and congressional Republicans work to undo the limited progress that the United States has made in terms of taking accountability for being the biggest historical contributor to climate pollution.
In addition to the United States ditching the Paris agreement, again, Trump's return to power has meant the elimination of the State Department's Office of Global Change. The latter move, CNN reported Tuesday, "leaves the world's largest historical polluter with no official presence" at COP30.
The U.N. summit, COP30, is set to run from November 10-21. Brazil's website for the conference states that "the main challenges include aligning the commitments of developed and developing countries in relation to climate finance, ensuring that emission reduction targets are compatible with climate science, and dealing with the socio-economic impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations."
On November 14, "under the banner #JustTransitionNow, young people around the world will mobilize to demand urgent, justice-centered action to phase out fossil fuels and build a sustainable future for all," according to a Monday statement from Fridays for Future.
"Global leaders must stop listening to fossil fuel lobbyists... It's time they start listening to science, to young people, and to traditional communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis."
According to the movement, the upcoming global strike will highlight the urgent need to:
"Global leaders must stop listening to fossil fuel lobbyists or seeking alliances with groups like OPEC+," said Daniel Holanda of Fridays for Future Brazil, referring to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other leading oil exporters.
"It's time they start listening to science, to young people, and to traditional communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis," Holanda added. "A just transition is not a luxury or a campaign to be used for greenwashing; it's a matter of survival and securing our future."
The movement's announcement of the next strike follows last week's landmark advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—the U.N.'s primary judicial organ—that countries have a legal obligation to take cooperative action against the "urgent and existential threat" of human-caused planetary heating.
"We now have a common foundation based on the rule of law, releasing us from the limitations of individual nations' political interests that have dominated climate action," said Ralph Regenvanu, a minister in Vanuatu, which introduced the U.N. General Assembly resolution that led to the opinion. "This moment will drive stronger action and accountability to protect our planet and peoples."
Plans for the strike also come as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and congressional Republicans work to undo the limited progress that the United States has made in terms of taking accountability for being the biggest historical contributor to climate pollution.
In addition to the United States ditching the Paris agreement, again, Trump's return to power has meant the elimination of the State Department's Office of Global Change. The latter move, CNN reported Tuesday, "leaves the world's largest historical polluter with no official presence" at COP30.
The International Court of Justice held this week that failing to protect the planet from global warming could be a violation of international law.
Of all the frustrations that go with watching the rise of the MAGA right here and around the world (and the rise of their billionaire and corporate allies), perhaps none tops the sense that they are never held accountable for anything—that on any given day U.S. President Donald Trump, and the minor Donald Trumps of the world, do things that at any other point in our lifetimes would have ended their political careers or landed them in jail. And… nothing. Some combination of utter brazenness, flooding the field with so many scandals that none stick, and the fear they induce in too many who might otherwise raise questions has let them get away with, well, murder. (And rape). But there’s some sense this week that that might not go on forever.
In the Middle East, for instance, Israel and America’s cruel decision to starve Gazans into submission is beginning to bring even the timid off the sidelines—as the pictures of protruding ribs flooded the news, France announced yesterday that it would recognize a Palestinian state, and it seems possible that Britain may follow suit as early as today.
And in America the Epstein case seems, at the least, to be making the White House sweat—they may well be able to cover up files, buy off witnesses like Ghislaine Maxwell, and shutter D.C. till things die down. But for once it’s not automatic—one senses that a few more Americans are seeing through to the ugly core.
Meanwhile, in the longest-running crime of all—the decades-old and ongoing effort by the oil industry, with massive amounts of government backup, to wreck the planet’s climate—there was an interesting new development. The International Court of Justice held this week that failing to protect the planet from global warming could be a violation of international law. As The Associated Press explained, judges in the Hague ruled that “countries could be in violation of international law if they fail to take measures to protect the planet from climate change, and nations harmed by its effects could be entitled to reparations”:
“Failure of a state to take appropriate action to protect the climate system... may constitute an internationally wrongful act,” court President Yuji Iwasawa said during the hearing. He called the climate crisis “an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.”
The ruling came in a suit brought by the low-lying island state of Vanuatu, and backed by 130 other nations. As United Nations chief António Guterres said:
This is a victory for our planet, for climate justice, and for the power of young people to make a difference. Young Pacific islanders initiated this call for humanity to the world. And the world must respond.
It’s not clear what this means in the immediate future—there’s no way for the court to force, say, Exxon, or the United States, to pay reparations for the damage they’ve done. As the chief judge said, international courts can play “an important but ultimately limited role in resolving this problem.” But for those nations that still pay some attention to international opinion (which would be most nations except ours), the ruling will be one more spur to action—it will certainly heighten the rhetoric and the stakes at COP30, the next global climate talks which will be held (sans America) in Belem, Brazil in November.
And it’s not as if there’s no chance that this will eventually mean something. European-based oil companies, for instance—which often have some state ownership and control—may be more exposed. "The legal consequences resulting from the commission of an internationally wrongful act may include... full reparations to injured states in the form of restitution, compensation, and satisfaction," said ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa on behalf of the 15-judge panel.
At the moment the oil companies imagine themselves to be unshakable colossi, astride the world because they control Washington. But as so often, it is in the moment of greatest hubris that disaster looms. Here’s an ominous little note for them: Chinese data yesterday showed that Beijing has managed to essentially end all imports of oil and gas from America. That’s a big change—as Bloomberg notes: “Crude is the most heavily traded commodity in the world and China the biggest buyer. In June last year, its purchases from the U.S. were worth nearly $800 million.” But no more—remember, China is currently installing 100 solar panels a second, and more than half the cars it sells have a plug dangling out the back. They’re figuring out how to say buzz off to Big Oil.
So imagine, for a moment, a scene in 2029, when the balance of power has shifted in Washington—and when it’s become clear that we no longer really need fossil fuels to power the world. It’s not impossible to imagine that an America seeking to rejoin the world, and needing to make amends for the utter stupidity of the Trump years, might not see the oil industry as a useful sacrifice to offer the rest of the planet. “Restitution, compensation, satisfaction.” Justice delayed is justice denied, as the British Prime Minister William Gladstone correctly remarked. But to everything there is a season, as King Solomon also correctly remarked.
At any rate: we keep fighting. Next stop on our calendar is of course Sun Day, and in honor of the glory days of high summer here’s a particularly juicy version of the logo that popped up in the global gallery this week:
"Lula says Brazil will lead the environmental agenda by example," said one prominent Brazilian climate defender. "A veto, on the eve of COP30, is the perfect opportunity to make the discourse into practice."
Opponents including native and Afro-descendant communities and environment defenders are urging progressive Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to veto legislation passed Thursday by the lower house of the National Congress that would dramatically weaken environmental protections and Indigenous peoples' control over their own lands.
Bill 2159/2021—commonly called the "Devastation Bill"—was approved by the Chamber of Deputies in a 267-116 vote in the dead of night following its passage by the Senate in May. The vote, which took place at approximately 3:40 am, was called by Chamber of Deputies President Hugo Motta of the right-wing Republicans party. Both houses of the National Congress have strong right-wing majorities; some members of Lula's leftist Workers' Party also voted for the bill.
If approved by Lula, the legislation would introduce an online self-declaration process for environmental licensing for many mining and agricultural projects that critics say will fuel deforestation and other destruction. The bill also speeds up the review process for development projects prioritized by the federal government and eliminates reviews for highway upgrades.
"As approved, the bill encourages deforestation and aggravates the climate crisis," Marcio Astrini, executive director of the Climate Observatory," said following the vote.
"Lula says Brazil will lead the environmental agenda by example. A veto, on the eve of COP30, is the perfect opportunity to make the discourse into practice," he continued, referring to this November's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém.
"We hope that he will meet his campaign commitments and reject this absurd text approved by the Brazilian Congress," Astrini added.
Lula has 15 days to either approve or veto the measure. However, the right-wing congressional majority could overturn a veto, prompting the Supreme Court to intervene.
Proponents argue the bill would simplify the regulatory process.
"Finally, we have improved legislation to unlock investments, streamline the system, and generate opportunities and income for the country," said Pedro Lupion, a deputy from the right-wing Progressistas party representing Paraná and president of the Parliamentary Agriculture Front.
However, Climate Observatory public policy coordinator Suely Araújo said that the proposal represents "the greatest setback to Brazil's environmental legislation" since licensing requirements were introduced in the 1980s.
Some critics of the bill pointed to Article 225 of the Brazilian Constitution, which states that "everyone has the right to an ecologically balanced environment, which is an asset of common use and essential to a healthy quality of life, and both the government and the community shall have the duty to defend and preserve it for present and future generations."
Brazilian Minister for Indigenous Peoples Sônia Guajajara, a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), said on the social media site X that Thursday's vote "should be forever remembered as the moment when the Chamber of Deputies attacked Brazilian environmental legislation and showed its lack of commitment to the future."
"In the year we will host the COP, our parliamentarians show what example not to set for the world," she added.
Célia Xakriabá, a PSOL deputy representing Minas Gerais, called the bill "legislative ecocide."
Quilombolas—residents of quilombos, Afro-Brazilian communities formed by self-liberated slaves or their descendants—and their advocates also sounded the alarm over the bill, pointing to existing efforts by extractive industries to kick them off their lands.
"The Devastation Bill threatens over 80% of quilombos and 32% of Indigenous lands in Brazil," progressive Rio de Janeiro consultant Lázaro Rosa noted on X. "Let's put strong pressure to ensure this abomination is not approved."
Erika Hilton, a PSOL federal deputy representing São Paulo, said that if the bill is approved by Lula, "mining companies will be able to renew their licenses automatically, without technical studies or prior analysis."
"This is a recipe for new tragedies like those in Brumadinho, Mariana, and Braskem in Maceió," she warned. "Other points of the bill include the end of environmental licensing for agriculture to deforest and the end of control over the use of our water resources... And the Devastation Bill will also destroy the control of pollutant emissions, putting at risk the very air we breathe."
Hilton continued: "Even so, the tendency is that, with the narrative that all our environmental legislation is bureaucracy that hinders development, the deputies will approve this horror. But what country develops with an environmental tragedy every other day? What country develops if children start being born without brains due to pollution, like in the '70s in Cubatão? What country develops if the people no longer have water to drink, air to breathe, and life to live?"
"These are the questions that the deputies are ignoring," she added.
Journalist Amanda Miranda denounced members of Congress who voted to authorize "the destruction of Brazil while its citizens sleep."
"Brazil will be handed over to the interests of businessmen who will help reelect each one of them," she added. "Every climate catastrophe is part of this reckoning too."