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false climate solutions
As Extreme Heat Bakes US, 160+ Global Groups Demand 'Real' Climate Action
"Reject false solutions, such as natural gas, mega-dams, geoengineering, bioenergy, forest offsets, carbon trading schemes, nuclear energy, biodiversity credits, and carbon capture and storage."
Jun 23, 2025
As about 265 million people across the United States face advisories for this week's "climate change-driven heatwave," over 160 groups from 45 countries on Monday collectively called for "real" and urgent action to "keep global warming below 1.5ºC to preserve a healthy and livable planet for ourselves and future generations."
The "call to action" was released as United Nations climate meetings are wrapping up in Bonn, Germany, and in anticipation of the next U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP30), set to be held in Belém, Brazil in November.
The joint call was published on the first day of the virtual Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Path to COP30 and Beyond, organized by the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International.
"For too long, science-based climate solutions have been sacrificed on the altar of capitalism."
"The climate crisis is not just an environmental crisis—it is a crisis of justice, of society, and of humanity itself. How we respond, and who is centered in that response, matters profoundly," said WECAN founder and executive director Osprey Orielle Lake in a statement. "We are calling for systemic transformation—one that delivers climate, social, and economic justice for all generations."
"While governments and corporations push us deeper into climate chaos, movements around the world are rising," she noted. "From every corner of the Earth, women leaders are coming together with solutions and strategies to defend our planet and our communities. We call on governments and financial institutions to heed their voices and ensure effective and equitable policies—from Bonn to Belém and beyond. We must rise boldly, because climate change is not waiting for politics. Our movements are not bending. We are not breaking. We are defining and building a healthy and just future for all."
The new call to action points out that "last year, the world breached this threshold with global average temperatures exceeding 1.5ºC above preindustrial levels. This alarming milestone is not yet a permanent breach of the Paris agreement guardrail, which refers to long-term warming, although scientists predict that 2024 will be the first of a 20-year period reaching 1.5ºC warming."
"Although the pathway is drastically narrowing, the International Energy Agency affirms that the goal of the Paris agreement is still attainable," the publication continues. "Scientists assert that limiting global warming to 1.5ºC will require significant and urgent action from governments and financial institutions."
Specifically, the coalition outlined 10 broad actions for governments and financial institutions, beginning with urging both the public and private sectors to end fossil fuel expansion and extraction, and to "reject false solutions, such as natural gas, mega-dams, geoengineering, bioenergy, forest offsets, carbon trading schemes, nuclear energy, biodiversity credits, and carbon capture and storage."
The collective also called for accelerating a just transition, promoting women's leadership and gender equity, protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples, safeguarding forests and biodiversity, preserving oceans and freshwater, advancing food security and sovereignty, implementing the Rights of Nature, providing robust climate finance, and cutting off financial institutions' support for "harmful projects and redirecting resources into climate solutions."
STARTING SOON! The first day of the Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Path to COP30 and Beyond is kicking off today at 1:00 PM EDT! Join us via Zoom for interpretation and chat moderation or be welcome to watch live on Facebook and Youtube! tinyurl.com/CJ-2025
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— WECAN International (@wecan-intl.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 11:49 AM
In addition to WECAN, signatories include Amazon Watch, Journalists for Human Rights, MADRE, MoveOn.org, Public Citizen, Rainforest Action Network, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Urgewald, and over 100 other organizations.
"For too long, science-based climate solutions have been sacrificed on the altar of capitalism," said Zukiswa White, a project specialist and social justice consultant, and speaker at the WECAN assembly. "Corporations, financial institutions, and governments have criminalized and penalized those fighting to defend life, protect the integrity of the planet, and fight for climate action. All this, while the wealthy elite profit off of extracting and burning our planet's resources."
"If we are to prevent the worst of climate change—a crisis that is already impacting most people on the planet—we demand that we insist on a different path," White continued. "Choosing to keep the status quo is neither a coincidence nor is it our inevitable destiny. Rather, it is a political choice. So too is upholding systems that violate planetary boundaries. To counter this, we must center the work of frontline leaders and experts around the world—move into implementation of policies that not only halt climate devastation, but also champion democratic, gender transformative, and community-based solutions."
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New Report Lays Out How US Can Address Its 'Fair Share' of the Climate Crisis
"The Fair Share NDC is more than just a pledge, it is a road map for how the U.S. can prevent the coming catastrophe," said one campaigner.
Sep 17, 2024
A coalition of climate campaigners on Tuesday published a proposal "for how the U.S. can play a bigger role in tackling the global climate emergency."
Described as "a civil society model document for the U.S. climate action pledge submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" under the landmark Paris agreement, the Fair Share Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is a "comprehensive plan for the United States to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance climate action in an equitable way both domestically and internationally."
Russell Armstrong, international policy liaison at the U.S. Climate Action Network, a member of the coalition, explained that "the Fair Share NDC is more than just a pledge, it is a road map for how the U.S. can prevent the coming catastrophe."
The plan sets targets for the U.S. to slash domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2035 from 2005 levels, in line with "scientific standards and universally accepted global justice principles."
Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. program manager at coalition member Oil Change International, said: "The U.S. has a long way to go to become the climate leader the world needs. It's the largest producer of oil and gas in human history, and it plans to expand fossil fuels far beyond what's compatible with a livable climate."
"The Fair Share NDC shows what the U.S. must do to change course, starting with an equitable phaseout of fossil fuels and paying its fair share to the countries dealing with the consequences of U.S. extraction," she added.
The proposal is centered on a phased approach to ending all fossil fuel production, with coal to be eliminated by the end of the decade and oil and gas by 2031. The plan also proposes the development of "robust public transportation infrastructure and transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2030."
"This transition will also be fair, funded, feminist, and equitable," the report states. "A funded fossil fuel phaseout means that wealthy Global North countries commit to paying their fair share for fossil fuel phaseout in their own countries and in the Global South. A feminist fossil fuel phaseout means a gender-just energy transition from an extractive, fossil-fueled economy to a regenerative, care-based economy that sustains life and well-being for all."
According to Oil Change International:
The U.S.' historic emissions are so large that the U.S. cannot mitigate enough emissions domestically to fulfill its "fair share" of responsibility for the climate crisis. It must also provide Global South countries annually with $106 billion in mitigation funding and $340 billion worth of adaptation and loss and damage funding by 2030. To mobilize money on such a scale, the U.S. can redirect funding for fossil fuel subsidies and military weaponry, and make wealthy elites and big polluters pay for the damages they've already caused. Finally, changing global rules on debt, taxes, trade, and technology will also significantly expand the fiscal space Global South countries have to finance their own transitions, lowering the overall bill.
The report warns that the U.S. must commit "to avoiding dangerous distractions and unproven technological solutions, such as
forest offsets; carbon market mechanisms; carbon capture and storage, direct air capture, enhanced oil recovery, and other false solutions that act as dangerous distractions to only delay phasing out of fossil fuel production."
Tuesday is False Solutions Day during the Global Week of Action for Climate Finance and a Fossil-Free Future, which runs from September 13-20 and focuses on pressuring Global North governments to "stop making empty promises" and "cease pandering to corporations to perpetuate fossil fuels."
Basav Sen, climate policy director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a member of the coalition, said in a statement that "the U.S. is the world's largest oil and gas producer and largest cumulative greenhouse gas emitter."
"It's time the U.S. took responsibility for its outsized role in causing the climate crisis," Sen added. "The Fair Share NDC is a pathway for the U.S. to actually become the climate leader it claims to be, both internationally and at home."
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Big Oil Stifling Democracy to Keep Burning Fossil Fuels
"The multinational $4 trillion fossil fuel industry has not only corrupted citizens' understanding of the climate crisis but also contributed to the erosion of democracy around the world."
Dec 05, 2023
As more people around the world demand an end to the fossil fuel era in the face of a worsening planetary emergency, Big Oil is "undermining democratic functions to stem the tide of climate action," a report published Tuesday revealed.
"Through a wide array of tactics, the multinational $4 trillion fossil fuel industry has not only corrupted citizens' understanding of the climate crisis but also contributed to the erosion of democracy around the world," the Center for American Progress (CAP) said in a new analysis.
CAP's Chris Martinez, Laura Kilbury, and Joel Martinez examined "what these tactics look like in practice and how they work against democratic systems to stifle climate action."
According to the authors, the three main democracy-destroying tactics are:
- Polluting democratic societies' information ecosystems with deception and false climate solutions;
- Using massive financial and lobbying influence over policymakers to defeat climate action and serve industry interests; and
- Directly undermining democratic rights and freedoms.
The fossil fuel industry is "stifling democratic rights through lawsuits, anti-protest laws, and voter suppression," the report states. Meanwhile, Big Oil greenwashes its harmful practices through direct advertising and via lobby groups like the American Petroleum Institute, which "regularly publicizes its member companies' investments in renewable energy and carbon reduction technologies."
"On closer inspection, however, industry's declared efforts to fight climate change fall woefully short, with oil and gas companies often devoting more attention to creating the appearance of working on climate solutions than actually developing them," the analysis contends.
Big Oil also uses the tactic of "astroturfing," or creating the appearance of grassroots support for policies and practices that are beneficial to the industry but harm the climate by perpetuating the fossil fuel era.
"The oil and gas industry's strategy is clear: Manipulate the levers of power to obstruct any climate policies that may reduce the world's reliance on fossil fuels," Martinez, CAP's associate director for domestic climate, said in a statement. "If left unchecked, these tactics stifle democratic rights, making governments more responsive to corporations than their own citizens."
The CAP analysis comes as a record 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists flood the floors of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP28, in Dubai, peddling influence and false climate solutions like so-called "abated" emissions, biofuels, and hydrogen.
"In the case of the [United Arab Emirates'] COP28 presidency, the industry capture of these spaces is complete, with a state-backed fossil fuel company threatening to interfere with multilateral climate progress at the highest and most consequential level," the report states, referring to summit president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who is also the CEO of the UAE's national oil firm—and who has reportedly been using the run-up to the conference to pursue new fossil fuel deals.
"As warning lights of democratic backsliding strobe across the world and endanger critical efforts to address the climate crisis," the analysis adds, "the twin threat of the fossil fuel industry's attacks on climate action and the democratic functions necessary to take that action must not be ignored."
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