GGJ

CALL TO ACTION: The COP21 Paris Accord Failed Humanity

The COP21 Paris Accord failed humanity, and impacted communities must take things into our own hands and push at all levels of government

As impacted communities, we are deeply aware of the imperative of the climate crisis.  Our waters are being poisoned from fossil fuel extraction, our livelihoods are threatened by floods and drought, our communities are the hardest hit and the least protected in extreme weather events.  The climate crisis is a reality, but the COP21 Paris Accord is not based on that reality.

The atmosphere within the COP21 meeting was one of business instead of saving Mother Earth.  World leaders were in deep negotiations not over climate policy, they were in negotiations about commercialization of nature.   The result is a Paris Accord that is based on a carbon market that allows developed countries to continue to emit dangerously high levels of greenhouse gasses through shell games, imaginary technofixes, and pollution trading schemes that simultaneously let big polluters to continue polluting and result in land grabs and violations of human rights and the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

When Obama says we are doing out best, it is simply not true.  From cap and trade in California, to the carbon trading requirements of the Clean Power Plan, the US came into Paris with a predetermined model based on false solutions and bullied other countries to jump on board.  The commitments they made ignore the overwhelming historic responsibility as a leader greenhouse gas emitter, and are far too low to stop the burning of the planet.

The COP21 agreement is a failure, condemning humanity to a slow and painful death.   In imposing a market strategy, global leaders, particularly those in the US and Canada, are choosing a course of inaction that is blind to the stark realities of climate crisis.

Our Movements Represent Life

The Paris Accord failed humanity and now we have to take things into our own hands and push at all levels of government. We know that the extraction of fossil fuels must end completely by 2050 to keep the earth from warming more than 1.5 degrees.  The Paris Accord will now be moved into implementation at the national, regional, and local levels and we need to be organized to remain vigilant around the demand to keep fossil fuels in the ground, because anything short of that equals destruction.

 We join the call for System Change, Not Climate Change because we know that the fundamental driving force behind the climate crisis is capitalism, and the very nature of the extractive economy as a whole.  Climate justice is not only about the environment.  It is tied to jobs, housing, poverty, migration, food security, gender equality, access to health care.  System Change requires fundamental respect for human rights, particularly the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as the rights of Mother Earth. System Change requires that we reject the corporate driven, free trade and investment agreements and how that is linked to also harmonizing the trading regimes, and investment regimes, and trees, and nature itself.  We are building new alternative economic models based on an internationalist strategy ofJust Transition toward renewable energy, cooperative economies, and community control.  We will continue to resist extraction at the local level in all frontline communities.

We had no illusion coming into this COP.  We knew that the fossil fuel companies had already hijacked the UNFCCC process.  We leave Paris only more aligned, and more committed than ever that our collective power and growing movement is what is forcing the question of extraction into the global arena.   We will continue to fight at every level to defend our communities, the earth and future generations.  As Franz Fanon wrote, “the magic hands are the hands of the people.”

by GGJ

On Human Rights Day, US Impacted Communities Denounce US Leaders

Media Advisory
December 10, 2015

Grassroots Groups Say Climate Policies Violate Human Rights
& the Rights of Indigenous People

(Paris, FRANCE) Grassroots leaders from climate-impacted communities in the US rallied at the Paris Peace Wall to denounce the role of the US delegation for a legacy of environmental racism and in undermining the possibility for genuine climate justice coming out of Paris COP21 accord. Over 350 people participated in an action in front of the Peace Wall in Paris, a venue chosen to symbolically challenge the grave and violent implications of the current COP21 Agreement.  Massive banners, signs, fierce chanting, singing, and street theatre marked the It Takes Roots delegation-led action for Human Rights Day.

“Here in Paris, as with every COP before now, we see the role of the US in holding back any efforts at real mandatory emissions cuts, and accepting true historic and current responsibility as a leading greenhouse gas emitter. The US has been leading other member states in a strategy of pollution trading that allows big oil to continue to pollute our communities and also threatens the livelihoods of indigenous communities from the Global North to the Global South.  The decisions coming out of COP21 will lead to massive violations of human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples,” read Edgar Franx, from the It Takes Roots statement to President Obama on Human Rights Day.

"The prosperity of fossil-fueled societies has been built on the backs of historically marginalized communities: Indigenous Peoples, coal miners, fisherfolk, working class communities across the world -- all of whom have paid the price of our "cheap fuels" and will suffer the consequences of global climate chaos disproportionately. Solutions that protect the welfare and rights of these communities will prove more durable, more equitable, and safer - for all of us. Indeed, on December 10 Human Rights day, there can be no better demand of COP21 - to be accountable to all people," noted Dallas Goldtooth, with the Indigenous Environmental Network, and an It Takes Roots delegate.

Representatives from Indigenous, Black, Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander organizations have united under the banner, It Takes Roots to Weather the Storm, representing communities living alongside fracking wells, coal power plants, and oil refineries and already facing the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

Today’s peace action called out the US and other countries of the Global North whose invasive foreign policies have played a large role in the current devastating and vicious refugee crises, conflicts, and resource wars due to land grabs and displacement triggered by neoliberal globalization.

Check out the list of media spokespeople from the It Takes Roots delegation:

Check out updates about our events/actions the delegation participated/co-organized:

Visit Our Flickr Photostream (please credit photos to: It Takes Roots)

Watch a quick video highlight of today’s action by Indigenous Environmental Network

To schedule interviews with our media spokespeople, and to get video clips from today’s action contact:

Dallas Goldtooth: [email protected] ; Ph:+1 708-515-6158
Preeti Shekar: [email protected] Ph: +33 751 401 911

by GGJ