To Boot Big Polluters From COP24, Global Groundswell Backs "People's Demands for Climate Justice"

With the United Nations conference known as COP24 starting next week, Rep.-elect Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) drew attention Monday to a document demanding that government delegates to the summit recognize that the “urgency of the climate crisis requires a just response centered on human rights, equity, and justice.”

Entitled The People’s Demands for Climate Justice and endorsed by groups including 350.org, Corporate Europe Observatory, and Focus on the Global South, the international call presents the following to-do list for governments to implement in order to achieve the kind of bold transformation needed to save planet Earth:

• Keep fossil fuels in the ground.
• Reject false solutions that are displacing real, people-first solutions to the climate crisis.
• Advance real solutions that are just, feasible, and essential.
• Honor climate finance obligations to developing countries.
• End corporate interference in and capture of the climate talks.
• Ensure developed countries honor their “Fair Shares” for largely fueling this crisis.

Specifically, the demands include an immediate ban on new fossil fuel exploration and a moratorium on fracking, as well as a commitment to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.

The unified call also stresses the need for governments to support commitments to agroecological practices and back other community-led climate solutions. In addition, there must be reparations for those on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and corporations that engaged in misinformation campaigns and used their power to influence climate policy must be held accountable.

“These are the People’s Demands, our call to government delegates, grounded in people’s movements from every continent, that demand with one voice what is our birthright: climate justice,” the groups declare.