March, 28 2022, 01:38pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Tamra Gilbertson (IEN): tamra@ienearth.org ; +1-865-443-1337
Cate Bonacini (CIEL): cbonacini@ciel.org; +1-202-742-5847
340+ Organizations Call on Governments and the IPCC to Foreground Rapid Phaseout of Fossil Fuels
WASHINGTON
As governments meet this week to review and approve a summary of the latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regarding climate mitigation, hundreds of organizations from around the world sent an open letter demanding that they focus on rapidly ending fossil fuel production and use. The letter, signed by nearly 350 organizations, including Center for International Environmental Law, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth International, Greenpeace, Heinrich Boll Foundation, and the Indigenous Environmental Network, calls on governments and IPCC Co-Chairs to ensure the IPCC's summary of the mitigation science foregrounds rapid fossil fuel phaseout in order to avoid dangerous temperature overshoot, and recognizes that reliance on large-scale Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), carbon markets and carbon offsets, and Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) threatens irreversible harm to people and nature.
The Working Group III Summary for Policymakers (SPM) regarding IPCC mitigation recommendations due out on 4 April 2022 will greatly influence how the consensus science is understood and in turn, how it is acted upon by policymakers, investors, and the public. The stakes could not be any higher, the science any clearer, or the imperative for immediate action any greater.
The IPCC's recent WGII report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability leaves no doubt: Climate change is a human rights and environmental and social justice crisis, eroding health, well-being, the environment, and equity across the entire globe, in grossly unequal ways. Current levels of warming are already causing permanent loss and damage, especially for the populations most vulnerable to, and least responsible for, the climate crisis. Surpassing 1.5degC of warming--even temporarily--will unleash further irreparable harm taking the planet into a point of no return.
Read the open letter to Governments and the IPCC here: https://www.realsolutions-not-netzero.org/ipcc-wg-iii
QUOTES FROM ORGANIZATIONS
Nikki Reisch, Director of the Climate & Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law, said:
The IPCC's Summary for Policymakers should not conceal the stark scientific realities that the full report lays bare. The climate crisis is accelerating and fossil fuels are the overwhelming cause. Any report on mitigation that fails to emphasize that fact is denying the very science to which the IPCC is committed. To avoid the irreversible harm of overshooting 1.5degC, we must end dependence on fossil fuels and phase out their production and use as rapidly and equitably as possible. Governments have a responsibility to ensure this truth is front and center in the summary of the IPCC's findings on mitigation. They also must convey the danger of relying on technologies like large-scale carbon dioxide removal and carbon offset schemes that threaten to push warming beyond 1.5degC, triggering irreversible harm to people and nature.
Dipti Bhatnagar, Climate Justice and Energy International Programme Coordinator from Friends of the Earth International, said:
We do not consent to an overshoot of 1.5 degrees, and there is no justification for pursuing policies or pathways that allow for an overshoot. We used to chant "1.5, we might survive" - 1.5 was already a compromise for frontline communities suffering the worst climate impacts. The IPCC told us only last month that breaching this guard-rail, even temporarily, could push us over a series of tipping points, unleashing a cascade of irreversible feedback systems that would cause warming beyond our ability to control. It would be grossly negligent to ignore those warnings and pursue a mitigation plan that allows for an overshoot, as is now on the table with this new report.
Tom BK Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said:
Indigenous Peoples have been targeted by technology and market-based scams like carbon capture, solar radiation management and carbon pricing systems because these scams represent another money-making frontier for the colonizers. Indigenous Peoples have been targeted, harassed, exploited, and expelled by carbon brokers, traders, project managers, US agencies like US AID, and the big Conservation NGOs - all for the rights to their forests and lands. This is nothing new for Indigenous Peoples. Proponents of these technologies and markets of destruction not only create a system that distracts from the important political work of phasing out fossil fuels, they target Indigenous communities that keep this planet on life support. It is a horrific expansion of a deeply flawed, unjust and unethical system. We call on the IPCC and world leaders to listen to Indigenous Peoples and Mother Earth to focus their future western research projects on keeping fossil fuels in the ground.
Jim Walsh, Policy Director, Food & Water Watch, saId:
We do not have time to delay a transition off fossil fuels, but unfortunately global emissions of greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels continue to rise, as global leaders and polluters promote misleading net zero claims as solutions to the climate crisis. These climate scams, including carbon trading schemes, carbon capture, and biofuels not only delay real climate action but are creating significant harms to disadvantaged communities from air and water pollution. The leaders of the IPCC must make sure the Summary for Policymakers clearly states what the science shows, further reliance on climate scams that delay a phaseout of fossil fuels will imperil our ability to avoid catastrophic climate tipping points and lock us into irreversible impacts of climate change, increasing global suffering and harms
Established in 1990 within the United States, IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN's activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
LATEST NEWS
'An Attempt to Silence the Public's Voice': Trump Moves to Accelerate Oil Project Approvals
"The announcement is another giveaway to the fossil fuel billionaires who spent millions to put Trump back in the White House, justified by a fake 'energy emergency.'"
Apr 24, 2025
The Trump administration announced late Wednesday that it is moving to implement new permitting procedures designed to speed up reviews and approvals of oil and gas development, a plan that environmentalists called an attack on the public's right to weigh in on projects that would directly impact communities across the United States.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, led by billionaire oil industry ally Doug Burgum, said the new permitting measures would "take a multi-year process down to just 28 days at most," citing President Donald Trump's declaration of a "national energy emergency" at the start of his second term.
"In response, the Department will utilize emergency authorities under existing regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act," the agency said.
The expedited permitting procedures will apply to crude oil, fracked gas, coal, and other energy sources favored by the president, according to the Interior Department.
Notably absent from Interior's list are wind and solar, which accounted for a record 17% of U.S. electricity generation last year. As it has moved to boost the fossil fuel industry—the primary driver of the global climate emergency—the Trump administration has canceled grants and halted construction for renewable energy projects.
"The real national emergency is the cabal of oil and gas CEOs harming working people and wrecking the climate to line their pockets."
Collin Rees, U.S. campaign manager at Oil Change International, said in a statement that the Interior Department's announcement of accelerated permitting procedures for dirty energy "is an attempt to silence the public's voice in decision-making, taking away tools that ensure our communities have a say in the fossil fuel project proposals that threaten our water, land, and public health."
"The announcement is another giveaway to the fossil fuel billionaires who spent millions to put Trump back in the White House, justified by a fake 'energy emergency,'" said Rees. "The U.S. is the largest oil and gas producer and is expanding extraction faster than any other nation. The real national emergency is the cabal of oil and gas CEOs harming working people and wrecking the climate to line their pockets."
Alejandro Camacho, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Irvine, wrote on social media that the Trump administration is "once again disregarding the law, environment, and even market data. Ignoring environmental laws to approve dirty projects claiming an energy emergency that does not exist."
"Meanwhile, he's killing massive private wind power projects," Camacho added. "Sounds like an emergency to me."
The permitting announcement comes days after an internal document, leaked on Earth Day, showed that Trump's Interior Department intends to prioritize weakening environmental protections and opening federal lands to fossil fuel extraction.
The department is also "looking at whether to scale back" national monuments, including Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon, Ironwood Forest, Chuckwalla, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, Bears Ears, and Grand Staircase-Escalante, The Washington Postreported Thursday.
"Interior Department officials are poring over geological maps to analyze the monuments' potential for mining and oil production and assess whether to revise their boundaries," according to the Post.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Michigan's Democratic AG Under Fire After Armed Agents Raid Homes of Palestine Defenders
"We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted," said one attorney.
Apr 23, 2025
Federal and local law enforcement officers smashed their way into the Michigan homes of pro-Palestine student organizers on Wednesday in what the state attorney general's office said was a vandalism probe—but critics called an attack on dissent against Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
Backed by FBI agents, officers broke into homes in Ypsilanti, Canton, and Ann Arbor on Wednesday morning. Video uploaded to social media by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, showed officers battering down the door to a Ypsilanti house before others rushed into the home barking commands with guns drawn and pointed at the residents.
"No search warrant was provided," someone says in the video as the invaders crashed through the homes' locked front door. People in the house said their phones and other electronic devices and possessions, including vehicles, were taken.
🚨BREAKING | Officials Confirms Raids in Multiple Cities; TAHRIR Coalition Says FBI Agents, Michigan State Police, and Local Officers Targeted Pro-Palestine Organizers
[image or embed]
— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) April 23, 2025 at 12:44 PM
MLivereported that people inside the home were handcuffed and moved to the porch outside before being released about 15 minutes later.
The pro-Palestine advocacy group TAHRIR Coalition rallied supporters to two of the homes. Video posted on YouTube shows members of a crowd that gathered outside the Ypsilanti house taunting the agents as they came in and out of the home.
According toDrop Site News, Ann Arbor police said that the investigation involves "reported crimes" committed in the city and other jurisdictions.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed bureau agents took part in the raids, which he described vaguely as "law enforcement activities."
Danny Wimmer, a spokesperson for Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, told the Detroit Free Press that the raids "were not related to protest activity on the campus of the University of Michigan," but were "in furtherance of our investigation into multijurisdictional acts of vandalism."
"There is no immigration enforcement angle to the execution of these search warrants," Wimmer added.
However, Liz Jacob, an attorney with the Sugar Law Center in Detroit, noted that "everyone who was raided has taken part in protest and has some relationship to the University of Michigan."
"We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted," Jacob added.
Jacob said seven people were targeted in Wednesday's raids. No arrests were made. The attorney also noted that the warrants were signed by Judge Michelle Friedman Appel, whose jurisdiction includes Huntington Woods, where vandals painted graffiti and inflicted other damage at the home of University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker while the Jewish man and his family slept inside last December.
Last month, vandals also damaged the Ann Arbor home of Provost Laurie McCauley.
The Graduate Employees' Organization, a union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, said one of its members was detained during Wednesday's raids.
"We strongly condemn the actions taken today and all past and present repression of political activism," the group said. "We urge University of Michigan administrators, the regents of the University of Michigan, and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to end their campaign against students and stop putting graduate workers in harm's way."
Dawud Walid, the Michigan director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that "we call into question the aggressive nature of this morning's raids of activists' homes, which follows the recent misuse of prosecutorial power in Michigan and throughout our country against pro-Palestinian activists."
"In any other context, such minor infractions would be handled by local law enforcement or referred to local, elected prosecutors—not escalated to federal intervention," Walid added. "This disproportionate response further fuels the perception that Muslim and Arab students, and those who stand in solidarity with them, are being treated overly hostile by law enforcement compared to those who commit harm toward American Muslims."
According to CAIR:
This recent escalation comes on the heels of prior arrests and charges brought by the Michigan attorney general's office against University of Michigan student protesters for minor, nonviolent infractions—including misdemeanor trespassing—during peaceful demonstrations advocating for Palestinian human rights, an end to the genocide in Gaza, and for the University of Michigan to divest from companies complicit in the occupation and violence.
After Nessel announced criminal charges—some of them felonies—for 11 University of Michigan Palestine defenders last September, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, said the attorney general was "going to set a precedent, and it's unfortunate that a Democrat made that move."
"We've had the right to dissent, the right to protest. We've done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs," Tlaib said. "But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs."
At the federal level, the Trump administration has been arresting and initiating deportation proceedings against international students who have taken part in pro-Palestine campus protests. Although the government admits the targeted individuals have committed no crimes, immigration law allows the removal of foreign nationals deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy objectives.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Abrego Garcia Family Flees to Safe House After Trump DHS Posts Home Address on Social Media
"The Trump administration doxxed an American citizen, endangering her and her children. This is completely unacceptable and flat-out wrong."
Apr 23, 2025
The Trump administration has not only sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran megaprison due to an "administrative error" and so far refused to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return to the United States, but also shared on social media the home address of his family in Maryland, forcing them to relocate.
The news that Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, and her children were "moved to a safe house by supporters" after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted to X a 2021 order of protection petition that Vasquez Sura filed but soon abandoned was reported early Tuesday by The Washington Post.
"I don't feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions," said Vasquez Sura. "So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I'm scared for my kids."
A DHS spokesperson did not respond Monday to a request for a comment about not redacting the family's address, according to the newspaper's lengthy story about Vasquez Sura—who shares a 5-year-old nonverbal, autistic son with Abrego Garcia and has a 9-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship that was abusive.
On Wednesday, The New Republicpublished a short article highlighting the safe house detail and noting that "the government has not commented on the decision to leave the family's address in the document it posted online," sparking a fresh wave of outrage over the Trump administration endangering the family.
He was "mistakenly" deported to prison camp, and it was just a "slip-up" that they then posted his wife's address. Bullshit. If these are all accidents, who's getting fired?
[image or embed]
— Ezra Levin (@ezralevin.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 12:29 PM
"The Trump administration doxxed an American citizen, endangering her and her children," MSNBC contributor Rotimi Adeoye wrote on X Wednesday. "This is completely unacceptable and flat-out wrong."
Several others responded on the social media platform Bluesky.
"These fascists didn't stop at abducting Abrego Garcia, they've now doxxed his wife, forcing her into hiding," said Dean Preston, the leader of a renters' rights organization. "The Trump administration is terrorizing this family. Speak up, show up, resist."
Jonathan Cohn, political director for the group Progressive Mass, similarly declared, "The Trump administration is terrorizing this woman."
Katherine Hawkins, senior legal analyst for the Project On Government Oversight's Constitution Project, openly wondered "if publishing Abrego Garcia and his wife's home address violates federal or (particularly) Maryland laws."
"Definitely unconscionable and further demonstration of bad faith/intimidation," Hawkins added.
While Abrego Garcia's family seeks refuge in a U.S. safe house, he remains behind bars in his native El Salvador—despite the Supreme Court order from earlier this month and an immigration judge's 2019 decision that was supposed to prevent his deportation. Multiple congressional Democrats have flown to the country in recent days to support demands for his freedom.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular