SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
climate ambition summit
Let Us Be the Parable of the Movement
More than a novel, this international public awareness campaign tells the story of how people can rise up and demand change to power our planet in a way that puts human survival before profit.
Oct 22, 2023
The apocalypse is not coming. The future is coming, and we don’t yet know what the future holds. Because the future isn’t set yet. It depends on the decisions human beings make right now.
These days, we are seeing more extreme weather events around the world, as the climate crisis escalates. While every individual weather event is a surprise, the overall pattern has long been predicted. Both by our scientists and by our artists. One such artist, Octavia Butler, wrote of a world torn by racism, misogyny, and climate disaster in her 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower.
Lauren Olumina, the protagonist, leads a band of characters to a safe haven on a ravaged planet. Butler had intended to create a Parable series, where the final book focused on climate solutions. Reportedly, she was frustrated in her various attempts to finish the series, because she was unable to envision climate solutions. I find this unsurprising because part of climate disinformation has included obscuring both the problem and all solutions that significantly disrupt the profitability of the fossil fuel industries. Perhaps because she lacked access to this crucial information, Butler never finished the project in her lifetime.
Climate Week was a glimpse of the power that this movement can hold as we move forward.
But a lot has changed since she passed away in 2006. There is a growing climate movement with powerful Black and Indigenous leadership. We have a clear vision of the solutions needed to solve the climate crisis. What we lack is the political will among elected officials and corporate leaders to make the large-scale changes necessary to ensure a livable planet.
And that is where our movements come in. At the Black Hive, we have developed a Black Climate Mandate that lays out the changes needed so that all Black people worldwide can thrive. Ultimately, we believe that our movement for climate justice can be Octavia Butler’s final book—Parable of the Movement. More than a novel, this international public awareness campaign tells the story of how people can rise up and demand change, can build the power to pressure political and industry leaders to divest from fossil fuels and to power our planet in a way that puts human survival before profit. And we don’t just wait for those in power to change—as we build our movement to demand change, we also build structures, networks, and resources for food and energy independence, community care and mutual aid, and climate resiliency.
Meanwhile, in order to ensure a livable future, we need to phase out fossil fuels and other dirty-energy industries, starting with an end to all direct and indirect subsidies and policy incentives these industries receive. As those industries end, we need a just transition for workers—making sure fossil fuel corporations provide retraining and transitioning them to new green jobs, and making sure that they can continue to make a living and support their families as we shift our economy.
We need to prioritize the needs and leadership of those most impacted by the crisis, particularly Indigenous communities. Their local ecological knowledge, lived experiences, and thought leadership are essential to tackling the climate crisis. This includes climate reparations for all frontline communities and workers who are harmed first and worst by both the climate crisis and the polluting industries driving the crisis.
Climate justice is part of a bigger vision of justice. Climate problems and solutions are deeply interconnected with all the other current planetary crises: war, poverty, pollution, forced migration, police and prison violence, and other forms of harm that happen when societies put profit over human safety and survival. All these harms need to be recognized and addressed in all climate policies and climate action strategies.
Recently, the Black Hive participated in New York Climate Week, and over 100,000 people took to the streets. This was an important demonstration to the U.N. Climate Ambition Summit that the people demand change. Our leaders need to listen, and the movement will keep building the pressure until they do.
In Parable of the Sower, the characters find their safe haven. But as the climate crisis escalates, there is no place that can be guaranteed as safe. Now is the time to fight for a bigger picture of justice and safety—one that is worldwide and where no one is left behind. It’s a tall order, and will require a mass movement. Climate Week was a glimpse of the power that this movement can hold as we move forward. Let us aspire to be a Parable of the Movement, Octavia Butler’s final book, the biggest battle in human history, in which—if enough people fight—we can win.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The Climate Ambition Summit Exposed US Fossil Fuel Failure
President Joe Biden still has a chance to correct course before COP28.
Sep 27, 2023
It was stunning to see U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry stalking the sidelines of the United Nations’ historic Climate Ambition Summit last week, firmly shut out from the opportunity to speak. The United States isn’t used to being sidelined on the global stage. Indeed it may be the first time in U.N. history that the U.S. was barred from speaking at an international summit.
The U.S. got itself into the climate summit’s “time-out corner” because of its wretched record on fossil fuels. And the stakes couldn’t be higher for President Joe Biden to correct course.
In line with his “Roadmap for a Livable Planet,” U.N. Secretary General AntónioGuterres set strict guidelines for those invited to speak at the summit. Chief among them: concrete plans to phase out fossil fuels.
President Biden can no longer hide his abysmal fossil fuel record behind renewable energy investments. The oil rig in the room has been exposed for all the world to see.
It was that demand that brought us and 75,000 others into the streets on the Sunday ahead of the summit for the “March to End Fossil Fuels.”
After the hottest summer on record and its devastating consequences from Lahaina to Libya, people around the world are waking up to the urgency of ending the extraction and use of oil, gas, and coal, which cause 85% of climate-heating pollution.
That urgency was palpable in Guterres’ opening remarks as he declared to leaders that “the future of humanity is in your hands.”
Indeed, Biden has ample tools at hand to confront fossil fuels and protect humanity. But many of the president’s actions have done more to boost the “foot-dragging, arm-twisting… naked greed of entrenched interests” that Guterres railed against.
Despite its climate rhetoric, the U.S. is the biggest oil and gas producer in the world and the number one exporter of gas.
At a time when the narrow path to a stable climate demands no new fossil fuel expansion, the United States is also the world’s largest expander of oil and gas. The U.S. alone accounts for a full third of planned oil and gas expansion from now through 2050, according to the groundbreaking “Planet Wreckers” report from Oil Change International.
Another new study from Jeremy Symons finds that greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. fossil fuel exports are expected to undermine emissions reductions from the Inflation Reduction Act.
After New York’s historic summit and march, President Biden can no longer hide his abysmal fossil fuel record behind renewable energy investments. The oil rig in the room has been exposed for all the world to see.
It’s telling that while Kerry sat on the sidelines, the only U.S. leader invited to speak was California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration has ramped down oil and gas permitting and just launched a landmark lawsuit against Big Oil. The typically staid U.N. hall erupted in applause when Newsom declared, “This climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis.”
All this is testament to the incredible strides we’ve made as an advocacy community on fossil fuels. The U.N. Secretary-General holding this summit with its laser focus on fossil fuels is a response to years of vocal clamoring by low-lying nation-states like Tuvalu and Vanuatu, climate scientists, advocacy groups, frontline leaders, and mass mobilizations that have relentlessly pushed the focus from vague ‘climate action’ onto ending oil, gas, and coal.
We have top-down pressure from the U.N. chief, and bottom-up pressure from people around the world who mobilized in 700 actions from the Philippines to Germany, Nepal to the North Pole—all culminating in 75,000 marchers joyfully and resolutely pounding the pavement in New York.
Biden is clearly feeling the pressure. The same day as the summit, the president announced the creation of the American Climate Corps.
Our friend and fellow march organizer, 18-year-old Keanu Arpels-Josiah, astutely pointed out that while it doesn’t address fossil fuels, the move shows “Biden clearly knows he can use his executive powers to take bolder steps on climate.”
In the two months between now and the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, Biden needs to use those powers to make up for drastic missteps and lost time.
The president doesn’t control everything, but he can do much more to protect people and our planet—all without Congress. Essential actions for Biden to take now include:
- Stop approving new fossil fuel projects like the massive CP2 liquified natural gas export terminal slated for the Gulf Coast. Such projects lock in fossil fuel dependence for decades—and push us far past our climate breaking point.
- Phase out oil and gas production on public lands and revoke permits for the Willow Project and Alaska LNG, a massive liquefied gas export facility 10 times more climate polluting than Willow.
- Issue the upcoming offshore oil leasing “Five Year Plan” with no new leases.
- Declare a national climate emergency to reinstate the crude oil export ban and halt hundreds of billions in private taxpayer dollars funding fossil fuel projects abroad.
- Direct the Environmental Protection Agency to establish national limits for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
- Direct the Justice Department to prosecute polluters and utilities for the damages they cause under nuisance and fraud suits, as Gov. Newsom has just done in California, and bring antitrust violation suits against entities that obstruct the transition to clean energy.
Biden must also come to COP28 in December with commitments to an updated Nationally Determined Contribution that includes a commitment to stopping all new fossil fuel expansion and phasing out existing production. It should also include a recognition of the greenhouse gas pollution emitted by U.S. fossil fuel exports—a hefty line item that gets put on other countries’ climate balance sheets while evading the U.S.’ emission totals.
Not only will these actions make bold leaps toward a livable future for all, they’ll be hugely beneficial to the economy. The International Energy Agency’s latest report finds that staying below 1.5°C of warming will save $12 trillion worldwide and create more jobs than are lost.
So what is President Biden waiting for to become the global climate leader the world desperately needs?
Taking urgent actions to end fossil fuels can help Biden save face on the world stage and secure his legacy, but he should take them to save people and wildlife from climate catastrophe.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Two More Countries Join Growing Bloc of Nations Calling for a Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty
"The endorsement of the fossil fuel treaty proposal by Antigua and Barbuda and Timor-Leste... shows who are the real climate leaders," said the initiative's political director.
Sep 24, 2023
Two island nations on Saturday joined the growing bloc of countries endorsing a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty amid a worsening climate emergency and continued inadequate action by the larger and wealthier polluters most responsible for causing the planetary crisis.
Answering United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres' exhortation at this week's Climate Ambition Summit for countries to accelerate efforts to end fossil fuels, the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda and Timor-Leste in Southeast Asia announced their support for a binding FFNPT.
Their announcement came on the main stage at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City. The nations became the first non-Pacific island states to support the treaty; Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Tonga, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and the self-governing New Zealand territory of Niue previously endorsed the agreement.
"The climate crisis is the most existential threat facing all humanity," declared Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne. "It doesn't distinguish between European forests and Caribbean waters. Some carry the burden more than others, as in the case of small island developing states. This is why today I'm honored to announce that Antigua and Barbuda join our Pacific friends in calling for a negotiation of a fossil fuel treaty."
"This Treaty will be more than words," Browne continued. "It's a binding plan to end the fossil fuel era, a pledge to a rapid shift to clean energy, a commitment to a future where economies transcend their fossil fuel past, and an assurance that no community is left behind."
"With this endorsement, we send a clear message: unity in purpose, unity in action," he added. "We are proud to become the first Caribbean nation to rally behind this cause, and we invite others to join us."
Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta said that his country "stands in solidarity with Pacific nations and is formally joining the call for the negotiation of a fossil fuel treaty."
"Its mission is simple—to halt new fossil fuel ventures, phase out existing ones, and fund a fair shift to clean energy," the Nobel peace laureate added. "It is more than a climate agreement between nations—it is a health, development, and peace accord that can foster genuine wellbeing and prosperity for all."
Timor-Leste's embrace of the FFNPT is considered especially encouraging, as petroleum accounts for the vast majority of the country's export revenue.
Gillian Cooper, political director of the FFNPT Initiative, hailed the development:
At the Climate Ambition Summit, we saw world leaders finally bring fossil fuels to the center stage of climate negotiations. Now the endorsement of the fossil fuel treaty proposal by Antigua and Barbuda and Timor-Leste at the main Global Citizen stage shows who are the real climate leaders. This bold move also shows that even fossil fuel-producing countries want to break free from the grip of oil, gas, and coal, a system imposed on them by wealthy nations. Today Timor-Leste picked a side—and they're clearly saying that we need international cooperation so they are not forced by the fossil fuel industry to continue to expand a product that they know is destablizing the global climate and creating long-term economic dependency and vulnerability.
Launched in 2020 and backed by hundreds of groups, thousands of scientists, and people around the world from youth to grandparents, the FFNPT is based on three pillars:
- Ending expansion of new coal, oil, or gas production in line with the best available science;
- Phasing out the production of fossil fuels in a manner that is fair and equitable; and
- Ensuring a global just transition to 100% access to renewable energy globally.
In addition to the countries mentioned above, the European Parliament, World Health Organization, and scores of cities and other subnational governments have also endorsed the FFNPT, including London, Paris, Los Angeles, Sydney, Lima, Toronto, and the Hawaiian Legislature.
Earlier this month, California became the largest economy in the world to endorse the treaty.
"This climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis," Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday at the Climate Ambition Summit. "It's not complicated. It's the burning of oil. It's the burning of gas. It's the burning of coal. And we need to call that out.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular