Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Where to begin with Climate Justice?

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, June 22, 2015

Where to begin with Climate Justice?

Click here to access article by Joanna Cabello from Degrowth in action.

Climate justice is a relatively new term. ...it is important here to expand upon the different understandings of, and some of the debates surrounding, the term ‘climate justice’....

Although it has a much longer history that is difficult to trace, the term was popularised by the formation of the ‘Climate Justice Now!’ network in Bali during the COP-14 UN Climate negotiations in 2007. In the build up to the COP-15 in Copenhagen the term became a mobilizing platform across Europe as the ‘Climate Justice Action’ (CJA) network opposed the COP [Conference of the Parties] as an unjust set of negotiations interested in expanding capitalism rather than in addressing the global climate crises.