As Climate Talks Come Down to the Wire, Social Movements Call for Direct Action

Social Movements Call for Direct Action, Call the COP Process a “Failure”

Today social movement organizations held a press conference calling for non-violent direct action to protest the climate negotiations. Representatives of social movements on every continent spoke, demanding that people’s voices and local knowledge be respected in the negotiation process.

These groups, representing small farmers, women, fisherfolk, pastoralists and indigenous people are demanding climate justice. Small farmers, fisherfolk and others have not contributed to the problem of climate change, and their solutions, including agroecology and food and energy sovereignty, are being completely marginalized inside the negotiations. Instead, the same corporations that caused the crisis stand to benefit most.

Their call for climate Justice is a call to rebalance power in our food and energy systems, and allow for just solutions from the bottom up.

Starting today non-profit organizations have been severely restricted in their ability to access the climate negotiations. Many organizations are only just arriving, and cannot access the negotiations at all. A youth of color delegation from the San Francisco area was turned away at the door after waiting 2 and a half hours today and several hours yesterday for their passes into the center.

The lack of representation inside is concerning as nearly all important proposals are still on the negotiating table. Today all number targets were removed from the negotiating texts temporarily, the text on agriculture has completely stalled, and many key pieces of the agreement have been put off to the highest level of negotiations. Tomorrow, non-profit delegates that are able to leave the negotiations inside, organized by Climate Justice Now! will emerge to meet a “People’s Assembly” that will culminate at the end of tomorrow's protest march.