Demand Climate Justice at COP28!
Despite the big talk about ‘green new deals’, ‘just energy transition partnerships’ and ‘net zero’ from world leaders, levels of action are nowhere near where they need to be to overcome the challenges presented by already-existing climate breakdown and our deeply unequal societies. The COP28 climate summit in the UAE is a crucial moment to take real action.
In order to meet the scale of the crisis, world leaders at COP28 must commit to action that:
// Ends our global reliance on fossil fuels
// Enables a fair and equitable just transition
// Ensures rich Global North Countries, including the UK, pay their fair share
Read our message to Rishi Sunak PM & the UK's COP28 delegation
To Rishi Sunak and the UK's COP28 delegation,
2023 has been yet another year of failure to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions – and slow global heating. Meanwhile, climate breakdown continues to devastate the lives and livelihoods of millions, with those in the Global South hardest hit by ‘unprecedented’ droughts, storms, floods and fires. Preventing runaway, catastrophic climate breakdown, which would leave many struggling to survive, requires that temperature rises are capped at 1.5°c, and that all fossil fuels – including coal, oil and gas – are reduced. Crucially, carbon emissions must be drastically cut to avoid the ever-increasing likelihood of a ‘hellish’ rise in global temperatures to 3°c.
COP28 is a crucial opportunity to address global heating, while tackling existing climate breakdown and our deeply unequal societies.
We call on you to commit to actions that:
1. End the global reliance on fossil fuels.
The UK has recently granted over 100 new oil and gas licenses — locking the UK into fossil-fuel dependency for decades — including the Rosebank Oil Field – estimated to generate more CO2 emissions than the 28 lowest-income countries in a year. You must immediately halt these plans for more fossil fuels, and instead commit to a phase-out and a ramping up of investments in renewable energy, alongside building warmer homes, retrofitting existing houses with better insulation, and expanding public transport systems to decrease emissions. You must commit to real terms fossil fuel emissions reduction plans, and to doing your fairshare of climate action.
We will not accept your reliance on false solutions– such as unproven, risky and costly carbon capture and storage ‘fixes’, or carbon offsetting. These ‘solutions’ are in reality a licence to carry on polluting, and carry on profiting.
2. Ensure a fair, just transition to renewable energy systems that protect and serve workers and communities across the world.
The damage caused by climate breakdown is made worse by the existing injustices in our economies: poverty wages, a lack of workers' rights, limited access to healthcare and other vital public services. Solutions to tackle the climate crisis must address these injustices and listen to the demands of Global South countries hardest hit by climate breakdown – the right to food, renewable energy, access to the technologies and finance required for a just transition, while fixing our global tax, trade and debt systems which lock poorer Global South countries into unsustainable loans.
3. Ensure that the finance and technology needed for a just transition is made available to everyone, with rich Global North countries including the UK doing their fair share.
Loss and damage funding must be based on the acknowledgment of, and compensation for, the irreversible economic, social and environmental loss and damage caused by the countries like the UK, with the most responsibility for historic greenhouse gas emissions. There cannot be any backsliding on this definition during COP28 negotiations – the UK must accept its responsibility to finance climate loss, damage and adaptation. Any climate finance agreed at COP28 must not take the form of debt-creating loans, and should be channelled through a democratic and accountable global fund independent of international financial institutions.
The eyes of the world are on you at this crucial climate summit. Do not fail us.
War on Want
