Statement in relation to COP 26 signed by the Global Ecosocialist Network and a number of ecosocialist organisations and parties.

COP 26 unfolds against a backdrop of growing climate chaos and ecological degradation, after an unprecedented summer of heatwaves, wildfires, and flooding events. Climate change is upon us, and we face multiple interlinked and inseparable crises- of climate, environment, extinction, economy and zoonotic diseases.

On January 25, 2020, the Joint Council of UAW 2865, representing 19,000 academic workers in California, unanimously adopted the following climate strike resolution:

Whereas, growing waves of climate strikes have united millions of people across the Earth;

Whereas, the members of UAW 2865 honor our tradition of collective action and global solidarity;

Whereas, the global climate crisis threatens first and harms most working people, poor people, and those who work and live closest to the land and sea;  

UAW 2865 Statewide Local Climate Strike Resolution.pdf

Climate change is a trade union issue. That is what we increasingly, and rightly, have been told by international trade unions leaders over the last ten to fifteen years. While the inter-governmental negotiations on climate change can be dated back to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the first so-called Conference of the Parties (COP) in Berlin, 1995, it was only about 15 years ago that trade union representation at the COP conferences reached around 100 delegates.

No_325_Climate_change_Wahl.pdf

"On September 20th, Sunrise participated in the Global Climate Strike, the largest day of action for climate justice in world history. Over 3 million people chose to #StrikeWithUs at over 4,000 events in 150 countries. The generation of the Green New Deal took over in the U.S., and young and old strikers alike voiced demand for serious climate action across the globe." Photo by Audrey Sinclair.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

26 September 2019

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS

Narrator:  What's your message to world leaders today?

My message is that we'll be watching you. 

This is all wrong. I shouldn’t up here.here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope? How dare you!

Trade unions representing hundreds of millions of people around the world have come out in support of what is expected to be the biggest climate mobilisation the world has ever seen.

The global climate strike on Friday is set to see thousands of walkouts and demonstrations in cities on every continent except Antarctica.

Read the rest here:

We risk losing credibility with young people if we cannot take action in support of the defining cause of their generation

Late last month, 130 ship builders, steel workers, welders, and riveters seized control of the storied Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic in 1909. More than two weeks later, they're still there, and say they won't be leaving until the docks are nationalized and are used to produce renewable energy infrastructure.

A much shorter, modified version of this interview appears in The Progressive Magazine

In this conversation, the Climate Disobedience Center’s Tim DeChristopher looks at how the progressive movement’s strategies need to change in now that climate change’s real impacts are more obvious to the American public.

Background: In 2014, this call to action, "The Global Climate Strike: Why We Can't Wait," launched the first campaign for global climate strikes. The call was written by Ben Manski and Jill Stein for the People's Climate Convergence in New York City, a part of the People's Climate March, and brought by delegates to meetings of the World Social Forum, the Global Greens, and to the COP21 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. The Global Climate Convergence coordinated webinars and Earth Day to May Day coordinated actions to popularize the idea of the global climate strike. From 2015-2018, the two most active climate strike efforts were those in Australia, organized by Australian youth, and those led by poor people's movements in the United States.