A CALL FOR SOLIDARITY

FROM PERU

We begin the year 2023 with a global agenda that invites us to expand our efforts in the climate fight, build stronger relationships among networks and, last but definitely not the least, seek international solidarity. We must remember that there is no climate justice without there being social justice.

Various voices worldwide continue to join the call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to address the main drivers of climate change. Such is the case with the recent approval of the motion by Warsaw calling for an end to coal, oil, and gas.

Meanwhile, the response of Big Oil is a mockery of popular demands. Instead, they seek to delegitimize them, diverting the main responsibility to consumers—a lie which was slammed by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, during the World Economic Forum in Davos.

However, an even greater mockery is the election of oil company CEO Sultan Al Jaber, as president of the COP28 climate change summit—an outrageous fact that we in Peru and the countries of the South condemn, as we cannot yield one more millimetre to the advance of the fossil fuel industry. We also cannot ignore the hypocrisy of Germany, which, while proclaiming itself to be a pioneer in climate protection and the advancement of renewable energies, has authorised the demolition of the village of Lützerath for the expansion of a coal mine owned by the energy company RWE.

As I write these lines my country is stained red with the blood of innocent people who only ask for justice and a dignified life. The struggle for our rights has not been easy, but I want you to know that in Peru we are resisting, and we demand a systemic change to a new political-economic model that allows us to address social inequalities and the climate crisis.

THERE CAN BE NO CLIMATE JUSTICE WITHOUT SOCIAL JUSTICE!

Augusto Duran Duran
Clean Energy and Energy Transition Specialist
Coordinator of the Campaign for the Fossil Fuel Treaty
MOCICC

“SOME IN BIG OIL PEDDLED THE BIG LIE.”

January was an eventful month, unfortunately for alarming reasons. At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this month, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivered a powerful speech calling out Big Oil for the disinformation campaigns that they created around climate change to satisfy their corporate greed.

This message rides on the back of the recently unearthed industry documents revealing that oil behemoth Exxon foresaw with “breathtaking” accuracy the effect of fossil fuels on CO2 levels and global temperature rise. “We now have the smoking gun showing that they accurately predicted warming years before they started attacking the science,” says researcher Geoffrey Supran, who authored the peer-reviewed report exposing Exxon’s climate denial. “These graphs confirm the complicity of what Exxon knew and how they misled.” 

Big Oil’s propaganda tactics take a page or two straight from Big Tobacco’s playbook—spending billions on marketing campaigns which aim to shift the blame away from themselves and onto the “individual responsibility” of the consumer. To top it all off, amidst what the International Energy Agency has dubbed as the ‘first global energy crisis’, Big Oil continues to announce record-breaking profits at the expense of those most vulnerable to fossil fuel expansion.

WARSAW OF ‘COALLAND’ CALLS FOR A FOSSIL FUEL TREATY

Huge news for the capital of Poland! After persistent lobbying by two generations of Polish climate activists, Warsaw signed a motion calling for the Fossil Fuel Treaty. This historic step marks a welcome change for a country where fossil fuels, mostly coal, account for 85% of the total energy supply. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 75% of Poland’s imported coal came from Russia. Warsaw Councillor Marek Szolc celebrated the news but reiterated that “we cannot stop at declarations.” He continued, “Warsaw still doesn't have an official greenhouse gas reduction target formalised in a city document, and the unofficial one - a 40% reduction by 2030 - won't be met with the current trend of declining emissions.”

“LIKE A FOX WATCHING THE HEN HOUSE”

The climate movement was outraged over the appointment of the head of state oil giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as president of this year's COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates. Alex Rafalowicz, Executive Director of the Fossil Fuel Treaty, called it “an act of provocation” considering that last year, the fossil fuel industry already had more lobbyists at COP27 than the combined delegations of the ten most vulnerable countries to climate change. Demands for Sultan al-Jaber’s resignation from the oil company were echoed by activists and politicians to assure the public that no conflict of interest would be present at the talks.

POLITICAL CRISIS IN PERU

In Peru, hundreds to thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand new general elections, but above all, an end to an extractive economic system based on the exploitation of natural resources, that excludes indigenous peoples and the most vulnerable from social and political institutions.

Our allies from MOCICC (Movimiento Ciudadano frente al Cambio Climático del Perú), focal point of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty campaign in Latin America, have been alerting us daily on the brutal repression by the national police and the need for visibility and support:

"The level of violence with which the government is responding to the people’s demands revives the darkest hours of our country's history. What is being demanded is the urgent need for social justice. The political crisis is another consequence of the colonial heritage that sustains extractive predatory economies until this date. The violent repression requires the mobilisation of the international community to avoid that, once again, the most vulnerable are the ones who pay the price of institutional colonialism."

Read our latest blog piece to understand why the Fossil Fuel Treaty initiative stands in solidarity with people in Peru against "the colonialist and extractive development model.”

LÜTZI BLEIBT (LÜTZI STAYS)

A small village in Western Germany made headlines when hundreds of protesters barricaded themselves in front of police to stop the area from being mined for coal. Germany has touted itself as an environmental trailblazer before, yet this move put them back in the spotlight for their hypocrisy. The plans to demolish Lutzerath are part of a “compromise” deal reached between the government and energy giant RWE last year. Residents of the locality were forcibly evicted from their homes when the company was permitted to destroy the village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038.

Activists Luisa Neubaeur and Greta Thunberg visited the site to lend their voices of dissent, and subsequently launched a petition together with Vanessa Nakate and Helena Gualinga at the World Economic Forum calling for a cease and desist order to Fossil Fuel CEOs to stop oil, gas, and coal expansion.

IN THE MEDIA

The New Year kicked off with TIME mentioning the Fossil Fuel Treaty under the mechanism for a just transition in its list of '6 ways to help our fragmented world'. Events quickly soured when the COP28 presidency announcement sparked enormous backlash, with Tzeporah Berman likening it to “a fox watching a hen house” on ABC News. Harjeet Singh was invited by BBC World News to weigh in on this “unprecedented and deeply disturbing” development. He proceeded to call out the fossil fuel industry for “delaying climate action”, and reiterated the need for a global commitment to a just transition in the form of a Fossil Fuel Treaty.

Alex Rafalowicz appeared on TRT World News to weigh in on the role of global conferences like the World Economic Forum and COP in achieving international cooperation for climate action. His comments were also published in France24, where he urged fossil fuel companies to “stop the lies” and pushed for collective action by civil society to counter this. 

Various local Polish media outlets picked up the Warsaw endorsement including Wyborcza, Onet, Świat Oze, and Noizz. They highlighted the role of activists from both the youth and parents sector who lobbied to get this decision passed.

Guitarist Donna Grantis, who played with musical legend Prince, released, “A Drop in the Bucket,” an electrifying guitar composition set to Tzeporah’s speech on the just transition and hope for our planet. This culminated in a conversation between Grantis and EarthPercent founder and Talking Heads’ music producer Brian Eno on the role of art in the climate crisis. Tzeporah also guested on the Hopeful Environmentalist’s podcast to talk about the need for a Fossil Fuel Treaty.

Last but not the least, Mark Campanale penned an op-ed for El Espectador weighing in on the Colombian energy debate, and backing President-elect Gustavo Petro’s decision to suspend any new oil & gas exploration licenses. In fact, Carbon Tracker’s latest report affirms that their commitment to a just transition is “an adequate response to both the climate crisis and the changes in the energy matrix.” Campanale then issued a call for Colombia to publicly record their fossil fuel production through the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels, and join the call for a Fossil Fuel Treaty.

Here’s to a Fossil-Free February!​​