CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW!: "Huge financial transfers from north to south, based on the repayment of climate debts"

The Climate Justice Now! Network is a southern-led coalition of around 150 organisations and movements (e.g. the World Development Movement (WDM) ) campaigning for a globally just and effective solution to the climate crisis (see: http://www.wdm.org.uk/climate-debt-campaign/climate-justice-now-network ).

Climate Justice Now! Network principles, including its position on Climate Debt (in bold below):

“Communities in the global south as well as low-income communities in the industrialised north have borne the toxic burden of this fossil fuel extraction, transportation and production. Now these communities are facing the worst impacts of climate change - from food shortages to the inundation of whole island nations.

Inside the global climate negotiations, rich industrialised countries have put unjustifiable pressure on southern governments to commit to emissions reductions. At the same time, they have refused to live up to their own legal and moral obligations to radically cut emissions and support developing countries' efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts.

Climate Justice Now! will work to expose the false solutions to the climate crisis promoted by these governments, alongside financial institutions and multinational corporations - such as trade liberalisation, privatisation, forest carbon markets, agrofuels and carbon offsetting.

We will take our struggle forward not just in climate talks, but on the ground and in the streets, to promote genuine solutions that include:

• • Leaving fossil fuels in the ground and investing instead in appropriate energy- efficiency and safe, clean and community-led renewable energy;

  • Radically reducing wasteful consumption, first and foremost in the north, but also by southern elites;

• Huge financial transfers from north to south, based on the repayment of climate debts and subject to democratic control. The costs of adaptation and mitigation should be paid for by redirecting military budgets, innovative taxes and debt cancellation;

  • Rights-based resource conservation that enforces indigenous land rights and promotes peoples' sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water;

  • Sustainable family farming and peoples' food sovereignty. We are committed to building a diverse movement locally and globally for a better world.” [1].

[1]. World Development Movement (WDM), “Climate debt. Climate Justice Now! Network principles”: http://www.wdm.org.uk/climate-debt-campaign/climate-justice-now-network .