Category Archives: Press Releases

IPCC Report Needs to be Wake Up Call for World Leaders: No More False Solutions

*Urgent need for system change through just and equitable transition*

18 March 2023

Interlaken, Switzerland

Nearly 200 countries are currently deliberating on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Synthesis Report for the Sixth Assessment cycle. The past six reports by the IPCC have forced a reckoning on the world and its leaders for immediate and transformative action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and urgently set the world on path for just and equitable transition. The Synthesis Report and IPCC’s ‘Summary for Policymakers’ is a crucial document set to impact this year’s global stocktake of the 2015 Paris Agreement that set the life saving limit of keeping rise in global temperatures well below 1.5 degrees.

The past IPCC reports have confirmed that the impacts of climate change are already being felt around the world, with devastating consequences for ecosystems, human health, and livelihoods. The world is already experiencing more frequent and severe weather events such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves. These events are causing widespread damage to infrastructure and economic activity, leading to food and water scarcity, displacement, and even loss of life. Nearly 3.5 billion people globally are climate vulnerable. Climate justice and human rights movements, scientists and academicians around the world have been advocating for climate action for decades, yet the world leaders have been more focused on listening to fossil fuel lobbyists or pushing profit driven speculative technologies and technofixes. As the world continues to head on to a path of devastation, urgent, real, and decisive action is the only solution to achieve a just and equitable transition.

Representatives of Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice share their demands and expectations from the Synthesis Report for Sixth Assessment Cycle and the Summary for Policymakers by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Lidy Nacpil, Coordinator, Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development

“The very low  ambition and even lower delivery of commitments to climate action is evident of the great injustice at the heart of the climate crisis. We are being led down a path of extended life for fossil fuel systems with the push for Gas as transition fuel, and Carbon Capture and Storage, Hydrogen and Ammonia technologies  as  part of solutions. We reject these false solutions being peddled by wealthy countries. These big polluters have an obligation to deliver a rapid, just and equitable transition directly to 100% renewable energy and provide  adequate non-debt creating climate finance for the Global South as part of  reparations for climate debt.”

Nathalie Rengifo Alvarez, Latin America Climate Campaign Director, Corporate Accountability 

“Just look at the full report. The science and urgency will be unequivocal and deeply disturbing. It will paint a clear picture of what is needed. A swift and just transition to renewables. Fossil fuels need to stay in the ground. Emissions need to be rapidly cut to Real Zero. But the summary for policymakers will likely, as usual, read as though we are living on another planet. The fingerprints of major polluters will be all over the recommendations for action. They’ll read as though we haven’t already crossed devastating and deadly thresholds for life on Earth. This disconnect is intolerable and needs to be remedied by an immediate reset of the system that brought us here and by kicking big polluters out of climate policy.”

Meena Raman, Head of Programmes, Third World Network

“It is vital that the IPCC Synthesis Report (SR) makes clear that the global emissions pathways are based on models whose assumptions fail to make clear that inequities between the Global North and South, intra-regional income distribution and the need for environmental and climate justice have not been taken into account. Hence, the SR in this regard must make clear that these global modelled emissions pathways have to be assessed with the careful recognition of the underlying assumptions.

Policy-makers must not be misled into believing that these emission pathways are fact-based or are policy-prescriptive, when they are really predictions by climate modellers whose assumptions are currently unknown.  Accepting them without question risks locking in further inequities between the rich and poor, thus exacerbating climate injustice.

The IPCC data is clear that the developed countries have a historical responsibility for their high emissions since the industrial revolution and have overused the carbon budget required to limit temperature rise to 1.5-degree C. They have and continue to undermine equitable access to the carbon budget. Hence, developed countries should own up to this historical responsibility and deliver on the large amount of climate finance needed to developing countries to enable the just transition pathway to a low carbon future, undertake adaptation actions and address loss and damage, as recognised in the IPCC underlying working group reports.

Developed countries must not be allowed to water-down their lack of fulfillment of the finance delivery in the SR or to shift the responsibilities onto developing countries.”

Susann Scherbarth, Head of Climate Justice, Friends of the Earth Germany/ BUND

“The scientific community is unanimous: emissions must be drastically reduced, even if the 1.5 limit will be exceeded. When it comes to limiting devastating consequences for people, nature and biodiversity, every tenth of a degree counts. The first priority is to reduce emissions, not to extract CO2 after it has already been emitted. The current CCS debate in Germany shows clearly the opposite: the German government is relying on technical false solutions that are dangerous, expensive, and unproven on the scale needed. Waiting and hoping for magic must not be a free pass for doing anything or only little in the here and now as we see in Germany’s mobility and housing sector in particular.

We need politics that treat the climate crisis like a crisis and end inequalities. The status quo of infinite growth in Germany and other rich nations cannot be the future. The end of fossil fuels must come now and our energy consumption must go down drastically while relying on renewable energies and energy efficiency.”

Hemantha Withanage, chair of Friends of the Earth International

“In my country, Sri Lanka, the impacts of climate change are being felt now. We have no time to chase fairy tales of sucking carbon out of the air later, we need to reduce carbon emissions now. We hope that the forthcoming IPCC report will rightly call for a rapid and equitable transition away from fossil fuels, and the need for finance to make it happen. Overshooting the 1.5 degree guardrail will lead to climate chaos, and we fear that reliance on carbon removal technologies will only embolden big polluters to keep emitting as usual.”

David Williams, Director International Climate Justice Program, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung 

The Synthesis Report of the IPCC, the world’s foremost body on climate change science, is a culmination of almost a decade’s worth of climate observation and modelling. Damningly, according to current projections, we are not only on track to reach 3°C global warming by 2100, but will rocket through to even more dystopian levels, severely constraining living conditions of future generations. Currently, up to 3.6 billion people live in situations of vulnerability, in which fatalities from floods, droughts, and storms are 15 times more likely than in non-vulnerable contexts. As if that weren’t already grave enough, the frequency and intensity of floods, droughts, storms, and other extreme weather events is increasing at a higher pace than initially projected. 

In spite of this, fossil fuel companies are achieving record-breaking profits. They are propped up by big banks and neoliberal governments protecting private capital at the expense of public security. Never has the reality been so stark that the climate crisis is a question of power, of western supremacy, and of neocolonial economic structures upon which the wealth of industrialized nations is built.”

Souparna Lahiri, Senior Climate and Biodiversity Policy Advisor, Global Forest Coalition

“The AR6 Synthesis Report of the IPCC report is not likely to spring any surprise. It may paint a more grimmer climate crisis and provide more mitigation options through model pathways. Where IPCC is continuously failing is a response of the scientific community to the false and mitigation- heavy climate solutions that drown out real solutions and climate resilient actions of the frontline communities and unequal climate finance flows to develop such false solutions including large scale CDRs. The drivers of such false solutions, the corporates and multinationals, involved in continuing fossil fuel extraction and unsustainable industrial agriculture and agri-business, are being let off the radar. The impacts of such false solutions, the corporate capture of climate policy making, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, women and local communities and their leading role in transformative actions on the ground, are consistently ignored. Climate modeling alone cannot contribute to the much required transformation without responding and recognising the intersectionality of the climate crisis and the rights and role of the frontline communities.”

Kelly Dent , Global Programme Director- External Engagement, World Animal Protection, Global

“Food systems have long been ignored in the commitment to keep the climate below 1.5 degrees – but we can longer turn a blind eye to science. The evidence is clear. Industrial animal agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, pollution, and the emergence of zoonotic and AMR superbug diseases, let alone cruel to animals. Governments must now act. They must acknowledge the significant impact factory farming has on our people, animals and planet – and they must take the action required to reign in these hitherto silent climate culprits.”

Stephanie Cabovianco, Climate Save Movement

“The transition to a plant-based food system is not only necessary for our health and the well-being of animals, but also for the survival of our planet in the face of the climate and ecological emergency. The Sixth Assessment Report by the IPCC highlights the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from food systems, which are responsible for up to 37% of global emissions. A shift towards plant-based diets can significantly reduce these emissions, while also conserving biodiversity, reducing deforestation, and improving land and water use efficiency. It’s time for us to recognize the power of food production and consumption and take action for a sustainable present.”

Shefali Sharma, Director of Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)’s European office

“The summary of IPCC’s findings about the dramatic need to cut emissions should be a wake up call to regulate all major polluters. For the food and farm sector, big livestock, agrochemical and major grain processing companies are the primary culprits of agricultural emissions. Together, they have driven large scale deforestation, polluted our lands and rivers and still continue to operate with impunity. The IPCC emphasizes the urgency to reduce highly potent GHGs methane and nitrous oxide, where large-scale agriculture is a major source. Governments need to regulate big ag’s emissions, and support a just transition for farming that restores ecosystems and treats people in the food system with dignity.”

Nick Buxton, Transnational Institute

‘The IPCC’s report makes clear that any solutions to protect those most impacted by the climate crisis have to be rooted in justice. Yet the richest nations are spending 30 times as much on the military as they do on climate finance, and are yet to even commit proper funds for the loss and damage caused by the climate crisis. We need to move from a focus on managing the consequences of climate change to addressing its root causes. This requires reducing military and security budgets so we can massively increase the financial support to communities and countries so they can reduce emissions and prepare ways to adapt and respond justly to climate impacts.’

Deborah Burton, TPNS/Transform Defence Project

“As we digest the findings of this final synthesis report we can be sure of one thing: that it will be missing the military emissions that governments are choosing not to report.  Yet military emissions account to 5.5% of global emissions, more than civilian aviation and shipping combined. This does not include emissions from conflicts, nor attendant destruction and reconstruction. As we look forward to the AR7 Cycle, civil society is calling for military emissions to be on the IPCC agenda in the hope that we can move towards a Special Report on the Military and Climate Change.  The annual $2 trillion spent on the world’s fossil-fuel-reliant militaries is fuelling climate change, robbing funds from climate finance and failing to deliver human safety in this time of climate emergency.”

Ellie Kinney, the Military Emissions Gap – The Conflict and Environment Observatory

The findings of the latest IPCC report offer a concerning glimpse into our future. At this stage of the climate crisis, no sector can be exempt from climate action. Militaries are huge energy users whose greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for an estimated 5.5% of global emissions. Initial estimates into the environmental impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine suggest that the conflict is responsible for additional emissions equivalent to that of a country like the Netherlands over the same time period. However, because reporting military emissions to the UNFCCC is voluntary, data is often absent or incomplete, leaving a potentially huge blind spot in our climate action. The IPCC has the opportunity to highlight the scale of the military emissions gap to Governments and policy-makers and this should be a priority for AR7. We would welcome an IPCC Special Report on the military and climate change, but at the very least military emissions should be acknowledged within the AR7 cycle.”

Quotes in other languages

Stephanie Cabovianco, Climate Save Movement

[ESPAÑOL] “La transición a un sistema alimentario basado en plantas no solo es necesaria para nuestra salud y el bienestar de los animales, sino también para la supervivencia de nuestro planeta frente a la emergencia climática y ecológica. El Sexto Informe de Evaluación del IPCC destaca la necesidad urgente de reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero de los sistemas alimentarios, que son responsables de hasta el 37 % de las emisiones globales. Un cambio hacia dietas basadas en plantas puede reducir significativamente estas emisiones, al tiempo que conserva la biodiversidad, reduce la deforestación y mejora la tierra y la eficiencia en el uso del agua. Es hora de que reconozcamos el poder de la producción y el consumo de alimentos y tomemos medidas para un presente sostenible”.

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Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice is a network of over 200 networks and organizations working globally, regionally, and locally on climate justice. Collectively we represent millions of climate activists on the ground.


Our members are available for comments and interviews in different languages. Please contact Rachitaa at [email protected] to arrange interviews.

Ambientalistas y movimientos de justicia climática cuestionan Acuerdo de Paris y la razón de ser de la Semana Regional del Clima de América Latina y el Caribe

Santo Domingo. – Las Naciones Unidas, el gobierno dominicano y otras entidades, inician la realización de la Semana del Clima Regional (LACCW 2022) bajo una simulación para dar impulso a la implementación del Acuerdo de París bajo el supuesto de detener el calentamiento global. No obstante organizaciones y movimientos socioambientales en todo el mundo han denunciado que la implementación de este Acuerdo es insuficiente y ambiguo para enfrentar las crisis climáticas, y, por lo tanto, merece una transformación radical y ajustarlo hacia la acción climática que demanda la emergencia en que se encuentra el planeta producto de modelos económicos extractivitas. 

La Semana Regional del Clima de Latinoamérica y Caribe, que tiene como anfitrión a República Dominicana, demuestra la fuerte influencia del sector privado y la complicidad de los Estados para retrasar la acción climática a partir de la agenda prevista para la Semana, estos tienden a evadir las discusiones de fondo sobre las reales causas de la crisis climática y están comprometidos a mantener la impunidad frente a los culpables del calentamiento global y sus consecuencias en los pueblos. 

Las organizaciones y movimientos sociales de justicia climática, aquí reunidos en Santo Domingo, en esta Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, hemos querido estar presentes en esta Semana del Clima organizada por el Gobierno de la República Dominicana, las Naciones Unidas y los organismos multilaterales de América Latina y el Caribe para demandar acciones climáticas reales.

Estamos aquí para denunciar y evitar que la Semana del Clima sea una nueva ronda de negocios donde los gobiernos, las empresas multinacionales y las élites económicas de nuestra región se reúnen, exclusivamente, para profundizar las políticas neoliberales y extractivitas que están llevado al planeta al colapso climático.

Reconocemos que hoy los pueblos y los estados de nuestra región, por cierto, la más desigual del mundo, tenemos la gran oportunidad de trazar un camino distinto para el bienestar de nuestras sociedades, que efectivamente permitan enfrentar el cambio climático y construir democracias y economías basadas en la soberanía, la justicia, la sustentabilidad y la solidaridad entre las naciones.

No es posible frenar o salir de la crisis climática si se insiste en la promoción de tratados de libre comercio basados en el mantenimiento de políticas extractivitas de minerales y agroindustria, producción insustentable, sobre-consumo y generación creciente de basura, que cada vez impactan con mayor fuerza y con mayor injusticia en nuestros territorios.

Y llamamos la atención que sea cual sea la tecnología, la energía no es limpia ni sustentable si es para alimentar el extrativismo, la vulneración de derechos de las comunidades y la destrucción de la naturaleza.

Nosotros y nosotras durante la Asamblea Ciudadana por la Justicia Climática, donde participamos organizaciones de pueblos originarios, afrodescendientes, trabajadores, feministas y cristianos de América Latina y el Caribe apoyamos las demandas de las organizaciones populares de República Dominicana y Haití ante la fragilidad de la isla, vamos a denunciar las falsas soluciones que continúan promoviendo los responsables de la crisis para perpetuar el sistema injusto y sus privilegios, y vamos a fortalecer nuestras estrategias de articulación social y la incidencia política sobre los gobiernos y organismos regionales multilaterales, promoviendo una agenda común basada en los valores de la justicia climática y la soberanía de los pueblos.

Rechazamos que los gobiernos de la República Dominicana, internacionalmente tratan de mostrar ser amigable con el ambiente y a nivel nacional sigue expandiendo la megaminería que pone en peligro las fuentes hídricas, los bosques, la agricultura campesina y los derechos territoriales, a la vez que expande el turismo no sostenible que amenaza áreas protegidas, aprovechando la debilidad institucional del país. 

Reiteramos que para enfrentar el cambio climático se requieren transformaciones radicales y urgentes, fuera de los mercados y emancipadas del extrativismo, con una mirada territorial y de comunidad, que partan de otros modelos de sociedades, basadas en la soberanía energética, alimentaria, económica, territorial, en las prácticas, culturas y economías locales, en condiciones de trabajo y vida dignas, así como en el intercambio solidario entre pueblos y comunidades, que respeten los derechos de la naturaleza,  y nos permitan vivir en armonía con ella.

Demandamos el reconocimiento y resarcimiento de la deuda histórica, social y ecológica que tienen los países industrializados del Norte con los pueblos del Sur quienes no han sido responsables del cambio climático. Esta deuda se debe a la contaminación atmosférica y a la apropiación ilegítima de los ciclos de la Tierra.

Finalmente, sólo podremos evitar el colapso planetario empezando a dejar el gas, el petróleo y el carbón bajo tierra, protegiendo y restaurando los bosques y ecosistemas, terminando con la agroindustria y la ganadería a gran escala y favoreciendo la agricultura campesina y la agroecología, respetando los derechos colectivos de los pueblos que cuidan y viven de los bosques, eliminando las prácticas extractivas mineras y sacando al sector financiero del clima.

18 de julio 2022

Santo Domingo, RD

Conferencia de prensa

Para más información, póngase en contacto con Eduardo Giesen via [email protected] o Rachitaa Gupta via [email protected].

How and where to “keep it in the ground”

new scientific study published in Climate Policy entitled, “Equity, Climate Justice and Fossil Fuel Extraction: Principles for a managed phase out comes at a pivotal moment as governments face unprecedented recovery efforts from the combined COVID-19 and oil market collapse crises, amid the growing climate emergency. 

There is widespread recognition that we must restrict fossil fuel supply in order to limit global warming. The key questions are where and by how much. This paper is one of the first efforts to answer these questions. The authors look at challenges to phasing out oil, gas, and coal production in different national contexts, and find that wealthy, diversified economies are best positioned to lead in a necessary just transition and phase out of fossil fuel production. 

The authors articulate principles for transparent pathways forward as today’s top oil-producing countries clash to coordinate urgent production cuts due to COVID-19’s dramatic drop in demand, and as differences emerge between Saudi Arabia and Russia over how to restrain rising US shale oil output. Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump’s push to save American shale oil companies faces growing skepticism from Congress and Wall Street who have increased their commitments to stop financing fossil fuels.

The paper builds on the messages from the recent Production Gap Report which found that the fossil fuel industry is planning to produce, by 2030,  50% more fossil fuels than consistent with a 2C goal and 120% more than a 1.5C goal.  

It comes on the heels of the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risk Report, where CEOs ranked “climate action failure” as a greater global risk than weapons of mass destruction, and amid calls for renewed international cooperation to enable an equitable global transition away from fossil fuels and towards clean, low-carbon and energy efficient economies, including through a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.  

The paper’s topline messages are that there is an urgent need for an equitable and just phase out of fossil fuel production in order to limit global warming to 1.5C, as laid out in the Paris Agreement. 

Governments must act to phase out production through a just transition, and it will be easier for some producing countries than others:

  • Wealthy fossil fuel producers with more diversified economies and more financial and technological resources are best positioned for rapid action;
  • Poorer, less diversified producers will face a much more difficult and costly effort.

Wealthy producers well-positioned to begin a phase out include: Canada, UK, US, and Norway. These producers are currently not doing nearly enough, and in many cases continue to expand production. 

International cooperation to support a just transition in poorer, less-diversified economies will be critical. Policy principles outlined in the paper include: 

  • Phase down global extraction consistent with 1.5°C
  • Enable a just transition for workers and communities
  • Curb extraction consistent with environmental justice
  • Reduce extraction fastest where social costs of transition are least
  • Share transition costs fairly

As it pertains to the current crisis: 

  • A managed phase out of fossil fuel production should be a pillar of a Just Recovery;
  • Recent events have been a case study foreshadowing the coming economic chaos of the unmanaged decline of the oil and gas sectors, laying bare the critical importance of government action to manage a phase out with a just transition;
  • Governments should not grant the fossil fuel sector unconditional subsidies and bailouts. Instead, governments should support workers and communities and use recovery efforts to shift capital to safe, clean, and renewable energy systems.

Responding to the paper’s release:

“Oil markets are now giving us only a glimpse of the future chaos our world faces if we don’t soon start a fair yet fast process for peacefully phasing-out oil production. The only larger risk we face is an accelerating catastrophe from climate action failure if we don’t get governments going on it ASAP; the Kartha-Muttit paper kick-starts the conversation by proposing clear principles for a pathway forward. Ideas such as this and the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty are signs of a climate movement that is getting more serious about ending the Era of Fossil Fuels.”

Victor Menotti, Senior Fellow, Oakland Institute.

“The UN science report last year shows that we are on track to produce 120% more fossil fuels than is compatible with climate goals. This new study shows how we can close that gap by planning and preparing for the end of coal, oil, and gas. A country like Bolivia is identified as needing international support in order to do so. This is a key part of the picture if we’re to realise our climate goals and make sure the cost is not paid by communities and workers. Confronting the Covid pandemic and recession means thinking about the economy we’re building for the future – it cannot be one that ignores the right to health nor one that fails to plan for the end of coal, oil and gas in every corner of our world.” 

Peri Dias, spokesperson for 350.org Latin America, based in La Paz, Bolivia.

“The current chaotic global economy is an example of what happens when nature forces a hard stop to business as usual. Climate change threatens a similar change but currently countries are not acting fast enough to ensure this transition is well managed. The Paris Agreement means there is no long term future for fossil fuels so countries need to start making the transition to cleaner, more sustainable forms of development. The post-coronavirus recovery packages are an opportunity to radically reshape national economies. Governments should use this moment to make that switch.”

Mohamed Adow, Director, PowerShift Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya.

“This research demonstrates that not only is an immediate phase out of oil, coal and gas necessary, but that fairness in that process is key if we have any chance of avoiding total climate action failure. It also drives home the absurdity of countries like the U.S. seeking to bailout dirty industries to the tune of billions, instead of financing an equitable shift toward a system that protects the health of people and the planet. It is vital that equity is central in energy transformation policies and that those that have stood in its way are held accountable. The path to a better world should be in part financed through holding polluting industries that continue to undermine climate action liable for the damage they have knowingly caused. Now is the moment to make this fair transition possible by heeding the call of hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of people around the world to make Big Polluters pay.”

Rachel Rose Jackson, Director of Climate Research and Policy, Corporate Accountability.

“Fossil fuel extraction has wreaked havoc on workers and communities for too long: polluting their bodies, air, water and lands, destroying biodiversity, and contributing to climate catastrophe. With oil prices at an all time low due to the COVID-19 crisis, this important study reminds us why fossil fuel extraction will not bring development to our countries in the Global South, but benefit only corporations and elites. Never have the concepts of justice and equity been more important, as we call for a much-needed fossil fuel phase-out, and demand that those who have benefited most from dirty energy take on the biggest role in paying for a just transition. Climate change, COVID-19, economic crisis: the inter-related crises we face now are a wake up call for system change.”

Dipti Bhatnagar, International Program Coordinator for Climate Justice and Energy, Friends of the Earth International, based in Maputo, Mozambique.

“The trillions of dollars being generated by rich industrial countries to rescue their economies in response to the 2008 financial crisis and the post-Covid stimulus packages, shows that if there is political will, there is additional finance available for developing countries to enable their just transition towards low-carbon pathways, moving away from fossil fuels in meeting their sustainable development needs. The developed countries should stop giving excuses that there is a lack of money if we are to save the planet and the poor.”

Meena Raman, Third World Network, based in Penang, Malaysia.