To the G7 leaders: Stop Funding Fuel and instead, endorse climate justice
Today, Arab Watch Coalition among 352 human rights and environmental organizations from 58 countries around the world have sent a letter to the G7 leaders to stop funding fuel inside and outside their countries.
While the G7 governments are gathering for the the G7 Summit to discuss how to build a “strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive recovery”, civil society groups voice their concerns over the actual climate emergency and its crucial impacts on people and their environment. Climate justice shall take into account the contextual priorities, especially in the context of the COVID-19 by pursing debt cancellation to alleviate this burden on countries of the Global South; and paying fair share of climate finance to global south countries for climate adaptation.
Civil Society around the world are urging the leaders of G7 governments to take the following actions towards climate justice:
● Cancel debt payments in global South countries grappling with COVID-19 and climate impacts;
● Stop all fossil fuel finance from bilateral and multilateral funding sources, and encourage other governments to do the same;
● Support mechanisms for countries in the South that will speed up a just transition, and discourage international trade arbitration mechanisms that protect fossil fuel investors;
● Pay their fair share of climate finance to global South countries for climate adaptation , the development of renewable energy technologies, a just transition to clean energy for workers, communities, and countries, and access to energy for those who currently lack it;
● Put an end to fossil fuel development in your own countries, including by ending fossil fuel subsidies; manage the decline of existing production of oil, gas, and coal; and rapidly initiate a just transition to clean and safe renewable sources of energy – involving extensive engagement with oil, gas, and coal workers, their unions and affected communities.