Changemaker Meeting | May
When: Thursday May 26th at 18:00 BST
Where: Online (link below)
Special Guest: Fatima Ibrahim | Green New Deal UK
On the Agenda:
Community check in and any updates from Community members
Topic Introduction: a Just Transition
Conversation with Fatima Ibrahim
Community Q&As
Closing conversation
Let us know if you will be able to join us here.
Please let us know about any updates you’d like to share at the meeting in advance so that we can ensure that we can give them adequate space and time. The floor will be open for questions, answers, and discussion regarding a Green New Deal, Climate Action, and a Just Transition, so please feel free to prepare any questions or discussion points in advance!
Start a discussion, share resources, or let us know how this meeting relates to your work and visions over on our Mighty Networks: your community platform.
What do we mean when we talk about a Just Transition?
EcoResolution was founded on the understanding that our ecological degradation, mental health crises, and community breakdown are interconnected symptoms of systemic failures. While the climate movement has for a long time been captured in the image of a polar bear and melting ice caps, it is just as much a threat to human rights, rooted in social injustice; the commodification of people; suppressed voices; economic inequality; political domination; and the unfettered extraction and exploitation of vulnerable communities to benefit those in power
The climate crisis stems back to a centuries-long history of colonialism and continues to be fuelled by the extractive legacy of slavery. Furthermore, environmental racism is prevalent across our planet: from increased exposure to toxic pollutants, through to the disproportionate impacts of climate change; we will not achieve racial, social and climate justice if we do not address the root causes that continue to perpetuate them all.
Growing polarisation, emerging conflicts and even a global pandemic cannot be separated from the systems of exploitation and extraction simultaneously degrading our ecosystems. This is precisely why, when reimagining and implementing systemic changes for thriving communities and environments, we must platform and centre those most marginalised and affected. Simultaneously, when addressing social injustice and conflict, we must not overlook the deeply interconnected role of how we interact with our nature and ecosystems.
Over the past few years, it has been amazing to witness the link between our environmental, racial, social, gender, and intergenerational justice become increasingly recognised and forefronted in mainstream narratives. But where do we go from here? Just as the problems are intersectional, so too are the opportunities and solutions. This is what brings us to a Just Transition.
Just Transition is a principle, a process and a practice. Just Transition is visionary, unifying, and place-based. Just Transition calls for a shift in economic and political power from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy, ensuring healthy, resilient and economically empowered communities alongside thriving ecosystems. The transition itself must be just and equitable; redressing past harms and creating new relationships of power for the future through reparations.
The practice of just transition means that the people who are most affected by pollution – the frontline workers and the fenceline communities – should be in the leadership of crafting policy solutions. If the process of transition is not just, the outcome will never be. Just Transition describes both where we are going and how we get there…
You can read more about Just Transition over on our Topics page here.
Meet Fatima
Fatima is a climate activist, social justice campaigner and co-executive director of Green New Deal UK. Much of her work has been spent campaigning and building solidarity with international movements. She has worked for global NGO Avaaz, EU citizens movement WeMove.eu and was one of the lead organisers of the People’s Climate March. She has also spent years organising with and supporting the UK Youth Climate Coalition.
Who are Green New Deal UK?
Green New Deal UK is a non-profit organisation formed in 2019 by organisers who are committed to social, economic and climate justice. Green New Deal Rising was launched in August 2021 as a movement of young people across the country – our aim is to disrupt the political system until politicians have no choice but to act.
“GND Rising is a movement of young people from every part of the UK fighting for climate justice. We come from towns devastated by cuts and we grew up in cities choked by air pollution. We are black, brown and white. Queer, trans and disabled. In school, college and at university. In work and unemployed. We are building an unstoppable movement that will make the Green New Deal an era defining issue and fight for a new system in which we can thrive.”
What is the Green New Deal?
The concept of a Green New Deal was first put forward by economists and thinkers in the UK in response to the 2008 financial crisis. It was later picked up by the Sunrise movement in the USA in 2018, who lobbied Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to front the campaign and have been building a powerful grassroots youth movement behind a Green New Deal in the US.
Here in the UK, in the 2019 General Election the Labour Party adopted aspects of the Green New Deal in their Green Industrial Revolution, pushed by grassroots members and the Labour for a Green New Deal campaign and has been adopted as a key demand by the UK Student Climate Network.
Now, The Green New Deal is a government-led plan to tackle climate breakdown and build a society where all of us can live better lives. It’s a plan to rapidly cut our emissions by modernising our energy, transport, housing and food systems. It’s a plan to create millions of secure and well-paid jobs that benefit our communities and cut carbon – jobs that are desperately needed to prevent mass unemployment after the pandemic.
The Green New Deal will build thriving public services – investing and expanding our health and social care, transport and education systems. And it will tackle rampant inequality by investing first in communities that need it most. With the Green New Deal, we can stand shoulder to shoulder with people around the world fighting for a safe climate and fair chance.
A Green New Deal must:
Totally decarbonise the economy of the United Kingdom in a way that enhances the lives of ordinary people, workers and communities and works to eliminate social and economic inequality.
Create millions of new well-paid, secure, unionised jobs across the country; guaranteeing healthy and fulfilling livelihoods for all workers and communities, including those in today’s high emissions sectors.
Transform our economy to rebalance power away from financial and corporate interests; ensuring our economy works in the interests of everyone in society and respects natural ecological limits, through greater participation, common ownership and democratic control over decisions that affect our lives.
Protect and restore vital habitats and carbon sinks, including forests and wild areas, and ensure the provision of clean water, air, green spaces and a healthy environment for all.
Promote global justice by acting quickly and fairly to mitigate and adapt to climate impacts and supporting other countries to do the same, accounting for historic emissions and ending the
Learn more by exploring the amazing resources over at Green New Deal UK’s website here.
Recommended Resources
Watch:
Discover:
— Just Transition Alliance
The Just Transition Alliance (JTA) serves people of color, Indigenous Peoples and low-income communities living under the threat of polluting industries; and workers, in the service, energy, farmworker, and chemical sectors.
They focus on community education, awareness and action that aims to ameliorate the lack of knowledge and the lack of choices that communities and workers face when dealing with unwarranted toxic trespass.
One of their main objectives is shifting toward a sustainable economy that does not compromise people and our environment, one that is driven by those at the frontline and on the fencelines of unsustainable production.
— The Leap
The Leap was founded by Naomi Klein, Avi Lewis, Katie McKenna and Bianca Mugyenyi, and ran as a cross-border organization from 2015 until closing its doors in 2021. The organization started from the belief that our overlapping crises of inequality and climate change stem from the same broken systems, and that we need intersectional solutions and alliances to rebuild our broken relationships to this planet and each other. Their website still hosts amazing resources and links to further learning.