In their chase after short-term profits for international shareholders, banks and insurance corporations mostly from the US and Europe pump billions into dangerous fossil fuel projects that are pushing the world into irreversible climate breakdown, while destroying communities and the living world we all depend on. Fossil fuel expansion is the main driver of the climate crisis and its devastating impacts hit all over the world. It is the people on the ground at these extractivist projects who are leading the fights against this destruction.
They are the fishing communities in Peru and Senegal fighting oil exploration in the waters they depend on for their livelihoods, the environmental defenders risking their lives to protect the Amazon and the people standing up against fracking in Argentina or the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. Despite facing violent crack-downs and criminalisation of protests, especially indigenous communities and women – lead the resistance against the attack on their homelands by primarily European and US corporations.
These are some of the local struggles represented in our coalition:
- people in Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo resisting the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline that is spearheaded by French oil and gas major TotalEnergies (more information: Stop EACOP)
- Indigenous defenders of nature in Colombia that risk their lives standing up against oil and gas exploitation and mining operations by multinational corporations that act with total impunity and are complicit with paramilitary groups (more information: ONIC)
- people in Senegal fighting oil and gas extraction by multinational corporations such as TotalEnergies that threaten farming and fishing communities (more information in French: Aid.C)
- indigenous Nahuatl and Tenek communities in Mexico organising against fracking for oil by European corporations like Eni, BP, Shell and Total in the Huasteca Potosina region known for its exceptional natural beauty (more information: COCIHP)
- people in Peru opposing oil and gas extraction off the coast and in the Amazon despite harsh repression and assassinations of environmental defenders (more information in Spanish: Natura)
- fisherfolk in the Philippines resisting fossil fuel projects that threaten the Verde Island Passage, among the most biodiverse waters in the world, also called ‘the Amazonia of the seas’ (more information: CEED)
- support for indigenous communities and fisherfolk of India struggling against coal and fracking projects on their lands (more information: Environics)
- communities in South Africa that have so far successfully opposed mining and offshore oil projects, despite the assassination and continued threats against its leaders (more information: AIDC)
- Traditional leaders of the Wet’suwet’en people of western Canada opposing a giant gas pipeline project that would cross their unceded lands, despite repeated violent attacks and criminalisation of its leaders (more information: Coastal GasLink pipeline)
These struggles have always been matters of life – and too often – death. Today, the rise of right wing and authoritarian regimes can make local resistance extremely dangerous or even impossible. That is why the dimension of international solidarity is an absolutely essential aspect of our common struggle.
Also in the US and Europe the impacts of the climate crisis, fossil fuel extraction and pollution hit people already struggling and facing disadvantages. For example, homeless and elderly people are dying from heat stress, poor people face crushing rises in energy bills, and people who had to leave their homelands in search of safety are being blamed and scapegoated for people’s increasing sense of precarity and instability. Many people in these richer countries struggle against fossil fuels, for better protections of construction workers in extreme heat, migrants’ rights, and many more issues in this global fight for climate justice.
The dynamic we’re seeing of Western corporations extracting profits from across Africa, Latin America and Asia while leaving a trail of destruction for people on the ground, is a continuation of colonial patterns. All of these extractivist projects need to be stopped once and for all. That is why directly impacted people join forces with climate justice activists and financial experts across borders to cut off the money flowing into these projects for good, by changing the rules of the financial system.
