Liveblog | Plenary #1: Climate Justice Advocacy: National Leadership on Climate Justice

MODERATOR: Stephanie Tyree, WE ACT for Environmental Justice

PRESENTERS: Jose Bravo, Just Transition Alliance; Cecilia Martinez, Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy; Roger Kim, Asian Pacific Environmental Network

[10:47a] Moderator Stephanie Tyree introduces the speakers, who will each present some aspect of the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change's Principles of Climate Justice, which may be downloaded here via weact.org (.pdf 159 KB).

[10:55a] Cecilia Martinez presented principles 2, 7, and 10, and invoked Dr. Martin Luther King's apophthegm: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

[11:02a] Roger Kim presents the EJLFCC's first principle: Carbon emissions must be reduced to 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, and that this must happen within the framework of a carbon tax. "Keep the cap, ditch the trade." He also presented on principles 3 and 5.

[11:14a] Jose Bravo, the final speaker, presented principles 4, 6, 8, and 9. When he spoke about principle 8, he reminded the audience to consider how "structural adjustments" during the transition from a "carbon-based" to "green" economy could "unfairly" affect low-income and Indigenous People:

"A friend said, 'Taking farmers in China that have been working their land for thousands of years and putting them into an industrial factory making solar panels for white people - this is not a green job.'"