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For now, we are discussing a problem left to us by capitalism - climate change.” This was the conclusion of Bolivian President Evo Morales in his closing remarks to the October 10-12 World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Defence of Life in Cochabamba.

More than 5000 people from more than 40 countries took part in the summit, established to give a voice to the poor and marginalised victims of climate change. Proposals and demands agreed on at the summit will be taken directly to the United Nations climate talks in Paris starting on November 30.

EJOLT, Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilites and Trade, 29/09/15
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In the run-up to the UNFCCC COP 21 in Paris set for December, the EJOLT team is happy to announce the 23rd EJOLT Report dedicated to widening the discussion on climate justice, “Refocusing resistance for climate justice: COPing in, COPing out and beyond Paris”.

Greenhouse gas reduction pledges countries have submitted to the United Nations in advance of global climate talks set the planet on a path that keeps critical climate goals out of reach.

The refugee crisis is complex just like the climate crisis is complex. But another parallel is evident too: people who are already vulnerable and subject to a variety of overlapping injustices will and do suffer the most. (Photo: via 350.org)

At the Asia Pacific Resilience Innovation Summit held in Honolulu, Hawaii, this week, Governor David Ige dropped a bombshell. His administration will not use natural gas to replace the state’s petroleum-fueled electricity plants, but will make a full-court press toward 100 percent renewables by 2045. Ige’s decisive and ambitious energy vision is making Hawaii into the world’s most important laboratory for humankind’s fight against climate change. He has, in addition, attracted an unlikely and enthusiastic partner in his embrace of green energy—the US military.

With less than 100 days until high-level UN climate talks take place in Paris, key leaders from the global climate justice movement have come together with a joint statement that affirms their belief that only mass popular mobilizations across the planet demanding a drastic reckoning with the world's fossil fuel paradigm will suffice when it comes to confronting the increasingly dire and intertwined threats of neoliberal capitalism and planetary climate change.

. . . "It sends a terrible signal to the rest of the world for the United States to be using public resources to promote [Arctic] development," said Niel Lawrence of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). "We have to make clear to the rest of the world that we are all in on a clean energy future. And we've got to stop giving the rest of the world license to go exploring by permitting Shell to do it."

Attendees at the International Islamic Climate Change Symposium in Istanbul from 20 countries produced, and 60 of them signed, a declaration this week warning of the dangers of climate change and urging urgent action to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

But, I fear the press reporting on this meeting is exaggerating its significance.

Democratic presidential contender Martin O’Malley sparked controversy this week by saying that the conditions for the rise of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) were set by the impact on Syria of climate change, which drove farmers from their land into slums around cities and created extreme poverty. O’Malley’s assertion was immediately ridiculed on Fox News Channel and by Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who called the allegation a “disconnect from reality.” Who is right in this debate?

A court in The Hague has ordered the Dutch government to cut its emissions by at least 25% within five years, in a landmark ruling expected to cause ripples around the world.

To cheers and hoots from climate campaigners in court, three judges ruled that government plans to cut emissions by just 14-17% compared to 1990 levels by 2020 were unlawful, given the scale of the threat posed by climate change.