Add your name alongside others around the world demanding world governments kick Big Polluters out

We write to you as people, activists, and community leaders around the world united in demanding an end to the corporate capture that has driven us to the brink of extinction. Around the world, we are already experiencing irreversible damage to the planet, and the loss of homelands, cultures, and ecosystems. And it is those among us that have contributed the very least to climate change that are paying the highest price–their lives and livelihoods. 

Year after year, world governments have protected the interests of Big Polluters and have failed to deliver the needed climate equity and action, to end the world’s fossil fuel addiction, and to rapidly and justly transition to a new global system – one that is equitable, socially just, gender responsive, nature-restoring, fossil fuel-free, and life affirming. Year after year, it is the greed and profits of Big Polluters that reign, and that continue to pillage and plunder from frontline communities with impunity.

We know who is to blame for the climate crisis. For over half a century, Big Polluters have known their deadly products would cause tremendous harm. What did they do? They hid the truth, sowed doubt, and invested billions of dollars to delay climate action. All in the name of greed and profits. And world governments, particularly from the Global North, have enabled and supported them every step of the way.

We, people from communities and countries around the world, ask you – what do you stand for? Do you stand for the greedy, reckless, and deadly business practices of Big Polluters that have driven us to the brink of extinction? Or do you stand for a world where the people in your communities can thrive and where we protect and nurture the planet that is our only home?

We demand:

1. No more writing the rules.

Big Polluters must not be granted access to climate policymaking. This allows them to continue to unduly influence, weaken, and undermine the global response to climate change, and it’s why we are on the brink of extinction. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change must urgently establish an Accountability Framework to end this corporate capture. As an immediate next step, all participants must be required to publicly disclose and declare their interests. People deserve to know who is at the policymaking table, and what their real agenda is. 

2. No more bankrolling climate action.

No Big Polluter partnership or sponsorships of climate talks or climate action. Not now. Not ever. Major polluters must not be allowed to greenwash themselves and literally buy their way out of culpability for a crisis they have caused. Already, two major polluters have been named as COP27 partners- Coca-Cola, the  world’s largest plastics polluter and a major political blocker of action; and Microsoft, the world’s largest tech partner to the oil and gas industry. The UNFCCC will always fail to deliver so long as this is deemed acceptable.

3. Polluters Out- People In.

While civil society has always participated in the COP process, governments have made it more difficult each time for NGOs and climate justice movements to have their voices heard. We need equitable, meaningful inclusion. Climate action must center the leadership and lived experience of the people, especially those on the frontlines of the climate crisis. With frontline communities in the lead, we must end the funding and validation of dangerous distractions and false solutions that promote Big Polluters’ profits, enable their abuses, and guarantee decades more of fossil fuel use.

4. Reset the system.

Capitalism is destroying life as we know it. It’s time to build a new way of living and collaborating that works for people, not polluters, and that restores, rather than destroys, nature. We need real, just, accountable, gender responsive, community-led, nature-restoring, and proven and transformative solutions to be implemented rapidly and justly. We need a total and equitable transition off of fossil fuels. We need real solutions that center the rights of Indigenous peoples, local communities and the protection of those speaking up for justice. We need an end to the impunity of corporate abuses.

It's time for a reset of the system. A moment to abandon the old, profiteering, polluting world order, and a time to reimagine and rapidly implement global collaboration that centers equity, justice, science, and humanity. We don’t have to tell you what another failed year will mean for people and the planet.