Over 160 organisations across 45 nations have signed a call to action urging governments, financial institutions and corporations to enact policies aimed at alleviating the accelerating climate crisis.
The statement, released by the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), calls on powerful groups to implement policies that will prioritise climate, social, and economic justice across the planet, as the window for tackling the climate crisis is rapidly closing.
The letter urges governments and corporations to invest in community and science-based solutions worldwide, highlighting the importance of the coming years in mitigating the worst outcomes of climate change.
WECAN — an international group that engages women in policy advocacy for global climate justice, said that the letter stresses the need to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping long-term global warming below 1.5°C through policies that foreground social, racial, and economic justice.
The release of the letter coincides with WECAN’s global convention this week — a virtual event bringing together policy-makers, grassroots and frontline leaders to discuss strategies on how to accelerate the transition to clean energy, promote women’s climate leadership, protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and provide quality climate finance, among other goals.
The Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Path to COP30 and Beyond is a virtual Assembly aiming to support the collective calls to action in the lead-up to this year’s COP30 in Belem, Brazil and generate ongoing networks of action regionally.
The Global Assembly is taking place as government climate negotiations are happening in Bonn, where the UN Climate Conference is hosting discussions about the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Osprey Orielle Lake, Founder, Executive Director at WECAN, said the climate crisis is not just an environmental crisis, but a crisis of justice, society and humanity.
“How we respond, and who is centred in that response, matters profoundly,” she said. “We are calling for systemic transformation—one that delivers climate, social, and economic justice for all generations.”
“While governments and corporations push us deeper into climate chaos, movements around the world are rising,” she continued.
“From every corner of the Earth, women leaders are coming together with solutions and strategies to defend our planet and our communities. We call on governments and financial institutions to heed their voices and ensure effective and equitable policies—from Bonn to Belém and beyond.”
Orielle Lake stressed the need for “bold” action — “because climate change is not waiting for politics.”
“Our movements are not bending,” she added. “We are not breaking. We are defining and building a healthy and just future for all.”
Zukiswa White, one of the speakers at the Assembly, believes that for too long, science-based climate solutions have been sacrificed on the altar of capitalism.
“For too long, corporations, financial institutions, and governments have criminalised and penalised those fighting to defend life, protect and the integrity of the planet, and fight for climate action,” the social justice consultant said.
“All this, while the wealthy elite profit off of extracting and burning our planet’s resources. If we are to prevent the worst of climate change — a crisis that is already impacting most people on the planet — we demand that we insist on a different path.”
White maintains that choosing to keep the status quo is neither a coincidence nor an inevitable destiny — but a political choice.
“So too is upholding systems that violate planetary boundaries,” she said. “To counter this, we must centre the work of frontline leaders and experts around the world— move into implementation of policies that not only halt climate devastation, but also champion democratic, gender transformative, and community-based solutions.”
The Call to Action contains several key recommendations, including halting the extraction of oil, gas, and coal and ending deforestation, putting a stop to “false solutions” such as natural gas, mega-dams, geo-engineering and carbon trading schemes — “which have no place in climate action plans”, mobilising at least $1 trillion annually in quality climate finance and stopping the criminalisation of land activists, whose efforts are central to a climate-just world.
The release of the letter comes six months ahead of COP30 in Brazil, first-ever annual ‘COP’ meeting to take place in the Amazon, where the international community will address escalating climate disasters and the expansion of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure by wealthy countries.
A recent study revelled that the US, Canada, Norway, and Australia will be responsible for almost 70 per cent of projected new oil and gas expansion in the next decade.
Image credit: WECAN
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