Climate Equity Links
This does not in any way pretend to be a comprehensive list of climate equity links. But it will get you started.
350.org is an international campaign dedicated to creating an equitable global climate treaty that lowers carbon dioxide below 350 parts per million. Which is about as close to safe as we can still get. This is a fabulous organization, no doubt about it.
The most promising US blue/green coalition in ages, Apollo frames its efforts in terms of good jobs and energy independence. Little talk of global issues, but its at least possible to hope that internationalism, too, will come with time. Apollo is a key organization, no doubt about that.
The Blue Green working group has long been working to build links between US environmental and labor groups. Its had a rocky history, but that goes with the territory. Blue-Green has survived and regrouped, and is now one of groups thats coordinating the US movement for green collar jobs.
There are new ideas in play, and one of the most important of them is Cap and Share, a proposal for a carbon rationing system based on personal carbon allowances. Think carbon credit cards. Think about rationing. Think about a scheme that will not work globally, but just might be invaluable within national borders.
This is probably the best entry point to the international movement that is coming up around historical responsibility and climate debt. Note that the term “climate” is used here, instead of the terms “carbon,” in order to suggest a broader, more encompassing notion of the North’s debt to the developing world.
Behind this site is a small but rapidly growing group of brave and original thinkers. Their main obsession will be familiar to EcoEquity readers the pressing need to take the science straight, and to respond with a global emergency mobilization. And we have to confess that their focus on rationing isn’t looking too bad either.
Centre for Science and the Environment (CSE)
India’s CSE, well known among Southern environmental NGOs, has been enormously influential in the climate equity movement since 1990s publication of Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain’s Global Warming in an Unequal World. Their whole (extensive) site is well worth exploring, and this remains true even though theyve not been focused on climate recently.
The Climate Action Network is a global coalition of over four hundred independent organizations working the climate issue, and many of the other organizations on this list are members of it. See, in particular, the ECO newsletter, which CAN publishes from all major international climate meetings; there’s really nothing else like it. The US Climate Action Network is, of course, the web home of the US region of CAN. It also provides a portal to the climate pages of most of the major U.S. environmental groups.
Now here is something new, a long, clear-headed look at the social-psychology of denial. And by psychology we don’t mean that old-school nonsense that treats the individual apart from society. As if!
The CCC aims to be a big, straight-shooting, from-the-bottom-up, amalgam of US climate movements. It touches the campuses, and the cities-based movement, and of course Washington all of it, after all, is necessary. Not a home to pragmatism and measured response; the ethos here is of emergency. Also note that the Climate Crisis Coalition publishes Earth Equity News, which really is the best climate news service around. At least in the US of A.
This blog is run by professional philosophers, and yet it strives to be extremely relevant to the global climate justice debate. We won’t say that all of it is excellent, or even useful. But some of it is, and quite so. Don Brown in particular, the force behind the blog, knows his way around the debate, and it shows.
If you want to follow the thoughts and development of the global-justice wing of the international climate movement, this is a good place to do it. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a better one.
From the people who brought you The Spirit Level, this is a nice portal into the inequality debate, as it is (very rapidly) developing int the UK. And before you conclude that all this is just a matter of economic justice, take a look at the argument (in the book) that we’ll not be able to get our arms around the climate problem until we put the inequality problem in center stage.
One of the broadest climate coalitions in the US, Energy Action is focused on the universities and thus overlaps with Focus the Nation, the Campus Climate Challenge, and all sorts of other student-led initiatives. The level of commitment in these circles is a real inspiration!
Focus has long been one of the global justice movements indispensable organizations. And now that it is moving into climate it should be welcomed with open arms. It falls on the oppositionist side of the climate movements political spectrum, and does so with unusual depth and compelling analysis.
Global Commons Institute (GCI) Aubrey Meyer of London’s GCI has been working for over a decade to put contraction and convergence onto the international agenda. And come what may, there’s an irreducible truth here at the end of the day, any fair global climate regime will have to result in contraction and convergence.
Footprint analysis has long been indispensable to honest, no-bullshit pedagogy on the environmental crisis, but that’s hardly the end of its possibilities. GFN is pushing the footprint approach farther than its its ever gone before, and it’s very useful effect!
A global network (of senior environmental policy wonks from around the world) elaborating visions and pathways for a future of enriched lives, human solidarity and a healthy planet. See, in particular, the GTI paper series, which is dense with insights and ideas.
Ross Gelbspan’s site, and his classic proposal, which couples the Tobin tax with progressive fossil fuel efficiency standards, and his evolving thoughts. This is good stuff, and any serious US climate activist should know it well.
This is the single best US site on inequality, as far as I can tell. It’s maintained by the folks at the the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality and the Common Good. Kudos. And check out their great 2-minute video on US inequality!
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The IPCC is the global scientific authority of last resort when it comes to climate change, and this remains true despite the IPCC’s conservativism (a long story that’s not appropriate here). All of its major reports are available via the Web site, though you may have to root around a bit to find them all.
International Forum on Globalization
The IFG, one of the keystone organizations of the old anti-globalization movement , is increasingly focusing on what it calls the triple crisis of climate change, peak oil, and resource depletion. Definitely one to keep an eye on, particularly if youre interested in the politics of trade and international property rights.
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
IISD hosts Climate-L, the premier list for announcement of climate-related activities and publications, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, a dry but objective review of the daily activities at major global environmental negotiations, the annual Development and Climate Days meeting that takes at every climate COP, and gobs of other important stuff.
Jim Hansen, of course, is one of the worlds leading climate scientists; hes certainly one of the most influential, one of the most prolific, and one of the most courageous. Indeed, his latest writings are nothing less than terrifying.
The Just Transition Alliance is a US Environmental Justice organization with a fine history and a really fine name. Just transitions is what this is all about.
Labor Network for Sustainability
The Labor Network for Sustainability is a green meets labor project, but with a twist. Unions are big part of the picture, but not in the old way. This is a voice of a new labor movement, a green labor movement and a global one, one that’s bent on reinvention, come what may.
Now here’s something new! An good, well-maintained website focusing on the new commons movement. Definitely check it out, because this is the single best entry point to a burgeoning movement and a fascinating, indispensable literature.
Launched in 2009 , British blog Political Climate is a useful spur to creative thinking. You may not always agree with pronouncements like “both the climate science-led environmentalist movement and the definition and diagnosis of climate change as an economic problem have failed,” but the arguments are varied and interesting. Think Breakthrough Institute but without the bullshit.
If we had to pick three absolutely indispensable climate websites, realclimate climate science by climate scientists would have to make the cut. And this despite the fact that it has no explicit commitment to social justice. Because, lets face it, avoiding global climate catastrophe is in itself key to any real justice agenda. And were not going to avoid it unless we understand it.
Rising Tide is the grandfather of anarcho-climate radicalism, and this site, which services a large network of mostly-UK based climate activists and action groups, is the place to go to find out whats its up to. There’s a large range of leaflets and fact sheets, support for anti-road and anti-air activism, critiques of the negotiations, carbon trading. Everything you’d expect!
Stockholm Environment Institute US Center
SEI is one of the oldest groups in the climate game, but the US center is relatively new. Its notable because its staffers are hard core environmental scientists, but also visionaries working hard to find new ways forward, ways that are actually adequate to the challenge. SEI-US is EcoEquity’s principle partner in the Greenhouse Development Rights project.
A very broad and diverse coalition of British environmental, development, and ecumenical organizations, SCC is notable because it represents a level or coordination that US climate movements have not yet been able to achieve. Its a good beginning.
Sustainable Energy and Environment Network
SEEN, based at Washington’s Institute for Policy Studies, has long been a leader in the drive to reform (or abolish) the World Bank and, beyond that, to do whatever’s necessary to drive renewables and justice to the center of the global institutional agenda. And there’s no reason to think that its work will be done anytime soon.
Count-down timers have always been popular on the internet. Here’s one that will really curl your hair. And this one is science based!
Anti-globalization activists will know the Third World Network well, though until recently, TWN hasn’t had much to do with climate politics. This is changing though, and in a big way. This is a link to TWN’s climate page, and its one to watch.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
The UNFCCC’s portal hosts all the documents from the official climate negotiations, and all sorts of related materials.The Framework Convention is already law, by the way, even in the US. George W. Bush’s father signed it in 1992, and it has been ratified by the U.S. Senate.