Debates — honest and respectful, but sometimes sharp debates — are a sign of healthy political movement, which among much else, must avoid groupthink. I’ve been trying to do my part, as you might notice from these two webinars:
The first — a Global Just Transitions webinar organized by the Institute for Policy Studies — was What Climate Debt Does the North Owe the South? It took place before COP27, and featured (in addition to yours truly) Meena Raman, president of Friends of the Earth Malaysia and head of programs at Third World Network, and Alberto Acosta, Ecuador’s former minister of energy and mining and one of the principle drivers behind Ecuador’s storied attempt to raise international funds to keep the oil beneath the Yasuni rainforest in the ground. IPS’s John Feffer ably summarized the discussion here.
The second — How Can COP be Effective? — was organized by Jeremy Lent at the Deep Transition Network. It featured me, of course, as well as Osprey Orielle Lake, the Founder and Executive Director of WECAN, the Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, International, and scientist and filmmaker Phoebe Barnard. Phoebe was unfortunately on a train with bad WiFi, but Osprey and I managed, between the two of us, to do a passable job of answering Lent’s extremely pressing question.