Tag: COP27

Northern Arapaho Disrupts Biden at COP27: “No Time for False Solutions”

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cross-posted from Censored News

Four protesters holding a banner which read ‘people vs fossils’ interrupted the speech of Joe Biden, the US president, to Cop27.

The protesters were youth and Indigenous activists from the US, and they were calling on Biden to stop pushing fossil fuel extraction. They spoke with the Guardian shortly after being escorted out of the plenary hall by security staff.

“The president, members of Congress and the state department have come to this international forum on climate change proposing false solutions that will not get us to 1.5C,” said Big Wind, 29, a member of the Northern Arapaho tribe in Wyoming.

“We need to accelerate the transition but that’s not going to happen by partnering with big polluters like Amazon and PepsiCo, and so we needed to call that out,” he said, in reference to an announcement earlier this week by US climate envoy John Kerry, the Bezos Earth Fund, PepsiCo and others about plans to design an energy transition accelerator.

Biden referenced Indigenous peoples in his speech, yet has failed to leverage his power to support them directly through direct access to funds needed by communities to adapt to the climate crisis, said Big Wind.

Jamie Wefald, a 24-year-old climate activist from Brooklyn, New York, said: “Joe Biden is promoting false solutions to the climate crisis, he is no climate hero. We wanted to create a moment on behalf of all frontline communities in the global north and south to demand real climate solutions.”

 

Climate Activists, Including Scientists, Are Arrested in Protests at Private Airports

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cross-posted from Common Dreams

“The rich are burning down the planet and the damage is irreversible,” said one arrested climate scientist. “We must stop them. Banning private jets would be a start.”

by Brett Wilkins

Fifteen activists were arrested for shutting down the entrances to airports serving private jets across the United States on Thursday as part of worldwide climate protests led by groups including Extinction Rebellion, Scientist Rebellion, New York Communities for Change, and the New York City chapter of the youth-led Sunrise Movement.

“Taking a private jet while the planet is on fire is utter insanity.”

According to a representative of New York Communities for Change, seven demonstrators were arrested at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey—the nation’s busiest private jetport—while four activists were apprehended at Van Nuys Airport outside Los Angeles, and four protesters were taken into police custody at Wilson Air Terminal at Charlotte International Airport in North Carolina.

“The rich are burning down the planet and the damage is irreversible,” climate scientist Peter Kalmus, who was arrested in Charlotte, said in a statement. “We must stop them. Banning private jets would be a start.”

Referring to the billionaire founders of Amazon.com and Microsoft respectively, Scientist Rebellion member Gianluca Grimalda said: “It is obscene that Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates can fly their private jets tax-free, while global communities starve. It’s only fair that wealthy polluters pay the most into climate loss and damage funds to help the most vulnerable countries adapt.”

While private jets account for a tiny fraction of global greenhouse emissions, the world’s richest 1% produce more than double the emissions of the poorest 50%, and a single billionaire produces a million times more emissions than an average person, as an Oxfam study reported by Common Dreams earlier this week explained.

Earlier this week, more than 100 activists were arrested during a similar protest against private jets in Amsterdam.

“Taking a private jet while the planet is on fire is utter insanity,” said Will Livernois, a bioelectronics researcher at the University of Washington who took part in a protest in Seattle on Thursday. “The science has been clear for half a century and we have not changed trajectory. The elite who have funded this crisis must pay back what they have taken from our world.”