Tag: Washingon DC

3 days of resistance to World Bank/IMF feature hundreds of activists, mobile DJ booth, bike blockade, and more.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | October 12, 2022

Washington, DC, October 12 – Beginning today and through Friday, a global coalition of activists will demonstrate at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings to demand that these institutions end their investment in fossil fuels, cancel the debt they claim Global South countries owe, and pay climate reparations.

Three days of resistance to World Bank/IMF feature hundreds of activists, mobile DJ booth, bike blockade, and more.

WHAT: Over 400 activists from around the world are planning three days of demonstrations with large-scale props and amplified sound, including a bike blockade, a mock trial, educational events, and a massive noise demonstration. On Friday, the week of action comes to an end with a festival of resistance envisioning the world we deserve, and a march featuring representations of international financial institutions in a literal bed with Big Oil. These demonstrations follow weeks of action by climate activists to remove World Bank president David Malpass, who refused to acknowledge climate change.

WHO: ShutDownDC, Arm in Arm For Climate (Washington, DC), The Big Shift Global, CODEPINK, Debt for Climate, Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, Extinction Rebellion (Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New York City), Glasgow Actions Team, GreenFaith, Justice is Global, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, others.

WHEN:

  • Wednesday, October 12, 5:00 PM, Edward R. Murrow Park (H St. and 18th St. NW): Bike blockade of the G20 dinner featuring 100 cyclists and a mobile DJ booth
  • 8:00 PM, Murrow Park: Teach-in: “How neoliberalism conquered the world and how the world is fighting back”
  • Thursday, October 13, 10:00 AM – noon, Murrow Park (rain location: George Washington University, Rome Hall Room 204, 801 22nd St. NW, Washington, DC 20052): Mock trial of the IMF and World Bank
  • 1:00 PM, Murrow Park: Soccer-themed noise demonstration outside the G20 press conference
  • Friday, October 14, 8:00 AM – 11:00 AM, Murrow Park: Festival of Resistance celebrating and welcoming the world we want to live in
  • Noon, Murrow Park: The Big Shift Global march – featuring international financial institutions in a literal bed with Big Oil – and rally calling on the IMF and World Bank to stop funding fossil fuel projects.

 

Detailed schedule available at https://www.forpeopleforplanet.earth/calendar/

WHY: The week of October 10th, the World Bank and IMF are holding their annual meetings in Washington, DC.* Drawing on decades of resistance to these institutions and following the leadership of organizations and individuals representing this global fight, activists are demanding that they cancel all debt, pay climate and colonial reparations to countries in the Global South, and stop funding fossil fuel projects.

The people making decisions at the IMF and World Bank meetings have historically chosen to advance colonialism, contribute to climate change, and make it harder for everyday people to survive events like natural disasters and pandemics. At this year’s meetings, they will continue to prioritize extractive energy markets over Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice, and profits for transnational corporations over the economic futures of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

The decisions made at these meetings will most directly affect those who have contributed the least to the climate catastrophe and yet are the most indebted to the IMF and World Bank – like the tens of millions of people displaced last month as a result of flooding in Pakistan. The creative direct actions occurring this week are a powerful tool allowing activists to uplift the experiences and demands of our neighbors in the Global South.

HOW: For press inquiries please contact Basav Sen with ShutDownDC at media@shutdowndc.org or 513-262-2750.

*Washington DC is unceded territory of the Piscataway Conoy people. Learn more about The Cedarville Band of Piscataways and paying land tax, their collective choice for reparations here: CBPI, Inc. | Instagram, YouTube | Linktree

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#ShutDownDC is an organizing space where individuals and groups can come together to organize direct action in the fight for justice.

Guardian: Climate activists plan Washington DC protest to ‘disrupt workings of power’

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Cross-posted from the Guardian

Climate activists plan Washington DC protest to ‘disrupt workings of power

Local groups join together for an event that seeks to shut down traffic on 23 September, during the UN Climate Action Summit

Climate activists will escalate their protests next month in Washington DC, seeking to shut down traffic with blockades at key intersections to bring attention to the intensifying crisis.

Several local groups are planning the action for 23 September, as youth leaders call for a global strike and a week of action. Hundreds of events are planned, with more than 100 of them in the US, organizers said.

Patrick Young, a 35-year-old who works with the group Rising Tide called the protest “a big ambitious plan to disrupt business as usual”.

“The level of frustration with the inaction of political leaders and corporations on the climate crisis is just really boiling over,” Young said.

Rising Tide North America is joining other local organizers with Extinction Rebellion DC, 350 DC, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Friends Meeting of Washington’s Social Concerns Committee, Movement for a People’s Party and Code Pink.

The groups are announcing their broad plans – without disclosing strategic details – as the 16-year-old Swedish youth climate activist Greta Thunberg arrives in New York via boat for plans to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit.

A call-to-action document for Shut Down DC highlights worsening superstorms, floods, droughts, and wildfires, and notes that they unevenly hurt people with low incomes and people of color.

“We do not take this action lightly. We know that this shutdown will cause massive disruption to people who bear little responsibility for the climate catastrophe we are facing. But we will also cause massive disruption for politicians, huge corporations and the lobbyists who control our government,” the groups say.

Extinction Rebellion in July glued themselves to doorways to attempt to block lawmakers from entering the US capitol building.

Sean Haskett, a 24-year-old who protests with the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said he was most inspired by the UN report warning the world has 11 years to take significant steps required to avoid climate catastrophe.

Haskett said protestors want to “disrupt the workings of power”.

“There’s a tremendous amount of power that drives through those streets and parks next to those sidewalks and walks into those buildings,” he said. “We want them to think about what they’re doing with that power.”

Organizers say the Shut Down DC day is attracting people they’ve never seen protest.

Amanda Trebach, who worked for a clean energy company before going to nursing school, is recruiting other health professionals to join her through her union, National Nurses United.

She is a 33-year-old stroke and neurology nurse at Medstar Washington Hospital Center, where she says she sees an uptick in heat-related illnesses. On a recent day in Baltimore, she said she saw a man die of what appeared to be heat stroke while he was waiting for an ambulance.

She said her coworkers have been talking about the news of fires burning down the forests in the Amazon in Brazil.

“The crisis is just escalating so quickly – people are talking about it more so people are more open to doing things like this,” Trebach said. “Things need to change, and things need to change so quickly that we can’t have business as usual.”