Call for Action
Flood coal mines with protest instead of letting islands sink!
3 -5 November 2017
Bonn/ Rhenish lignite mining region
Here the climate is being negotiated
Swanky surroundings, pleasantly air-conditioned conference rooms. Far away from the smokestacks, the coal mines and the fracking bore holes where it stinks, smokes and reeks. And even further removed from the victims of climate change. That was the way climate summits came to pass in the past. This time is will be very different. When thousands of delegates from all over the world meet in Bonn for the UN climate summit (COP23) in November, only 50 kilometres from there gigantic coal diggers continue devouring the soil.
Climate destruction round the corner
The world climate summit takes place in Germany – in a country that is the world champion in burning lignite. The Fiji islands whose coasts are slowly engulfed by the sea will chair the conference. Here, in the power stations of the Rhenish lignite mining area the climate is being burnt. Meanwhile people in Fiji, Tuvalu and Kiribait have to leave their homes. At the climate summit in Bonn the world can recognise who is responsible for climate change, who profits and who suffers. In the coal mines people can see the destruction. Here is the evidence what needs to be done: coal, uranium, oil and gas need to stay underground – here and everywhere.
Here the climate is being negotiated
Global warming requires turbo charged actions. Yet the climate negotiations move at snail’s pace – curbed by large corporations and capitalist profit logic. Germany is hardly more virtuous than the US: as much as the chancellors talks about climate protection on the international stage – at home the coal fired power stations continue to run. While even the soft climate objectives are being sacrificed for the sake of the big corporations the responsibility of the global north for climate change is flatly denied.
But not with us! When the climate summit starts in Bonn, we will take the fight against the fuel madness and for climate justice to where the climate is really being negotiated: into Europe’s largest open cast mine. Where politicians fail to act we take the initiative for phasing out coal. More than a thousand people will go to the mine, sit in front of the diggers and stop the climate killers.
We can also do November!
Do you want to talk about the weather when it comes to climate change? We are not deterred by the autumn weather in the fight against climate destruction. The huge protests against the Castor transports in the Wendland have shown: we can also do November!
In the last two years thousands of people from all over Europe have put up resistance against coal. During the world climate summit in Bonn we will act together with people from all over the world – with farmers from the global south or summit delegates from all countries, with climate warriors from the Pacific or members from environmental groups. Together we say loudly and clearly: this is the end of the road for coal-fired power stations and climate destruction. Instead of haggling over CO2 we fight for climate justice – from 3 to 5 November in the Rhineland!