 Hello, this is Darlia Gabriel from Navarra Media and joining me today is the Executive Director of War and Want, Lifelong, Anti-Racist, Social Justice, Climate Justice Activist, Allround Good Egg, Asad Raymond. And today we're going to be talking about the global climate justice movement and the situation of the movement in the UK as well. And we're also going to be talking about the upcoming COP negotiations. Asad, so how are you doing? Very well, thank you. This is the 23rd COP coming up. Obviously, there was a huge amount at stake in 2015 with a lot of mobilisations happening around that. What is at stake now in 2017 with the upcoming COP negotiations in Bonn? Well, first of all, so the Paris climate negotiations are the one that dominated the media. And many people think of course that, oh well, the deal was done, actions have been taken against climate change. And of course, all that was agreed was a very weak and ineffectual agreement. In fact, the agreement commits the world at the moment to at least 3.4 degrees of warming, maybe even 7 degrees of up to 7 degrees. The targets are very, very weak. Although there is a commitment to say we have to keep temperatures well below 1.5 and aim for 2 degrees. It's very, very aspirational. So since then, the actual meat is being negotiated, the rulebook, like what actually is going to happen, what kind of finance is going to be provided? Are we going to help the poorer developing countries, those least responsible, to adapt to the impacts of climate change? What happens to communities that are facing huge loss and damage where you cannot now adapt to the impacts of climate change? There are so many big questions that are being left to answer yet. And at the same time, of course, the climate crisis gets worse and worse and worse, the window of opportunity for us to take decisive action which would save the lives of millions, if not billions of people, becomes smaller and smaller. So each of these cups is as important, but this one is really critical because it will decide what happens next year. And it's always weird because this will decide what happens next year. Next year is an opportunity for really, for it to be able to look back and say that the targets that have been committed are too weak. How do we make them stronger? And if we don't get that right here, then it's likely that we're not going to have the right conversation next year, which means it will be a huge missed opportunity and it'll be another five years before we can begin to discuss increasing those targets again. A lot of the time, countries like the UK and other European countries like to frame themselves as sort of leaders in the progress towards finding a solution to climate change, particularly in comparison to leadership like such as that of the US. What do you think of this kind of framing? Do you think it's something that can be capitalised on by movements to push for more change? Or do you think it's flawed from its very premise? Well, of course the reality is it's very, very flawed because it's simply not true, right? So if we looked at climate change and said in terms of being very fair, who's most responsible? Who bears the greatest responsibility? And are those countries living up to their legal obligation? So this is a legal obligation. It's in the climate treaty that those most responsible have to take the action and they have to help and provide support. And the reality is, of course, rich developed countries aren't doing that. And it's not simply the United States, right? And it's not simply the United States only under Donald Trump. It was the same with the United States under Barack Obama as well. So the United States rich developed countries have been much more interested in ensuring that they defend their economic status, that what they're defending is their economies, and that they're ensuring that they are not handing over and not supporting, not paying their climate debt to poorer countries. So this is a David and Goliath fight. So reality is actually the framing should be that rich countries aren't living up to their promises, are doing less than the fair share. In fact, the European countries, the ones who claim that they're in the leadership, are doing about one-fifth of what they should be doing. And it's the poorer countries who are doing much, much more than what they're actually required to do. The 2017 Labour manifesto did address climate change quite heavily and a lot of it was focused on things like a decentralized publicly owned energy system, on energy investment. Do you think this is enough? And what should we as a movement be pushing Corbyn to do to take further action? So of course it's a huge step forward and it's great. And it was very much one of the demands that's come from the movements both here in the UK and globally. If we want to tackle climate change, we've got to fix three key things. We've got to change the way we produce and consume our energy. We need to reduce the amount of energy we use, but we need to change it. And changing it isn't simply about making shell or big multinationals change from fossil fuels to renewable energy. It's rethinking it and thinking about energy as a social good. So talking about decentralized energy systems, up people's owned energy, owned by us as people, by citizens, by residents, by local authorities. That's really, really important. But it is only one part of that equation. We need to fix, of course, the other great part, which is about our food systems, which are responsible for about a third of all emissions globally. But also we have to think about what is Britain doing in the rest of the world? How is its footprint in the rest of the world? What is its banks and corporations and its financing? So it's all well if we're changing domestically here, but at the same time ensuring that we are financing fossil fuel extraction, destroying environment, destroying people's lives and livelihoods in the poorest parts of the world, and then reaping the benefits of them, because of course the financial city is based here in this country. And of course, the second challenge is, are we doing it fast enough? Is the transformation happening fast enough? And I think that really is a question of rethinking our economy. And it's not simply simply just saying it's about energy. It's actually saying what is our economy for? How can we have a justice transition? How do we make sure that not only workers here in Britain have got good jobs and clean jobs, but also that we're ensuring that the rest of the world has the right to a dignified life at the same time? So we're not throwing the poor of the world under the wheels of the bus just to be able to maintain our own economic advantage. In terms of the more grassroots UK left, what do you think are the main problems in which our movement is facing or framing this issue of climate change? Well, for too long, one of the problems of this was the climate change. It was defined as an environmental issue. And of course, it's not an environmental issue. It's fundamentally an issue of power, of inequality and of justice. And so the symbolism of climate change, the polar bear on the iceberg, it was basically created to depoliticise climate, to make climate seem as if it was simply something that was a technical answer and it was going to be done by advocacy. So the climate movement itself is largely responsible for the fact that we weren't able to build the kind of movement to hold those in power accountable for the actions that they need to be taken. So first and foremost, our fight has to be about how do we build the right kind of power and how do we build a real movement of people in this country? So the framing is very, very important. And if you don't have justice, if you don't have this concept that it's actually a global issue, the solidarity and have the right targets, are we targeting our financial systems, are we targeting our banks? Then what you end up doing is you're only working around local, local site battles. And so whilst they have become very, very important, they're actually in themselves not transformative in the sense we haven't got time to do a thousand site battles. So they're important as a movement building tool, but they're not the end goal. We have to have a much bigger narrative. And the climate movement really should be thinking about how does it build the racial justice movements? How does it bring the economic justice movement sources into a much more intersectional movement where climate and environment and inequalities at the centre and the roots of it, but actually it manifests itself in many, many different ways. And so it should be cutting across all of our movements rather than standing in a silo. Yeah, I think that that point is really important in that very much feels like our movement isn't prepared to take on the kind of scale of the challenge. How do you think in terms of organisational form we can scale up away from that kind of more local based organising to really meet the scale of the problem at hand? Well, I would say, you know, the first step always is to tell the truth, right? And second step is to know whose truth you're telling, right? Are we telling whose truth, right? And that is a really question of power and privilege and who we're accountable to. And if we're accountable to our movements in the global south and to the people on the front line, then we have to tell the truth. And the truth is that the neoliberal economic system is incompatible with tackling the climate crisis. And so the idea that you can maintain the economic system as it is and tackle climate change is of course false. But most narrative around climate change won't talk about that. It won't talk about that actually black, if we talk about Black Lives Matter, then Black Lives really should matter everywhere and at all times. And they don't matter because we're willing to sacrifice people in the global south to maintain our economic advantage, to give ourselves more time. I've heard many, many people in the climate movement here in the UK who say, yeah, it's true of the speed of action that we need, but you know, it'll scare people. So why don't we just make it by they'll have to be end energy, dirty energy by the end of the century? Well, you end it by the end of the century. And you're talking about millions, if not hundreds of millions of people in the global south dying as a consequence of that. So that question about accountability and power I think has got to be at the root of it. Yeah. And I think that what you sort of mentioned earlier about drawing connections with other movements, such as anti-racist movements and you know, movements like Black Lives Matter, there is a lot of focus at the moment on other crises that seem a bit more sort of present, for example, namely the migrant, the so-called migrant or refugee crisis. But there's very little conversation about the connections between the two. Could you give an overview on the connections between climate and the displacement of people and how the migrants rights and climate justice movement can work together in this context? So yeah, I think it's one of the fault lines in politics, not only here in the UK and Europe and around the world is the question of migration. It's propelling the right. So our opponents understand this and are using that to build a narrative of the far right, walls and fences is their answer. And our answer has to be, of course, solidarity and justice. But to understand the migrant crisis, we have to understand that actually the reality is that the number of people who have been displaced and crossing transnational boundaries that are coming, for example, dying in the Mediterranean or crossing and being able to get to Calais are a drop in the ocean to the reality that the majority of people are displaced internally in poor countries or to other poor countries. Now, when we ask what's happening to these people, people are told, well, they're economic migrants. There's no such thing as an economic migrant. This is not people who are moving because of one paycheck to another paycheck. These are survival migrants. These are people who have been forced because they have a right to a dignified life and then being denied that. And so I think what we've got to do as both the climate movement and with the migrant rights movement is be able to come together and put a much stronger narrative. And that really means unpacking and attacking this narrative of what is an economic migrant. Secondly, it means actually looking at what is our responsibility as the UK. So our responsibility as the UK, of course, is to live up to our existing obligation during the refugee convention. But the reality is that the people who are losing their homes, their lives and livelihoods now, whether it's from sea level rise or whether it's from the facts of collapse of their food systems, droughts, famines, they're not covered by any legal protection. So I think we now have to look at and say that the world needs a new legal protection for around the right to a dignified life that is able to talk about migration, yes, here in Europe, but actually is also able to talk about migration and the right to protection in the global side. And that means hamming the economic right. Some people tell me that the answer is open borders, right? And whilst I support open borders in the abstract, the reality is it's about it doesn't matter if I've got a passport or I've got the right to be able to move somewhere, I've got to have the economic well, I've got to have the economic power to be able to move. And that decision to move should be also the decision not to move. So our people in the global side have a right not to move. So the migration debate has to be linked to our climate movement because, you know, the right in the global south at the moment, you know, the international organization of migration talks about one in 30 people will be forced from their homes by 2050. I mean, that's just incredible. I mean, the scale of migration that we're about to see, you look at report after report, people talk about the collapse of food of the food systems in the India subcontinent. Earlier this year, we had 53 and a half degrees centigrade heatwave in Pakistan and in parts of India. We've had supercharged monsoons floods in Bangladesh and in Nepal. We've had hurricanes and hitting the Caribbean and the and and and of course the United States. Each and every one of those, of course, destroys the ability of people to be able to sustain their livelihoods. And what we're seeing now is not actions that not these super storms and these crises are not happening once every 100 years. They're not even happening once every 10 years now. They're happening literally year after year after year, leaving people with no choice but to move. And when they move, they're faced with walls and fences. They're faced with detention and they're faced with drowning in the Mediterranean. So if we want to continue our level of consumption, if we want to protect our banks and our economic system, then we have an obligation to be able to provide real support to people in the global side. That means resources, finances, it means safe haven, it means the ability to be able to cross borders. And it means that we have to say, of course, refugees welcome, but also migrants welcome. So the argument that there's a good migrant and a good refugee and a bad migrant is ridiculous. We have to we have to be able to reframe this and say, absolutely, everybody has a right to a dignified life. Sorry for going on. It's my big bang bang. No, it's amazing. And I think, you know, we've chatted a lot about the problems and the limitations. And so I wanted to leave things on a bit of a more hopeful note. What are some examples of successful or positive acts or moments or practices of solidarity that you've seen in your time as a social justice activist, particularly when it comes to climate justice? Are there any you can think of? Well, of course, there's look, I mean, the reality is that, you know, resistance is happening and resistance is incredible. And again, it's about centering those voices. So we've got to make sure that those people are fighting and winning. We're telling their stories, right? And we're showing that there is not only a vision of a better world, but actually people are trying to create that better world. Now we see that just last week, we had people here in the UK who arrived from Brazil and Colombia, who had taken on BHP Billiton. And there was solidarity by movements in this country with our movements in Brazil and Colombia. That was a real act of genuine solidarity, people targeting, holding business to account for their actions. At this moment, there are a huge amount of movements in Geneva pushing for binding legal treaties on multinationals. There is at this moment, actions taking place all around the world under reclaimed power, which is a global month of action by social movements with no resources at all, where they coordinate action against dirty energy, but also for a vision of a positive future for people's decentralized energy, talking about tackling the elite consumption of energy, talking about, you know, the kind of transformation of the economic system. And there are hundreds, if not thousands of actions taking place. Hawkers in India talking about the impact of climate change on their lives. We've got farmers taking action around the right to food and food sovereignty. We've got local communities in the Philippines and South Africa and many other places taking action against coal fire power stations, gas, fracking. And of course, here in the UK, we have communities up in Lancashire fighting, of course, fracking. And that is a fault line in this country. And it's really important that we do not allow the drill to go down. And there is victories. Scotland is declared that it has a ban on fracking. Ireland declared it has a ban on fracking. The UK, England, of course, that's one of the goals. So, of course, our movement must live up to its responsibility to act. The rest of the world is acting. The UK must as well. So, on that note, Claire Hymer and I will be travelling to Bonn and hearing some of these voices from the amazing movements across the Global South and bringing them to our Navarra audience. Asa, thank you very much for joining me on Navarra Media and I'll see you in Bonn. Thank you very much.