 Global Just Recovery Gathering. So hello and welcome to the first Global Just Recovery Gathering panel. It's absolutely titled Just Recovery for All to kick off this momentous event. My name is Agnes Hall. I'm the Global Campaigns Director at 350 and it's a real honour to speak with such incredible global thinkers today. Thank you so much for joining me. Before we get down to it, I want to introduce our highly prestigious panel. We have Hakima Abbas in Kenya. She is the co-executive director of AWID, which is the Association for Women's Rights and Development, if you didn't know. She is a global feminist movement that's a global feminist movement support and membership organization. She is also in the leadership of the Global Black Feminist Fund. We also have Amitav Ghosh joining from New York. He is an award-winning writer who holds two lifetime achievement awards and four honorary doctorates, which is pretty impressive to say the least. In 2019, Foreign Policy Magazine named him as one of the most important global thinkers of the preceding decade. We also have Naomi Klein joining from Canada. I feel she needs little introduction, but just to say she is an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author. We also have Dominique Palmer joining us from the UK. Dominique is an organiser within Friday to Future International and is the launch coordinator for climate life. She is featured on the Forbes 100 leading UK environmentalist list for her work. So thank you so much again for being here today. Honestly, when the 350 team asked me to moderate this panel, I was overjoyed. It's a real honour. So let's get down to our conversation about a just recovery. So to preface that, this last year has been a truly difficult year for people around the world. In the face of a deadly virus, we've had to start staying at home. We can no longer able to organise in the way that we used to in movements, and many of us couldn't even see our loved ones. So today we're going to be discussing what a just recovery looks like. Not only taking into account the COVID crisis, but also thinking how can we use this opportunity to think about a recovery that encompasses health, economic and climate crises that are also interlinked as we know. So let's get started. Naomi, I wanted to turn to you and say, I've just read your book How to Change Everything, which is a really thoughtful book about how young people can take action on climate change. How do you think this moment of the global pandemic has changed the work that movements need to do? And how do you think it changes our asks to government? Sure. First, I just want to say what a pleasure it is to be on this amazing panel and I can't wait to hear from these brilliant thinkers and doers. And yeah, it's such a huge question. But I think, I guess, where my mind goes for this question is something that the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson wrote early on in the pandemic, which was that we're so off script right now that one has the sense that we're writing a science fiction novel together. And I think that there's something really hopefully liberating about that in the sense that things have changed so quickly, not in the ways that we would have wanted, but we all now on this planet have this bodily experience of rapid transformation. And so, you know, I think, as we all know, a lot of what we're up against when we when we call for change on the scale that are interlocking and intersecting crises demands. The biggest thing we're up against is not what we were up against five years ago, which was like an argument like no, we can solve this with technical fixes, you know, it's, it's just do mism. It's just we can't, it's too big, you know, like the global economy is moving too fast. It's just not possible. And so what I hope we can do maybe is hold on to this experience of how quickly things did change. Not to say that they all changed in the right ways are the ways that we would have wanted, but we have seen massive changes in our societies and in our individual lives. And to then say, okay, how do we design change now, how do we, because we obviously need, we need economic stimulus. We need large scale action. This is now being recognized by a lot of neoliberal economists. So what should that look like and I think COVID has been an amazing kind of diagnostic tool in just showing us everything that is broken. What is being excluded, whatever injustice, whatever inequality pre-existed COVID was exacerbated by it, whoever was being treated as disposable before COVID was treated as sacrificial during it. And so a just recovery heals this, it starts from those from what COVID revealed and and says, okay, what message has that sent us. And I think your point about having seen such rapid change over the last year is totally right. We've seen large scale change and we and we also know that that things can continue to change and quickly. So thank you so much for that. I'm delighted to have Dominique join us today and I would be really interested Dominique to hear from from you as a young person, what kind of change you think is required, particularly for young people. So I know that you've said before young people will be particularly affected by the internet interconnected health, economic and climate crisis but how do you see that happening in the world and what do you think needs to be done to support young people. So, well, first of all, it is a pleasure to be on this panel for such incredible people. And as a young person, there is so much that we're calling for to support us and our future this crisis and we can already see the interconnected issues of the crisis taking place, especially for certain communities, including young people across the world. And as the crisis worsens this threat for our generation increases. When it comes to interconnected issues such as health, for example, I lived and grew up in one of the most polluted areas in London, and the inequality there is really obvious, especially across the UK as most communities of color, and most likely to live in these areas that are the most polluted and so the very air that we breathe is being threatened and this will be exacerbated for my generation and the next by this crisis, evolution is just one factor that significantly affects health and is so interconnected to this crisis. This crisis threatens our lives, water, livelihoods, which are already this already being disproportionately, they're already communities being disproportionately impacted by this and those marginalized and those in poverty, for example. And we know how the crisis also causes harm in the form of disasters as well. And this causes climate refugees and puts people in vulnerable situations as well. And how viruses increase in frequency as the climate continues all of these different interconnected issues will be exacerbated if we continue to have inaction on the climate crisis, and even the impact on our mental health which really isn't discussed as much. This threat unsurprisingly has significant psychological impacts and one of those being eco anxiety that a lot of young people are facing today. And so from a like socio economic and like justice perspective, workers and marginalized communities could be left behind and left in the most vulnerable positions. So we need to have a just transition that protects people and the planet and as young people we are calling for concrete climate action plans that include an account for climate and environmental justice. And so the future that I see where my generation and the next are protected is one that has environmental true environmental justice at the heart of it. This requires that all people deserve the right to a healthy environment, including the provision of clean air, land, water and food. And so we must have equity in our solutions because without it, we have no solid foundations to build on. And so policy must be based on climate justice that addresses the interconnected aspects of the crisis and seeks to eliminate social and economic equality, alongside it. And with the future we really need to decarbonize in a way that protects us, protects marginalized communities and protects workers and that places the well being of people and our natural worlds at the heart of it to stop endless ecological destruction for profit. Young people need to be included in the decision making in these spaces and able to engage. We need climate reparations for those who are most responsible for climate breakdown and to support those who have been wronged. Legislation where governments and corporations, for example, can be tried for environmental destruction held accountable. Indigenous communities and native peoples must have their rights protected and their practices respected because this is key to protecting our biodiversity. And this is also one thing we're calling for especially in the UK with our Teach the Future campaign. We need education for present and future generations that really teach the reality of the crisis, as well as centering social and environmental issues that are interlinked with this. Yeah, that's fantastic. Dominique, thank you so much and what you're talking about about the need for inclusion, you know, we need the climate crisis needs everyone to help solve it and we need young people we need of course people from marginalized and frontline communities. And we need to have a really inclusive climate movement that puts compelling solutions on the table. Amitav, I wanted to turn to you and say, I think one of the things that we actually struggle with or we can struggle with is when we're painting trying to paint a clear picture of an alternative world. So something different to the one that we live in now. It's hard to really capture public imagination in that truly inclusive and broad brush way as something we can work towards together and I just wanted to ask you as a renowned author and amazing writer. Do you have any thoughts or tips for people watching today on how we could best visualize and communicate what a just recovery could look like and what that world could look like and you know what our pathway to that world could be. Well, let me say first of all, what a pleasure it is to be on this panel with all of you I mean it's just so interesting to listen to just listening to what you what you're saying and I think it's so important everything that Dominique said you know. You know, I think imagining an alternative is very difficult in many ways simply because as Naomi pointed out, there have been, you know, I mean, we seem to be sort of trapped within this kind of acceleration. But two things I would want to say that, you know, one of the lessons of this time is that activism works. You know, if you think about it, Bolsonaro is has done and is doing everything possible to undo really to turn the Amazon into a kind of new Midwest. You know, just filled with monocultures and, you know, cattle farming and so on. And yet he hasn't been able to do that, you know, partly because Brazil has a good regulatory structure left in place since the 80s by various left wing governments. There are a lot of Brazilian activists are similarly in the US, you know, Trump tried to undo a lot of regulation and he wasn't actually able to. You know, 350.org has actually played a large part in this, you know, by by preventing companies and investors from getting into the opportunities that Trump was trying to open up for them. So I think those are important lessons to remember, you know, the really important thing though is actually I mean at this moment. It's so incumbent upon all of us to try and imagine alternatives, you know, just alternative ways of living. You know, I mean, that's really the challenge. And then again, I would say the activism of the last, you know, eight to 10 years of, you know, has been very inspiring to me in many ways. And for this idea entirely give the credit to young people, you know, say just visiting all the occupy sites and I visited many occupy sites around 2012. You know, what they were trying to do was to perform another kind of life, you know, living in shacks, sharing meals, creating sorts of all sorts of protocols for interaction with each other, you know. And similarly, you know, I've only read about the no DAPL movement I know that Naomi has been there spent a lot of time with them. I think one of the really interesting things that they were trying to do was to demonstrate a different way of living. So it wasn't just a protest in the normal sense I mean they were performing something you know they were performing a different way of life. And I think I see this with a lot of protests, you know, I mean with XR with writers rebel and so on. There's a performative aspect to it in which they're trying to, as it were, imagine different ways of living. Yeah, that's really interesting and helpful and I think nourishing food for thought when we're thinking about what a just recovery in a new world could look like that activism is really inspiring and it is really hopeful and you know that is happening all over the world. And actually we need action on all kinds of different issues in order to kind of lead to a just recovery, all strands of justice are needed, all kinds of action are needed. And I heard someone say the other day, I really liked that we need to try and take action to usher in new kinds of justice at the moment and so that does require imagination and thinking in that creative way and envisaging that. And Hakima I wanted to ask you, when we're thinking about all these different kinds of justice that are required, you know, obviously a really important area is women's rights and gender justice. Do you think that women's rights have been pushed to the side or uplifted in conversations about recovery. And is there anything you think we can do to better platform and support women's rights as part of our campaigning for for a just recovery. And actually I gave you for the question. I mean I'd like to start by uplifting the names of Fikile Tsanghazi, Tulin Glovo, Anna Marie Chai, Limita Evangelista, Maritza Kiroz Leiva, and the many other women who've died defending land and territory and the earth. And I really start there because I think it's important for us to remember that this trouble isn't being waged in abstraction. People are really paying with their lives, particularly black indigenous women and queer workers. And so I know that a just recovery requires a deep reckoning. We don't just have to recover as we know from a pandemic we have to recover from essentially the largest ever global wealth heist by the 1% we have to recover from patriarchy that hasn't reached violence on women, trans and non-binary people, but it's also created methods of governance and systems of labor and practices of relationship that are coercive. And so for me a just recovery is following the lead of women farmers in West Africa, who use their solidarity networks for mutual aid during the pandemic, sending each other seeds that they had saved. These women claim that no some message we assume we are the solution, because they're using and constantly innovating agroecological farming methods that can save our planet from the disaster that industrial agriculture is reaping. So, in terms of women in the conversation of the recovery, we've been organizing around the idea of a feminist economic recovery, because as we know, all around the world, those most deeply impacted by crises and impoverished women, trans and non-binary people. So, a feminist economic recovery is about kind of shifting the political subjectivity at the center of the demand for a just recovery. And what that does is change the demand itself. Like, during this pandemic, I think we've all seen the centrality of care for thriving societies and how strongly our societies depend on care work. And during the pandemic, we've seen that the care burden has sharply increased on women. So, if we can imagine an economy that centers around care, rather than around production, it would be a completely different logic to the economy and would be transformative in so many ways, socially, politically, culturally. So, a feminist economic recovery demands things like public universal care systems and demands that we redefine wealth as a community asset that's created through our collective unpaid and paid labor. And certainly, there just needs to be much more attention around the ways in which gendered impacts of multiple crises are happening. One of the examples, again, is around debt cancellation. I live in and from Africa. And of course, the odious debt has systematically depleted state capacity in Africa to fund adequate public services. And that has a disproportionate impact and burden on women and societies. And so we need to put that cancellation tax justice and beyond that reparations which Dominique mentioned to restructure our economies and eventually to reverse the harm of wealth distraction and privatization. Thank you so much for that, Hakima. And I love what you're saying about the centrality of care over production and how that's, you know, been important and needs to be made more of. So, you know, we've been talking a bit about solutions so far and about what's needed and it's been so great to hear your insights on that. But doing a bit of a pivot from real solutions for a just recovery. I wanted to hear what you think about false solutions. And personally for me misinformation is something that really gets to me on a on a deep level and I campaign on combating misinformation in my spare time. But there of course are so many false solutions out there. Naomi, what what threat do you think that greenwashing and false solutions posed to us in this moment. I prefer to think about it as almost like a challenge to us, as opposed to a threat in the sense that they are a threat and they always have been. They are a greater threat when our movements fail to be as ambitious and taking up as much space as we need to take up and putting our solutions on the agenda and connecting with people and building them in miniature as I mean tough said, but also, you know, larger than a protest camp but also, you know, in cities at the sub national level in communities so that people can really live the fact that what a just transition means is that responding to the climate crisis is not going to just be better than a future of a breakdown that you saw in a sci-fi movie, it's better than Tuesday, you know, it's it's it's it's tangibly improving daily life with things like, you know, free public transit and green, beautiful community based public housing or affordable housing on a common model. And so giving people the experiences to say, you don't have to be afraid of this right because we've been up against these talking points from the fossil fuel industry for so long that I've told people if we act on climate you will lose your job, your life will be terrible. We need to give people those experiences and we have this opening this opportunity. If we fail, then the planet hackers and the, you know, all of the techno solutions and the Bill Gates model enters into the people's fear and panic and says we have the magical right, but I actually don't believe that hacking the sun is a more appealing solution than community, you know, energy democracy public housing solutions, you know, a real Indigenous led youth climate core that's going to plant billions of trees and give them back to Indigenous people in this is a beautiful future we're talking about right this is better than the present. And so, yeah, those, those threats are real, but I feel like they get their energy from our failure, you know, from our lack of ambition, because what we're proposing is dismal and terrifying to anybody with, you know, with any kind of forethought, you don't really want to dim the sun. That's a terrible, terrible vision. So yeah, and I mean I think we're picking up on what what Hakima said, I think it's really important that we say yes, we in this moment where people are finally recognizing the centrality of care work we need to also say, hey, that's low carbon work, you know, like a green job isn't just a guy putting up a solar panel. It isn't just the idea that we get to have the exact same high consumer lives only we're getting our energy from, from, from, you know, so called green sources, it means that we are valuing different things and living differently, and living more potentially happier more beautiful lives to pick up on Dominique's point about the mental health crisis, this system is failing people, people are not happy, you know. And I think in this moment, when we have a very vivid memory of what we did and did not miss during this period, we can't let this slip away as normal comes roaring back quote unquote normal right, because people didn't miss shopping they missed each other, they missed gatherings, you know they missed celebrating together. And, and, and, you know, the future we're talking about actually gives people so much that we missed most. So, yeah, I feel like we have, honestly, a short window where we before that runaway train called normal comes slamming back into our lives to just hold on to the teachings the learnings of this really really hard year right. I mean, I love that the train of the train of normal comes barging in, and that is, you know, very likely to happen soon. And, but I hear what you're saying about also about these half baked compromises and solutions that you know just do we really want those. No. I know that you've said before, because I did my research that the West has come to rely on what you call an expert discourse from scientists and that the result is the West puts its hope in business friendly sustainable development which can include a lot of false solutions. So I guess, same question to you what what challenge do you think false solutions particularly pose to us and the climate movement and other movements at this time. I really think it's been a problem for the climate discourse as such that it comes out of such a narrow, narrow sphere, you know, I mean almost everything that's written out about climate comes out of Western academies think tanks. You know, within the discourse really there is so few, you know, Indian Asian African voices, so few voices that are heard. You know, it's, I think it's generally a disaster, you know, for the time of movement as such because why is the voice of the woman who has to walk five miles to fetch water and then 10 miles to fetch water. Why is that voice not heard more clearly. Why is it always reduced to various kinds of numbers and, you know, various equations and this and that. And I think, you know, the very fact that the whole discourse has come to be surrounded with such a sort of air of expertise, you know, has actually a very intimidating effect that keeps people out. It keeps a lot of people who don't have access to that kind of expertise. It keeps them out of the whole discourse. So I do feel that it's a very, very important thing to broaden this discourse to bring in other voices to bring in a grassroots perspective. You know, after all, Asian and African farmers and fishermen have known for a long time, you know, that the climate is changing in disastrous ways. And some of them have been able to adapt but it's not, it's not a surprise to them, you know. So it's very, very important to reintegrate these voices, you know, within the discourse because one of the reasons why this entire discourse is so easy for governments to ignore is simply because, you know, it doesn't mobilize a large number of people. But even there, you know, one of the sort of really false solutions, I would say, you know, I think India is a very good example of this, you know, of just constant greenwashing. You know, just, I mean, what can I say, I mean, the waterfalls of greenwashing rhetoric, you know, comes out of the government and at the same time in the most underhand way, they've really dismantled the regulatory structures. You know, I mean, they've, at least, you know, previous governments had some common sense and didn't allow building within 100 meters of the shoreline, slowly but steadily this government has whittled away at it. And, you know, and, you know, the government keeps getting sort of kudos from foreign agencies from the UN. It's unbelievable to me, honestly. And, you know, look what they're doing, they're locking up young climate activists, like Desha Rally, I'm sure you saw that, you know, so, you know, we really have to keep in mind that, you know, this greenwashing is a real danger. Agi, could I add something to- Please, please. I was just going to invite you and Dominique to please do feel free to build. Just because I really want to build on what you just said, Amitav, around the fact that the solutions have always been also there, and that those of us in the global south really have many of those solutions. I mentioned the women farmers in West Africa. And I think, I don't know, you'll remember Tina, the Margaret Thatcher, there is no alternative to capitalism and all of those things. But I live in a context in Africa where 80% of jobs in urban context are in the informal economy, 90% of women rely on the so-called informal economy that we call the people's economy. And it's not the dominant economy because- And the dominant economy is propped up by a few people who are making obscene amounts of money and wealth, up to holding this very colonial IMF imposed privatize and monetize everything kind of economy. But when you're talking about nearly everyone being traders and somehow engaged in another market, another economy, can you really say that there's no alternative? We live this alternative every day, not least because if we didn't, we wouldn't survive the dominant economy. And the people's economy has its own logic, a logic that kind of brings closer the social, the cultural, political logic of the communities that are involved. And even though that's not always Libertry or necessarily Libertry, there's important seeds of what can blossom in the ways that mutual aid solidarity cooperation show up in that kind of economy. So I feel like we need a people's funeral for Tina. We need to really squash the myth of that inevitability and pervasiveness of neoliberal capitalism. And I think our culture workers as Amitabh said earlier can really help us write our realities into the history books and help us to keep dreaming our freedom practice. There was a writer Tony Cade Bambara, who's an African cultural worker in the US who said, my job is to make revolution irresistible. And I think that's really what places such centrality in cultural workers in many of our contexts. Definitely what's been said. And I wanted to add on there to what Amitabh said as well about the kind of the movement right now and also the expertise element of it that kind of keeps people out of it. And I find that a lot of the time it almost like a gate keeps people from coming into the movement and makes them feel as if they have nothing to offer. When in reality for a just recovery, it is so essential that we have the perspectives from all of these people. And yet that's being stopped because those in power who wants to keep the system want it to stay like that. They don't want these kind of new perspectives to come in. They don't want that radical thought process to happen and they don't want change to happen. So building up this grassroots movement is so crucial is that we have those different perspectives when it comes to solutions and when it comes to address recovery. And I often find that these kind of false solutions is they're always staying within the narrow like Western boxes as has been mentioned and it's so ridiculous to even consider that we can solve this crisis the same way that we got into it. For a just recovery we have to completely reshape this and greenwashing to me it's just it's straight up lying. It's just complete deceiving. And we've, that is one of our biggest challenges that we really have to get over because one of the ways that we're going to even push for address recovery is by having mobilization is by having more people and is by having those perspectives of the grassroots movement and to mobilize people. We have to tap into the potential that's there. We have to tap into the fact that people care but aren't quite there yet. People don't know about the interconnected aspects of the crisis and people are falling into the greenwashing and the lies that's being fed to them. And so it's really crucial in that way that when we focus on like our movements and mobilization that we're really, really pushing for that and pushing into ending this like this gatekeeping and making it inclusive, because if we don't have that inclusivity in it we're just we're not going to solve this crisis and we can't, we have to overcome that barrier of trying to upkeep the current system that's in place. Great, thank you so much. And such a rich conversation on false solutions and I really wish we had more time because this is such a such a great panel don't want to let you go. And, but we do have to wrap up shortly so I just have one more question which is a bit of a lightning round. And so you can just go ahead and jump in. My final question is, in many ways, of course the pandemic has been incredibly hard on people around the world. But what message of hope, would you like to share with everyone watching this from the just recovery gathering, and even beyond maybe. Dominique, would you like to start. So my message that I want people watching this to kind of come away with is that now, even though we've been through such, you know, an incredibly hard time. There is also hope in what has happened in that as mentioned before it's really exposed the like the fabrics of society and the unequal foundations and for a better future. We really do need to unite like now really is the time for a united fight of liberation. And to remember that another world is possible as long as we act and as long as we come together. The power of the people is truly monumental. As we've seen in the past movements aren't just a thing of history they're not just something that's happened in the past movements are ongoing. And as people we all have such incredible power when we unite and really push forward in collective action so really take that and just remember that we do have power as people and now now is the time. One thing I would just say about a hopeful note is that even though we're up against huge forces, and a pretty firm and unyielding deadline to get our act together before things truly spiral out of control. They're pretty far out of control now. It's worth remembering that things are changing very quickly from a movement perspective as well. You know when I wrote this changes everything which came out in 2014 which was really calling for an intersectional, you know, roots up a transformational approach that would really get at capitalism and white supremacy and center in how we we respond to this crisis building on on work that was coming from the global south and the calls from Bolivia and Nigeria and Ecuador for climate debt and reparations and a Marshall plan for planet Earth. It was treated as absolutely off the wall, you know, in in in mainstream circles in the United States. I couldn't have imagined imagine the Fridays for future movement I couldn't have imagined the sunrise movement I couldn't have imagined Alexandria Casio Cortez and the squad. And, and, or even the bot or even the Bernie Sanders campaign, you know. So, we have to remember that we are changing to. And we are in, it's never fast enough that we're getting our acts together but we are. And I think a lot of that is, is because of Dominique's generation just being so clear about not wanting to not not being willing to accept the siloing the compartmentalization. And the policing of the boundaries of acceptable discourse but insisting that we have to actually get to the root of these crises and and and advanced responses on the scale of the crises that we face. I take heart from the fact that Hollywood has a had us wrong, you know, every. The divisions of the future where things go things start falling apart, and people come out of their homes to like, eat each other's brains right that's the plot of every zombie movie. Well, you know in the pandemic people came out of their homes after months of lockdown to join Black Lives Matter demonstrations and stand up for people they don't know. And maybe we aren't quite as bad as we were told we were. And, and maybe there's a little hope in that. Well, if I, if I can add something to that and especially speaking to some of the points that a team has made, you know, I think what the pandemic has provided some very hopeful signs. You know, one of the real problems with the world in the past has been this incredible sort of this way of thinking where it's all always about progress defined in a certain way where some countries are thought of as advanced and some are thought of as backward. But what the COVID pandemic has shown us is that really some of the worst outcomes have come from advanced so called advanced countries. And some of the best outcomes have come from Africa and Asia, you know, Senegal has proved itself to be a world leader, you know, in public health and so has Sierra Leone. And one of the reasons for that is simply because exactly as Akima says there are grassroots levels approaches to these issues. I really suspect that you know this, this is a harbinger of the future. So what kind of change is going to happen really all our expectations of the world. I would say with this push that you've all mentioned to get back to normal. We really have to keep the pressure up. And we can learn from the practices and experiences of women trans and non binary people and young people all over the world in Venezuela or Java, Chiapas, Jackson and Zimbabwe. And remember the words of June Jordan, we're not palace we're indispensable despite all the atrocities of state and corporate policy to the country at the very least if we can't control things we certainly can mess them up. Thank you so much for that. Final comments. And I love that idea we can't control it but we can certainly mess it up. That's fantastic and I hope that everyone continues to keep messing things up in their own way. And thank you so much to all the panelists for such an interesting conversation today like I really enjoyed it it's been such a pleasure and I really hope you've enjoyed yourselves too. And that everyone who's listening has enjoyed it as much as as I have. I want to wish everyone at the gathering a really good time over the next few days and to wish everyone good health for you and your families. It's been such a tough year for so many people. But I hope conversations like this give you all hope as they certainly do for me and inspiration to keep taking action for a just recovery. Much love from 350 and from the just recovery gathering. Thank you so much.