Launch of Climate Justice Now! South Africa and solidarity call

CJN!SA is an alliance of organisations, communities and individuals in South Africa who are united in promoting just solutions to the impacts of climate change. Its mandate is set by its partners from social, environmental, labour and community-based movements and it works in close association with partner members in Climate Justice Now! International.

CJN!SA was initiated in early 2009 to address specific issues around the promotion of climate justice in the South African context. It was launched in October 2009 following 7 months of consultations amongst grassroots organisations across South Africa. It believes that any shared vision on addressing the climate crisis must start with challenging the dominant development model, exposing false solutions to climate change such as carbon trading, and encouraging positive solutions. The coalition recognises that the threat of climate change integrates old and new struggles, and thus the call for climate justice is the same as struggles for land, water, ecosystems, agrarian and urban reform, food and energy security, and rights for people and nature.

CJN!SA follows the emergence of Climate Justice Now! at the Climate Conference in Bali in December 2007 which was a response to the destructive and distracting ‘solutions’ that were being negotiated at the international climate change talks. The exclusion of poor and marginalised communities most affected by the impacts of climate change from these talks was motivation for a group who could hold the space for their voice. It has built significant momentum and recognition as a broad-based alliance of organisations and movements across the globe that are committed to building a diverse climate justice movement, locally and globally, for genuine solutions to the climate crisis.

CJN! is an alliance of more than 160 organisations and movements from across the globe committed to the fight for genuine solutions to the climate crisis, to building a diverse movement - locally and globally - for social, ecological and gender justice.

CJN!SA and CJN! are united in calling all people to raise the voices of the global South, defend the rights of people and nature, and strengthen solidarity in the fight for climate justice.

Vision
A world where people live good lives in solidarity, with equality, and in a healing and respectful relationship with each other and the Earth.

Purpose
Enable and facilitate solidarity amongst and with those affected and most vulnerable to climate change.
To challenge and expose unsustainable practices and false solutions to the climate crisis such as trade liberalisation, privatisation, carbon markets, CCS and agrofuels.

Seek out, promote and facilitate genuine solutions to the climate crisis that meets the rights of people to live a good life while ensuring the rights of nature, culture and peoples.

Principles
Communities across the world in rich and poor countries who are most affected by the worst impacts of climate change are also the communities least responsible for the excessive levels of carbon in our atmosphere. They bear the burden of fossil fuel extraction and use and destruction of nature.
Inside the global climate negotiations, rich industrialised countries have put unjustifiable pressure on Southern governments to commit to emissions reductions. At the same time, they have refused to live up to their own legal and moral obligations to radically cut emissions and support developing countries’ efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts. Rich communities, industries and government in the South also show reluctance to commit to a change in lifestyle and to production mechanisms that are sustainable and respectful of the earth.

We will take our struggle forward not just in climate talks, but on the ground and in the streets, to promote real and just solutions that include:
• Leaving fossil fuels in the ground and investing instead in appropriate energy- efficiency and safe, clean, community-led renewable energy;
• Radically reducing wasteful overproduction and associated over consumption and promoting sustainable livelihoods over profit;
• Massive transfer of resources both globally and nationally that acknowledges and settles the ecological, social and climate debt owed by all countries; both industrialised and industrialising
• A just and equitable resource conservation that enforces and promotes peoples’ sovereignty (control over and access to) over energy, ecosystems, land, food, air and water.

Climate Justice Now!