Last weekend, we helped make history … and it’s just the beginning.
Nearly 50 staff, members, and friends of the organization represented Corporate Accountability International in New York City at the People’s Climate March. You may have read by now that an estimated 311,000 people took to the streets last Sunday to demand bold action from the world’s leaders on climate change in advance of a UN climate summit with heads of state. It was the largest convergence around climate change in history!
Corporate Accountability International staff march with Rainforest Action Network” down 6th Avenue
Marching with our friends at Rainforest Action Network, we sent a clear message: to achieve meaningful progress, we need to Kick Big Energy Out of the Climate Talks and Challenge Corporate Power.
Anna Lappé, our ally and advisor, has written a powerful Al Jazeera America blog post on why we were there: to Kick Big Energy out of climate talks. Her blog post illuminates how the global community can and why they should apply precedents from the tobacco treaty to climate talks.
Our team gathers for a group shot before heading out to Central Park West to start marching.
Yes! Magazine also highlighted this powerful strategy in an article it published on the eve of the March. In it, Executive Director Kelle Louaillier makes clear the bottom line:
“As long as industries like big oil and big coal, whose profits depend on the failure of the talks, are calling the shots … these talks are going nowhere.”
Our organizers rally the crowd to Kick Big Energy out of Climate Talks.
Big Energy has no place at the policy-making table on climate change. Only once they’re kicked out of the process can meaningful progress be achieved. How do we know? Because we’ve done it before. The global tobacco treaty we were instrumental in securing in 2003 ensures Big Tobacco doesn’t have a say in global public health policy that affects millions of lives. We need to do the same for our environment and make sure industry cannot interfere in the future of our planet’s health.
Organizers cheer in unison with fellow-marchers after moment of silence during the march
As the hundreds of thousands of people who marched in New York and around the world on Sunday demonstrated, it’s time to take meaningful action now. I’m so excited that we are building critical momentum to put Big Energy in its rightful place — outside the negotiating room. More than 10,000 people have signed a petition we sent out last week in partnership with Rainforest Action Network calling on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UNFCCC Secretariat Christiana Figueres to safeguard the climate talks from the vested interests of Big Energy using the precedents from the global tobacco treaty.
Please take a moment and sign the petition here
And check back for updates on the road ahead!
