A new independent future is possible, with its own clean, diversified and accessible energy for the people, strengthening political, economic and ecological sovereignty throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The pollution, inequality and violence caused by fossil fuels extraction and expansion prevent them from being a tool for development.

As countries plan for a “green transition,” their leaders must not replicate the human rights violations and environmental damage caused by the fossil fuel industry, especially now with the “critical minerals mining boom”. It is time to remedy, repair, and achieve a just transition. Fossil gas, wrongly called “natural”, is not an adequate fuel for the transition.

Environmental, health and other specialists, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, represented by the signatures subscribing to this document, make the following demands to their representatives and other negotiators at the Summit, reinforcing that a central element of all these points is democratization and popular participation:

  • STOP NEW coal, oil and gas exploration, production and infrastructure projects.
  • PHASE OUT COAL, OIL AND GAS PRODUCTION IN A PLANNED AND EQUITABLE WAY: with rich and historically responsible countries first and urgently setting an intermediate and a final date for the closure of all current fossil fuel extraction and achieve a rapid, just and equitable transition.
  • CLOSE GAPS: prevent/stop support for carbon capture and storage (CCS) or other dangerous distractions that delay the phaseout of coal, oil and gas; do not repeat financial mechanisms that rely on plundering the most vulnerable sectors.
  • INCREASE renewable energy by 2030 to redistribute and achieve a dignified life that allows the exercise of human and collective rights for the population, as well as to free patents and transfer technologies, implementing an energy system that meets the needs of the population and allows secure and universal access to energy services.
  • TRANSFER 1 TRILLION US DOLLARS in financing for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries and a rapid, just and equitable transition to 100% renewable energy systems; both through new taxes and through instruments such as debt cancellation.

Media quotes for the opening of COP28 from LAC region

Full Media Brief for LAC:

Policy Pack:  for an in-depth understanding of the various fossil fuel phase out and just transition topics disused at COP

 

The GGON network’s has a range of LAC spokespeople for COP28 includes indigenous leaders, experts and environmental advocates from Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Suriname. Available to address the following: fossil fuel phase-out, false solutions/dangerous distractions, Loss and Damage, a just transition and energy transition linked to critical minerals, NDCs/Ambition, energy security, fossil fuel subsidies, stranded assets, national oil companies, regional perspective ahead of COP30 in Brazil, grassroots movements, territorial resistance and communal alternatives, indigenous rights and criminalization of environmental defenders, among other topics.

For quotes, interviews and other inquiries, please contact: Danae Alexia Tzicas (in Dubai from 11/30 to 12/12).

Senior Communications Coordinator, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) at GGON

+541133802441 // danae@ggon.org