GUE/NGL, the left group in the European Parliament, is launching our Climate Emergency Manifesto. The latest IPCC Special Report, which warned of the mass human and ecological suffering of global warming at 2° Celsius, coupled with the mass social movement for change of climate politics, leads us to make clear our demands on climate action before the EU elections next month.

The Left is the only group that makes demands commensurate to what the climate strikers are asking for. We stand for a change of the system, not politics as usual. Green capitalism will fail to bring about the rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes we need to effect to stop global warming in the next 11 years. We are MEPs from all corners of Europe, and this is our declaration of climate emergency.

• We demand a legal basis for climate justice. The principles of climate justice must direct all our policy so all our actions work towards climate goals. Just Transition must be central to any effective green transition. Those that least contribute to climate change, as well as those least adapted, are those that suffer its gravest consequences. This is why a rights-based approach of fairness and historic responsibility must inform our policy. Assigning a legal basis to climate justice gives climate litigation grounds for holding their governments to account, ensuring the targets meet the science and not some political halfway point.

 

• We demand an end to fossil fuels. Dirty energy cannot be part of our future, and way to ensure that is to strive for a common phase out date, avoiding the need for market games. Gas cannot be treated as a bridging fuel and we must have a 100% renewable strategy, not just a carbon-neutral strategy. Moreover, the corporate capture of the fossil fuel industry must be immediately addressed to keep them out of all decision-making processes.

 

• We want to counteract the constant growth model. Capitalism has created this crisis by undervaluing nature and our planet. We demand serious action to enforce sustainable practices and policies and make sure that every sector is decarbonising. This means embracing the true meaning of the circular economy principles and rapidly shifting production cycles

 

• We want governments and lawmakers to direct the transition. For too long we have been making policy but not making progress, all because government and the EU shirk the responsibility of the green transition onto market solutions. We demand a command and control response, and an abandonment of market responses. The market has failed to deliver, and we do not have time to trust it. We want public solutions and direct goal-based emissions reductions for sectors.

 

• We demands that climate policy is about investment, not austerity. There is no cost-effective solution to a green transition, we must be bold with our investments. Ordinary people cannot pay the price of decarbonisation, they must be empowered in the process. We demand a Just Transition Fund and massive mobilisations of funds towards the green transition. We did it for the banks, what’s stopping us from doing it for human existence on earth.

 

• We want ambitious global climate action. To this day, Member States are playing a backseat role at the UNFCCC’s yearly conference, leaving it up to the Council and Commission to take care of. We want Member States to be active at the international level, standing up for climate refugees, committing to climate finance, and assuming their historic responsibility to be much more ambitious in their actions.

Read here the manifesto in your language.