Please forward this to anyone who you think will be interested in getting involved.
This is an invitation to a meeting to discuss the potential coming together of a Leeds-based group to organise and take action around the theme of 'climate justice'.
What is climate justice?
From the movement to Reclaim Power at Copenhagen in December to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change in Bolivia last month, social movements across the globe are mobilising around the concept of climate justice in order to redefine the terms of the politics of climate change. This is a grassroots response to the fact that governments and corporations have attempted to co-opt the climate issue by adopting a rhetoric of 'sustainability' and 'carbon neutrality' in order to deflect public concern over the imminent climate crisis whilst at the same time promoting business as usual and even extending the reach of capitalism through the creation of new markets in carbon credits. The climate justice movement seeks to challenge this depoliticisation of the climate crisis by treating it as a social justice issue that cannot be addressed without also addressing the exploitative global structures and relations of production that have brought it about. This means that taking action to prevent climate change necessarily entails taking action to address the exploitation of the world's resources and the degradation of our environment by multinational corporations; the unequal relationships between the global North and South, genders and classes; and the increasing subordination of every aspect of life to capital accumulation that benefits a minority of individuals at the expense of the global majority.
