Global Justice Sheffield

Global Justice Sheffield

News

The Corporate Veto on Climate Action and How to Get Rid of It

by

Wed. 22nd October, 7 pm.                     Free, all welcome!

Central United Reformed Church, Norfolk Street, S1 2JB

Our own government has been refusing to get rid of an extremely one-sided global appeals system, that empowers foreign corporations to block any climate action policies (for example) by claiming billions to “compensate” for future lost profits.

Now, the UK is being sued, for halting a coal mine in Cumbria!

Our speaker Cleodie Rickard is trade campaign manager at Global Justice Now, leading work to get rid of these courts, including winning the UK exit from the Energy Charter Treaty.

A fossil fuel firm is suing Britain for halting a controversial coal  mine, using a secretive corporate court. This Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system is found in trade deals, and is increasingly used by fossil fuel companies to sue governments taking climate action.

 So now Britain itself is being sued, after UK companies too have been rampant users of corporate courts around the world against government protections for the environment and human rights.

Countries have been sued by corporations over 1300 times in response to public policies on everything from minimum wage rises to plain-packaging cigarettes. But fossil fuel companies have been by far the biggest beneficiaries, awarded over $80 billion in claims since 1998.

The Cumbria coal mine was ruled unlawful by the UK’s high court due to its climate impacts and then abandoned. But because the UK hasn’t removed corporate courts from its trade deals, the investors behind the project are using their Singapore-registered holding companies to sue the British government via the UK-Singapore investment deal.

This is a watershed moment: UK ministers can no longer deny that ISDS is a direct threat to climate action both at home and overseas. But we do have the power to disarm fossil fuel firms of their secret weapon – if the UK drops ISDS from its trade deals.

Learn more about the campaign against corporate courts in the UK, and how we act in solidarity with global south movements fighting this system.

You’ll hear examples of cases being fought around the world, the wins we’ve achieved so far, and how we get rid of this corporate veto on climate action for good!

Wed. 22nd October, 7PM.                     Free, all welcome!

Central United Reformed Church, Norfolk Street, S1 2JB

This public meeting follows our AGM:  6.15–6.45 pm.

 

 

“Indigenous Peoples vs False Solutions to the climate and environmental crises”, Thursday, October 17th 2024

by

Global Justice Sheffield are holding a public meeting:

Thursday, October 17th 2024, 7.15-9.00 pm

at Central United Reformed Church, Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 2JB

“Indigenous Peoples vs False Solutions to the climate and environmental crises”

with speaker Callum Russell, an on-location activist for Survival International, the solidarity campaign for indigenous tribal peoples.

Indigenous peoples make up just 6% the world’s population, but they
safeguard huge areas of the world’s biodiversity, and have been shown to
be by far its best guardians. They also play a vital role in controlling
climate change, by defending the world’s carbon-absorbing forests and
grasslands against extractive industries – including for some unthinking
global-North Green New Deals!

In fact some of the most urgent and overlooked issues facing Indigenous
peoples today centre around the industrial world’s false solutions to the
climate and environmental crises. Indigenous peoples are bearing the
brunt of these false solutions, which are devastating their territories and
usurping their custodianship of the planet’s green and blue spaces.

In Indonesia, for example, the Hongana Manyawa people are facing
annihilation from nickel mining in their rainforest, nickel which is destined
for electric car batteries. Meanwhile, from Tanzania to Cambodia,
Indigenous peoples are being abused and restricted from their lands in
the name of “conservation” and “carbon offsetting”, while so called
“sustainable” logging and trophy hunting is being actively encouraged.

It is a cruel irony that, in response to marches on the streets for a Green
New Deal, the market system has produced false solutions which target
Indigenous peoples who are defending the green lungs of our Earth.
Our speaker Callum Russell is the Asia Research and Advocacy Officer in
the Indigenous rights organisation Survival International. Callum helps
to coordinate Survival’s campaigns for the rights of uncontacted peoples
in Asia. He works closely with the Hongana Manyawa people in
Indonesia, who face annihilation from nickel mining in their rainforest,
nickel destined for electric car batteries.

The public meeting will be preceeded by our AGM, 6.30-7.15 pm.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES – 22.09.2024

Corporate Greed versus People’s Need – Festival of Debate, Thursday May 16th 2024

by

Corporate Greed versus People’s Need

Date: Thursday 16 May 2024, 6.30 pm – 9.00 pm

Venue: Central United Reformed Church, 60 Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 2JB (opposite Crucible Theatre)

Registration (free): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/corporate-greed-versus-peoples-need-tickets-837718818537?aff=oddtdtcreator

What can possibly justify the ongoing global processes that stoke parasitic corporate greed by progressively depriving people of their basic needs? The capitalist system driving this process must be not only challenged as outrageously unjust in principle, but also disempowered in practice, by dismantling the indefensible structures it uses to carry out its societal and environmental plunder. We must build our own ‘people’s system’ in its place.

Wealth is extracted from Global South communities by multinational companies whose ‘corporate power’ is facilitated by Global North institutions and governments. We will hear about how monopoly power is created, the tricks used to undermine democracy, and the mechanisms by which wealth is extracted and transferred. Fossil fuel companies not only work to block public-interest climate action, so that they can maximise profit from fossil fuel production around the world. At the same time, they work to grab the reins of the transition, so that the rights, freedoms and dignity of marginalised communities everywhere continue to be sacrificed.

How can we better build campaigns and actions to end – and rebuild from – the devastating climate impacts and other existential corporate threats to people, communities, and the environment, both locally and especially in the Global South?

Our panel of seasoned campaigners, activists and academics bring a wealth of experience, through contacts with communities across the Global South and in the UK. They will provide well-informed, thought-provoking insights, and set the scene for lively but focused questioning and debate, and an opportunity to strengthen our networks.

Tyrone Scott

Tyrone is the Senior Movement Building and Activism Officer for War on Want, an organisation which works in the UK and with partners around the world, to fight poverty and defend human rights, as part of the movement for global justice.

Tyrone has over 10 years’ experience with NGOs, movement building, activism and community organising, and he is a public speaker, writer and panellist.

War on Want works with many partners in the Global South, and from these contacts, as an activist, Tyrone will bring the perspectives of Global South communities to the discussion in a very practical and relevant way.

Daisy Pearson

Daisy is the Campaigns & Activism Officer at Global Justice Now, and a long-standing environmental activist. Originally with Extinction Rebellion, she went on to co-found Jubilee for Climate, campaigning for debt cancellation, reparations, and climate justice for the Global South.

She holds a Masters in Graphic Communication Design, specialising in communicating the complexity and intersectionality of the climate crisis. She has recently contributed to a report – Taken Not Earned: How Monopolists Drive the World’s Power and Wealth Divide, and she will present the Fossil Fuel Treaty, a Global South-led campaign, as one of the ways to fight extreme corporate power.

Dr Andy Higginbottom

Andy is a Retired Associate Professor, interested in critiquing the imperialism of extractive industries in Latin America and South Africa, and reinterpreting Marx’s Capital relevant to contemporary capitalism. He has been very involved with supporting social movements in Colombia fighting multinationals.

He will explore the links between corporations, the London Capital Markets, Militarism, and the impact of all this for us in building international solidarity movements to fight corporate capitalism.

He will expose UK corporations’ interest in global destruction, and update the concept of ‘imperialism’ to understand the transfer of wealth from the Global South.

COP28 climate justice days of action

by

Saturday, December 2nd, Sheffield city centre:

COP28 campaign stalls, 12-3 pm

Various partner campaign groups will have stalls, either at the top of The Moor, or in the Moor Market area, or by the Midland Station. As well as promoting our own campaigns,all of us will be handing out leaflets to encourage a massive turn-out for the march and rally on the global day of action on Saturday, December 9th.

Our stall will beS on The Moor, in the Market area. It would be great if you could drop by for half an hour to help hand out those leaflets, or to raise awareness with passers-by by asking for petition signatures.

Saturday. December 9th

COP28 march and rally, “Now We Rise”, 12-4 pm.

12.00, assemble on Devonshire Green.

12.45, march to City Hall (Speaker details to be confirmed).

Please help to carry our Global Justice Sheffield group banner and our campaign banner!

Global Debt & Climate Justice: Growing the Movement

by

As part of the Festival of Debate 2023, Global Justice Sheffield are organising a panel discussion on “Global Debt and Climate Justice: Growing the Movement” on Wednesday, May 17th, 7.00-9.00 pm, at the Quaker Meeting House, 10 St James Street, Sheffield S1 2EW.

Across the world, together, grassroots activists in the global North and the global South are combining in a rapidly growing network of inter-connected campaigns – for debt justice, climate justice, women’s and workers’ rights and empowerment, and others – a movement of movements.

There is a growing unity to bring an end to the historical and continuing asset-stripping system of neo-colonialism and patriarchy, and its replacement with an organised system that serves the people worldwide.

Each speaker in our impressive panel of four women grassroots activists has many years of campaigning and organising: in South Asia, Tanzania, the Caribbean, the UK trade union movement, and among Black and other under-privileged communities here in Sheffield.

South-Asian Priya Lukka demands a Reparations approach as part of replacing neo-colonialism with a re-envisioned global economic governance that empowers Frontline Communities everywhere.

Trade unionist Clara Paillard asks, “How do we join the dots of working class struggle in the UK with the struggles of communities in the Global South facing the brunt of the impact of Climate Change and environmental degradation?”

Women of Colour Global Women Strike member Sara Callaway links resistance to environmental racism with an immediate demand for a universal Carer’s Income, and with involvement in writing the Green New Deal for Europe .

And locally-resident Tanzanian Dr Hawa Yatera, leading work to empower marginalised people as the organiser of United Women Affiliation, connects Africa with Sheffield.

Come and join in the debate about the best ways we can finally succeed:  everyone’s voice counts.

To register, please click here. (Suggested donation £3)

For the full Festival of Debate 2023 programme, please go to: https://festivalofdebate.com/2023

This Crisis Demands Action

by

Saturday, November 12th, 12.00 pm

THIS CRISIS DEMANDS ACTION

image.png

March and demonstration: Assemble 12.00 pm at Barker’s Pool, Sheffield City Centre

On Saturday 12 November Global Justice Now will be joining environmental campaigners, trade unions, racial justice activists and many more in taking to the streets to demand climate justice. We’ll be marching in solidarity with people all across the world as part of the Global Day of Action called by Egyptian groups at COP27. With pressure mounting due to the global cost of living crisis, a record-breaking year of climate catastrophes, and the prospect of yet another unelected prime minister, this is our opportunity to show our leaders, our communities and our international allies, that we’ve had enough of inequality, injustice and climate collapse. On 12 November we take a stand for a more just and sustainable future.

Global Justice Sheffield will be supporting the Climate Justice Coalition South Yorkshire march and demonstration.