Photo courtesy of Joe Athialy
Across the world, frontline communities are experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis and fossil fuel extraction, and grassroots leaders are organizing to demand something better. They are the ones leading the fight to secure a just and sustainable future for every community.
But all too often, grassroots leaders aren’t offered a seat at the tables where world leaders gather to address the climate crisis. Decisions are made for their communities without their input, and so their insights and solutions go unheard. This pattern was repeated at the Biden administration’s Global Climate Summit this April, where 40 politicians gathered to discuss plans to avoid catastrophic warming, with extremely limited access to participation from civil society advocates.
To center and elevate the experiences, knowledge, and demands of grassroots leaders, the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth US decided to convene a second global summit. Our Grassroots Global Summit brought together grassroots leaders from 30 organizations in 17 countries to discuss the issues in their communities that need action and accountability, particularly from US agencies and the US government.
The United States has influence over major energy projects all around the world. It can and should use its power to support clean energy, benefitting nearby communities and slowing the pace of climate change—and the world is depending on it to do so. But instead, it continues to provide billions of dollars annually to fossil fuel projects overseas.
In 2020, the US Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) together invested close to $7 billion for fossil fuel projects in Argentina, Mexico, and Mozambique, among other countries. These projects create few US jobs and offer even fewer benefits for the communities that must live near them. As Mozambican grassroots leader Anabela Lemos said, "It is unacceptable that such high investments in the gas industry in Mozambique, which will provide billions of profits for foreign companies like Total, ExxonMobil and Eni, are contributing to the impoverishment and oppression of already vulnerable local communities.”
The below video shows the story of the world’s largest integrated power generation and coal mine projects, the Sasan Ultra Mega Coal Power Project in Singrauli, India.
This project was originally financed in 2010 with more than $900 million in US taxpayer money through the US Export-Import Bank. Since then, the plant has been responsible for numerous counts of corruption, human rights and labor violations as well as at least 37 deaths over the past decade not counting the deaths of six people killed last spring during a massive coal ash flood at the site of the plant and mine that could have been prevented. Along with groups on the ground in India, grassroots leaders in Singrauli, Friends of the Earth US and others, we’ve been working to hold US Ex-Im Bank accountable for its inaction around the impacts of the Sasan Coal Fired Power Plant. Unfortunately this is not the only disastrous story about US finance of fossil fuels overseas, it’s inaction following the calls and action of grassroots communities and we still stand collectively to ensure that the US ends all fossil fuel finance overseas immediately, including coal, oil and gas projects.
During the summit, grassroots leaders met with key climate officials in the Biden administration, including Senior Advisor to the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, and staff from the International Development Finance Corporation, the US Treasury Department and the US Export-Import Bank. They urged the US to stop financing fossil fuel projects overseas, and to lead a global phaseout of coal and an equitable transition to clean energy. That would require the US to phase out its coal power plants by 2030. They also called on the Biden Administration to make the phasing out of fossil fuel finance and scaling up of climate finance a priority at the upcoming summit for the G7 countries (the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy).
If we want environmental justice around the world, we must listen to the advocates and activists from the communities most impacted by the extractive industries and the climate crisis. To hear more from these grassroots leaders and learn how the United States and advocates within it can help support their work to transition to clean energy, please check out these recordings of their webinars: