In this month's newsletter we are highlighting recent on-the-ground actions to stop fossil fuel expansion and hold financial institutions and governments responsible. We also invite you to join us for the upcoming WECAN three-day Climate Justice Forum taking place during Climate Week and the UN General Assembly in New York City. Thank you for being in community with us as we continue to build our movements for climate justice and the world we know is possible!

Please read on for project and campaign updates, invitations to upcoming events, and ways to connect this September.

As the world prepares for COP27 during the UN General Assembly and Climate Week in September, global leaders will discuss ongoing efforts around loss and damage, climate finance, and worsening climate disasters. Within this context, WECAN will be on the ground alongside global climate justice movements demanding governments and financial institutions take urgent climate action.

Climate chaos and injustices continue to proliferate globally due to the interconnected systems of patriarchy, capitalism, racism, the commodification of nature, colonialism, and imperialism. To confront deepening interlocking crises and accelerate a path forward, women are collectively upholding and working to advance just and resilient community-led solutions.

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During WECAN's three-day Climate Justice Forum, grassroots, Indigenous, Black, Brown, and frontline women and gender diverse leaders, global advocates, and policy-makers will join together in solidarity to speak out against environmental and social injustice, draw attention to root causes of multiple interlocking crises, and present the diverse array of visions, projects, policy frameworks and strategies with which they are working to shape a healthy and equitable world. To kick off the Forum, WECAN will be releasing a Call to Action for governments and financial institutions.

There will be both in-person and virtual events. Registration is required for each event and all events will be live-streamed on our Facebook page. For the in-person events you will be taken to an Eventbrite page to register for both back-to-back events at the same time. To respect elders and immuno-compromised persons, masks are required for in-person events. Thank you for your understanding.

Please join us throughout Climate Week for the following events coordinated or co-hosted by WECAN in collaboration with partners and colleagues. We are also spotlighting special events by partners.

Wednesday, September 21, 4:00 - 5:30pm | Screening of Helena from Sarayaku Film at Tishman Auditorium, NYU Law School, 63 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003.

Thursday, September 22, 9:45am ET | Protect Communities and our Climate: Rally to Demand BlackRock Stop Investing in Climate Chaos. In-person action at BlackRock Headquarters, 55 E 52nd St, New York, NY 10055.

RSVP and learn more here.

We are honored to co-organize and participate in this action with other esteemed partners.

Thursday, September 22, 3:30pm ET | Climate Justice Movements Disrupt Business As Usual at COP27. In-person event at The New School. RSVP and learn more here.

We are honored to co-sponsor and participate in this event with other esteemed organizations.

Friday, September 23, 2:00pm ET | Fridays for Future Global Climate Strike in New York City. Learn more here.

If you would like to march with a Women for Climate Justice Contingent please meet us by 1:30 pm at Think Coffee, located at 350 Broadway, New York, NY 10013, on the corner of Broadway and Leonard. We’ll gather at the coffee shop, and then walk to the march together. Nearby trains include: 1, 2, 3; N, Q, R; 4, 5, 6; E.

Please be welcome to share our Climate Week events with your networks and colleagues with this link!

We are rising to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline and protect our communities and planet!

As part of their negotiations to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, US Senate and House leaders made a side deal with Senator Manchin to introduce a separate piece of legislation that would fast-track permit approvals for dangerous fossil fuel projects, like the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The one-page summary of this deal spells immediate climate and environmental justice disaster as it guts bedrock environmental protections, endangers public health, and fast-tracks fossil fuel projects. We need to stop this dirty side deal. The public has to be able to have a say – especially frontline, low-income and BIPOC communities that have far too often been targeted for these fossil fuel projects.

At the beginning of September the WECAN team joined actions in San Francisco and Washington D.C. to demand that all Members of Congress stop the Inflation Reduction Act's dirty side deal from going any further and to demand no more sacrifice zones!

Please learn more and support our friends at POWHR and People vs Fossil Fuels and thank you for all the organizations for mobilizing! 

On September 1, WECAN Executive Director, Osprey Orielle Lake, and Board Member, Alana Conner, co-organized and participated in an action in San Francisco demanding that Senator Feinstein and Speaker Pelosi listen to frontline leadership and stop the permitting reform side deal that seeks to fast-track fossil fuel infrastructure and weaken current environmental policies. Photos from the action can be found here.

During the Action, Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director, spoke out on the need to stop fossil fuel expansion: "While it is absolutely vital that Congress take action on the climate crisis, we must not gut crucial aspects of NEPA and the Clean Water Act; further fossil fuel expansion; and sacrifice frontline communities — no community is disposable! Members of Congress must stop the Inflation Reduction Act’s dirty side deal from going any further. To avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis, we need transformative policies that end dependence on fossil fuels and the perpetuation of environmental racism, Indigenous rights violations, and sacrificed communities. With the escalation of climate-induced fires, floods and heat waves globally, business as usual must not and cannot continue — we need bold climate action, which includes President Biden declaring a Climate Emergency, stopping all new fossil fuel expansion, and investing in an immediate, just, and equitable energy transition. We will not give up on a thriving and healthy future for all generations, and that means ending the tyranny of the fossil fuel industry, listening to frontline leadership, and claiming a Climate Emergency now."

On September 8th, frontline communities from Appalachia to Alaska traveled to Washington D.C. for a day of lobbying, calling on Congressional members to oppose the IRA side deal and stand with frontline communities most impacted by fossil fuel extraction and other harmful projects.

Following the lobbying, WECAN Program Associate, Ashley Guardado joined over 600 people under the banner, Appalachian Resistances Comes to DC for a rally outside the U.S. Capitol. The rally was led by frontline community organizers, Indigenous water protectors, and climate activists who traveled from all corners of the U.S. Together through art, music, testimonials, and calls to action we left Capitol Hill with the resounding message: no sacrifice zones and stop the dirty deal!

Check out a livestream of the action here!

A full photo album can be found here.

Be welcome to learn more about these efforts and share with your colleagues the following media coverage:

From July 18-31, a delegation of judges of the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature visited the Brazilian Amazon traveling through the Volta Grande do Xingu affected by the Belo Monte Dam and the Belo Sun mine, and the Carajas corridor, affected by the world’s second largest iron mine operated by Vale S.A. This is a landscape dominated by the mining industry chain, with its train and port, accompanied by large cattle farming with visible deforestation, land-grabbing and violence. The delegation listened to the communities that defend nature. The Delegation also journeyed in a caravan to Belem do Para to attend the Tenth Panamazonic Social Forum, X FOSPA, to present the main findings of their visit.

Additionally, we are also celebrating the birth of the Global Parliamentary Front for the Rights of Nature, which has the objective of working for the recognition and effective implementation of the Rights of Nature. The proposal to create this front was first launched in October 2021, in Glasgow, Scotland, during the COP26 Amazon Assembly, and it has become a reality through the formation of a global platform of parliamentarians, deputies, councilors, and heads of executive power with a Declaration signed by more than 20 regional and global authorities. Never before have so many countries and localities recognized the Rights of Mother Earth.

WECAN is honored to sit on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) and to strategize and take action on ongoing efforts to uplift and codify the Rights of Nature around the world. For more details on WECAN Right's of Nature advocacy, please see our website.

On July 6, the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma Business Committee unanimously adopted a new statute recognizing the “immutable Rights of Rivers’’ for two rivers and other water bodies that flow through their territory.

On September 21 and 22, The Ponca Nation will open their arms for the Convening of the 4 Winds bringing together 200-400 local and regional tribal communities, national Indigenous Rights of Nature advocates, and other climate justice leaders with expertise in Land Back, Indigenous Just Transition strategies, direct action trainings, and other areas. Events at the convening will focus on the Rights of Rivers. To join the event, you must first register here.

If you need travel assistance to attend, you can apply for the scholarship fund here. WECAN is honored to help co-sponsor this gathering, coordinated by WECAN Board Member Casey Camp-Horinek and our friends at Movement Rights.

Tell the US Army Corps of Engineers to Stop the Line 5 pipeline, reject the proposed tunnel expansion under the Straits of Mackinac, and enforce the Michigan’s Line 5 pipeline shutdown!

Right now, The Army Corps of Engineers is taking public input for scoping a draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Enbridge’s proposed tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac. Enbridge is seeking to expand fossil fuel infrastructure and Line 5, instead of shutting it down, putting one fifth of the world’s fresh water at risk of a catastrophic oil spill. Join us in taking all action necessary to #StopLine5 and protect communities, water, and our global climate!

Submit a comment here → https://bit.ly/3B9UMKP

The current Line 5 Pipeline, which is long past its lifespan, is pumping tar sands oil under expired permits, transporting 22 million gallons of crude oil each day through northern Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and under the Straits of Mackinac. Currently, Enbridge is proposing to expand the Line 5 pipeline, despite the strong opposition of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and other Tribes. The new Line 5 pipeline expansion and re-route would threaten local aquifers and waterways, Treaty Rights, and our global climate.

A court in Minnesota recently ruled that a Sheriff's Blockade of Line 3 Water Protectors in 2021 was illegal!

This victory on the part of steadfast frontline climate justice activists is part of crucial legal fight-back against oppressive police tactics as they place their bodies on the line to defend the planet. Tara Houska, Founder of the Giniw Collective, stated:

“15 months ago, I was woken up at 6am and walked down my driveway to a grinning sheriff holding a notice to vacate my years-long home. That day turned into 50 squad cars on a dirt road and a riot line blocking my driveway. 12 people, guests from all over who came to protect the rivers and wild rice from Line 3 tar sands, were arrested and thrown into the dirt.”

“Today’s ruling is a testament to the lengths Hubbard County was willing to go to criminalize and harass Native women, land defenders, and anyone associated with us — spending unknown amounts of taxpayer dollars and countless hours trying to convince the court that the driveway to Namewag camp wasn’t a driveway,” Houska continued. “It’s also a testament to steadfast commitment to resisting oppression. This is a piece in the long game and we aren’t afraid. We haven’t forgotten the harms to us and the harms to the earth. Onward.”

Learn more and stay connected to ongoing efforts here.