Climáximo was present in the People’s Summit againts European Gas Conference from the 22nd to the 24th, in Vienna.
This was a civil society gathering, bringing together activists and frontliners for all over the world for a counter-summit to the European Gas Conference, to discuss alternatives to fossil capitalism. The summit sought to make a clear statement against the legitimacy of such a conference which intended to bring together corporations, executives, investors, and politicians in Vienna, to negotiate and decide the future of European energy supply. Basically, this is an annual conference of decision-makers doing deals and premeditating and coordinating the destruction of our living conditions, by perpetuating the use of fossil gas.
And guess what? Due to the organization of the People’s Summit and the fear of people’s power to block the conference from happening, the organizers of the Gas Conference decided to postpone the conference. They are and they should be scared of People’s Power.
In Vienna, we hosted a session on Earth Social Conference, with the tittle “Earth Social Conference – COP is broken. It’s time to get real.” We explained what got us together n the first place in Cassanare last December: the analysis that COP is broken and that these summits continue to push the bounds of absurdity and leading us to collapse; and that the movement needs to apply the emergency brake to avoid earth system collapse and refuse to participate in processes of trading empty promises. And we hosted an honest discussion about what next steps to take as to move forward, at a larger and more ambitious scale, this political process – about “what are we, as climate realists, going to do about it?”
Furthermore, we were present on the closing session of the conference where we expressed the need for the international climate justice movement to allocate time and resources to international coordination and organizing processes, such as the Earth Social Conference processes, as to achieve the task of implementing climate justice.
As for the fossil gas industry: let’s not give them a break. Fossil gas is a weapon of mass destructuion and we must stop it! Cheers to all those organizing to block the European Gas Conference and to build People’s Power.