Resisting the war after half a year
Status update on the State of Climate Emergency within Climáximo in April 2024
In the summer of 2023, we were terrified by the brutal disasters and millions of deaths caused by the climate crisis. This is not normal and cannot be trivialized. Governments and companies have known what they were doing for decades and yet 2023 was the hottest and most emitting year on record. In Portugal, the targets proposed by the government are an affront to the continuation of society. But we also know what they’ve been doing for decades, and we know that you can’t ask them to stop attacking us. We have looked at reality and seen that the climate crisis is a premeditated and coordinated act of violence. We have accepted that governments and companies have declared war on society and the planet, condemning millions of people to death every year. By accepting this, any illusion that those who profit from and perpetuate this war will stop it fades, which is terrifying and liberating at the same time: society must stop this war, stop consenting to violence and resist side by side.
Faced with this reality, we commit ourselves to radically transforming Climáximo, taking enormous personal, collective and organizational risks.
We commit ourselves to 1) Accepting that the government and companies are at war with society and the planet; 2) Building resistance and fighting back despite the personal and organizational risks we may face; 3) Creating international coordination that implements climate justice, within the timeframes dictated by science.
In December, we evaluated our work thus far. We realized that 2024 would be a year of national and international political dispute, with elections in Portugal and at the European level with no plan to stop the collapse, with the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the end of fascism in Portugal, and with the intensification of this system’s violence against people. We reiterated our commitment to make it visible to society that we are in a state of war declared unilaterally by governments and companies, and to show that it is our responsibility to stand up side by side against this war. Six months after we accepted that they had declared war on us, and three months since the last update, we want to share what we have done and what we still need to do in the next 3 months.
1. Accept that the government and companies are at war with society and the planet.
Since September, we have held around 40 actions, carried out by dozens of supporters, which have made it possible to put the climate crisis at the center of public debate and present the disarmament and peace plan to society. Together with several other organizations, we reviewed the disarmament and peace plan that we need to implement together to stop this war. Between December and now, in a social context marked by early elections without a single plan compatible with avoiding social and climate collapse, we have managed to bring the climate crisis to the fore and expose that both the new government as well as any party that ran for election, are incapable of stopping this war and are planning to exacerbate the attacks on life.
However, we still haven’t managed to break the false sense of peace in which society still finds itself, to provoke the necessary honesty about the climate crisis being a war declared unilaterally by governments and companies against society and the planet, and consequently to get society to stop consenting to this violence and to resist side by side in order to implement the disarmament and peace plan. To break the false sense of peace and call for all of us to join the resistance, we will:
- Organize the “April assemblies: there were eleven, there should more than a thousand”, from 22 to 24 April, where we will stand side by side with the Climáximo supporters who will be tried for a peaceful political protest and, together, prepare to continue resisting the war.
- Continue with various mobilization activities and actions to put the need to resist this war at the center of social debate. As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, we cannot celebrate the achievements of the past and the courage of those who resisted the dictatorship and the colonial war, while ignoring the war of the present and continuing to delegate our responsibility to act and resist. Just as the dictator wasn’t expected to put an end to the dictatorship, we can’t expect those who declared war on us to stop it. It’s up to society.
2. Building resistance and fighting back despite the personal and organizational risks we may face.
Dozens of people between September and now have stopped consenting to this war and have joined the resistance. Since December, we have improved our capacity for mobilization and integration. However, the number of people who need to be resisting this war against us is still far from what is necessary for us to wage this war. The personal and organizational risks we face become greater and greater, but together we find the courage knowing that the risks of not waging this war will be much more unbearable for us and for all the people we act for. In the coming months, in order to strengthen and broaden the resistance and, together, continue to find the courage and capacity to take new risks, we will:
• Bet on the April assemblies as a great moment of solidarity and building resistance, as well as experimenting with new forms of action that will allow more people to make the leap into resistance.
• Continue to invest in regular, diverse self-financing events organized by different supporters.
• Invest in internal political and strategic capacity-building between now and the summer.
• In the summer, return to an in-depth evaluation of our failures and successes, rethinking our operation and strategy for the next year of resistance ahead.
3. Create the coordination that implements climate justice within the deadlines dictated by science
Amid all the actions and repression we face in Portugal, it’s proving challenging to keep our international work as active as we know it needs to be, because this war is global and needs to be fought globally. For various reasons, the next Earth Social Conference – the international COP boycott conference that we first organized in December in Colombia – will no longer take place in Mexico on the scheduled dates, so we are realizing how to advance the need for the international movement to confront the institutions that have declared war on us, and the spaces where this war is planned.
We continue to work towards strengthening a coordination space that accepts the task of changing the system within the necessary time frames.
We have also made several international presentations about our strategy and functioning, we have started to draft and publish strategic and organizational documents to make our functioning and strategy replicable by other groups, and we continue to show up in different international spaces to challenge the international movement to be bolder and learn from other countries’ forms of struggle.
On a national level, we have managed to continue strengthening ties to some organizations, although not as many as we think are necessary. In the coming months we will:
• Try to promote the continuation of the boycott of the COP by the international movement;
• Continue working on strengthening a space for international coordination to change the system;
• Continue to challenge, both nationally and internationally, other organizations to declare climate emergency and to accept that governments and corporations have declred war on us;
• Continue to launch strategic and organizational documents with a view to making our operation replicable;
• Participate in international conferences and actions where we can continue learning about what is being done in other countries, as well as challenge other groups to be bolder.
Half a year of resisting the war that governments and companies have declared on society has brought both great challenges and unexpected opportunities. The electoral period has confirmed what we already knew, yet still find deeply sad: there isn’t a single institutional plan that doesn’t set out – with greater or lesser violence – to destroy everything we love.
Not consenting to this war and resisting it is in the hands of society; only we can stop the collapse. The month of April reminds us that if those who were alive in Portugal or in the former colonies before 1974 had consented to war and dictatorship or delegated responsibility for achieving freedom and democracy, 50 years after 1974 we would be telling a very different story. Today, millions of lives are at risk and our freedom and democracy are under the greatest attack ever. We will continue to resist and do everything in our power to stop society consenting to this war, so that in 50 years’ time the story told about who was alive in 2024, knowing what they knew about the climate crisis, will be one of resistance and courage instead of complacency with the destruction of everything we love.