Time to stop living at the expense of others

James O’Nions Activism team

“Go to hell, Shell, and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more” sang protesters as executives tried to start Shell’s AGM in May. It took some time for security to remove them, which involved physically carrying them out of the hall. Then more piped up, then more.

By the time the meeting had been going on an hour, the chair still hadn’t managed to finish his opening remarks. In all, Fossil Free London had managed to get around 80 people into the AGM. Outside, people gave powerful testimony to the human cost of Shell’s operations in a protest organised by Global Justice Now, Greenpeace, Tipping Point and others.

Days later in France, our sister organisation ATTAC France was part of the disruption of Total’s AGM which was tear gassed by French police who seem to have been given carte blanche to attack protesters by the Macron government of late. But it is important that these companies not be allowed to meet in peace. Despite their greenwash, they are pouring money into opening new oil and gas extraction around the world, in full knowledge of the death and destruction climate change is already wreaking.

Climate breakdown is affecting the whole planet and everything on it in tragic ways. But it is also fundamentally part of a global economy which extracts value and resources from the global south and leaves dire environmental, social and human rights consequences in its wake. The main beneficiaries of this exploitative structure are big corporations of course, but almost all of us in the global north live at the expense of others, simply because it is built into our economic system.

Think Global is Global Justice

Now’s activist newsletter, published three times a year, with monthly email supplements (Think Global Extra)

Edited by James O’Nions

Cover photo: Comedian Mark

The fossil fuel sector stands at the centre of this nexus of inequality and injustice, which is why we’ve been focusing on it recently, from demanding climate reparations to campaigning to end the sector’s new favourite tool, corporate courts. We’re also backing the call for the Scottish government to be an early supporter of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty (page 8).

Thomas

performs at

Global

Justice Now’s tent at The Big One in April.

But as part of a global movement, particularly including allies in the global south, we’re campaigning on issues that are important in bringing about a wider shift, away from that extractive global economy, and living at the expense of others. In the face of climate breakdown, the need for this eco-social transformation is becoming more and more obvious.