rootsmarch 1

San Francisco, 10 September 2018: California Governor Jerry Brown’s so-called Global Climate Action Summit is yet another exercise in greenwashing and false solutions. Friends of the Earth International is proud to join the It Takes Roots coalition, which will host the Solidarity to Solutions (Sol2Sol) alternative summit this week, to spotlight frontline community solutions.    

Brown and Big Oil in California are using Trump’s dangerous climate idiocy to pass off their market mechanisms as ‘climate action’. Brown has a clear track record of aggressively permitting oil and gas drilling off the coast of California. Some of the planet’s dirtiest crude oil is cleaned at refineries in the state, creating a public health disaster, and jeopardizing local communities, coastal waterways and the global climate.

Dipti Bhatnagar of Friends of the Earth International (Climate Justice and Energy Coordinator) said:

“With indigenous people and frontline communities taking the lead, we’re mobilizing to stop dirty energy and say no to dangerous distractions like carbon trading, which will do nothing to stop the climate catastrophe. We’re joining with communities devastated by wildfires barely 55 miles (90 kms) away from San Francisco, and Puerto Rican movements whose entire island was devastated by hurricanes just a year ago. We are standing together with communities fighting Brown’s oil drilling in California, while he pretends to be a climate champion.”

Ernesto Vargas, Climate and Energy Program Director with Friends of the Earth United States, said:

“Governor Brown likes to talk about climate change, but he is actually expanding oil and gas drilling in California. He says California should lead the fight to stop climate change, but his actions put communities at risk and accelerate the global climate crisis. We must follow the lead of frontline communities who are organizing to stop the climate crisis and holding polluters and politicians accountable.”

Contact:
Dipti Bhatnagar, Climate Justice and Energy Coordinator, Friends of the Earth International
Phone: +1 (510) 862-2120
Whatsapp: +258 840356599
E-mail: dipti[at]foei.org

Erin Jensen, Press Officer, Friends of the Earth United States
Phone: (202) 222-0722
Email: ejensen[at]foe.org