Voices from Paris: To Achieve Climate Justice, We must Dismantle Corporate Power

One of the common themes coming from the streets of the Climate Justice Summit in Paris (and not heard in the offical government negotiations) is a clear linking of capitalism’s insatiable appetite and climate disruption. Two Grassroots International partners offered these reflections.

“To address climate change we have to dismantle corporate power.  That will be a way to put an end to human rights violations such as what took place in Mariana.” – Tchenna Maso, Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB). MAB advocates for the human right to water and land, particularly for displaced people. Following the recent flood in Minas Gerais, rushed to help communities affected while organizing to hold multinational corporations and the government accountable for negligence and environmental impacts.

“We have to conquer this neoliberal project of death and militarization, so that people and nature can live.  We demonstrate possibility through building people’s projects that rupture the logic of the global capitalist system.” -Camille Chalmers, Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA). PAPDA is a coalition of nine Haitian organizations working together to develop unique and effective solutions to hunger, while at the same time pressing for structural changes in the nation’s food and agricultural policies. PAPDA has acquired an international reputation as the only Haitian NGO that has both a well-researched and documented critique of structural adjustment policies and a concrete set of alternatives to these policies.