CLIMATE JUSTICE
As the Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) 2018 drew to a close today, climate justice groups reiterated their call for a quick end to coal and other fossil fuels and a fast transition to 100% renewable energy.
We are from the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ) and the Asian Peoples’ Movement for Debt and Development (APMDD). We represent grassroots communities, social movements, climate justice campaigners and civil society networks in the Philippines as well as in other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
On your Annual Stockholders Meeting today, we appeal to your sense of responsibility and accountability to the Filipino people whom you service with electricity, and peoples of other countries who are also affected by your company's actions. We bring your attention to the life-threatening risks faced by our nation, our people and our entire planet due to climate change that, among others, is brought about by the reliance on fossil fuels for energy.
JAPANESE financial institutions are finally responding to calls for higher environmental standards and responsiveness to the need for climate action. More than a week ago, Dai-ichi Life Insurance made a historic decision to stop financing coal-fired power plants overseas, making it the first Japanese financial institution to adopt this policy. At around the same time, the Finance Planning Director of Nippon Life Insurance said in an interview that they are considering not to put in new investments for coal-fired power generation projects. More recently, Takeshi Kunebi, President of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, announced that they are considering stricter policies on financing coal-fired power plants.
NEWS of recent hurricanes in the Caribbean and the US were hard to ignore. They were on every TV screen and in all of my news-feeds.
Hurricane Irma this September was one of the most powerful storms in recorded history in the Atlantic. Immediately before that was Hurricane Harvey. The devastating impacts of these hurricanes hit me deeply, as I watched the scenes of entire communities being uprooted, as I heard from my brother and other relatives in Texas and Florida that they have lost their homes.
SONGDO, SOUTH KOREA – Just before the meeting started, our CSO colleagues had an action outside of the G-Tower (BM venue) calling for the rejection of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (MUFJ)’s applications to the GCF. Both have a track record of funding coal projects, hence we want them out of the GCF. The Board is scheduled to decide on this matter tomorrow, so we encourage everyone who are not in Songdo to tweet away and use #GCFund (apparently BMs are twitter savvy and are quite sensitive to what we say about them, especially when it comes to their looks.
