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Climate change
OpinionLetters

Letters | Justice on climate change cannot wait for those fighting for their lives

  • It is time the global North unconditionally paid reparations to the global South, the people and areas most affected by centuries of historic injustices
  • Public financial institutions giving loans to fossil fuel industries are exacerbating climate chaos and allowing more illegitimate debt, which our generation will have to pay for with our lives

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Residents walk past toppled electrical posts from winds brought by Typhoon Goni in Malilipot in the central Philippines on November 3. Photo: AP
Letters
We – the generation of young climate and environmental activists – urge public financial institutions to establish a deadline to stop financing fossil fuels with the people’s money at the Finance in Common Summit.

As youth who bear the costs of climate breakdown, we demand world leaders ensure policies that protect our environment, the air we breathe, the soil that feeds us and the water we drink from pollution and exploitation.

The first step is that countries of the global North must understand they are the most responsible for the climate crisis. Meanwhile, people in the most vulnerable areas of the global South suffer most of its consequences.

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It is high time the global North unconditionally paid reparations to the most affected people and areas for the historic injustices we have suffered. A complete transition to sustainable, egalitarian economic systems is required, with energy grids based on just, renewable sources. Our ecosystems must remain intact. It is not an option.

Public financial institutions giving loans to fossil fuel industries is a double insult. They are exacerbating climate chaos and allowing more illegitimate debt, which our generation will have to pay for with our lives.

01:43

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Typhoon Goni, the strongest typhoon this year, left hundreds of thousands of us in the Philippines homeless, hungry and cold. Flooding in the Indian state of Bihar displaced 7 million people. We are amid a pandemic and 783 million people in Africa and 76 million people in India do not have a safe water supply. Hurricane Eta brought destruction upon Central America.
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