Climate Justice Action was born out of the desire and necessity to link up European grassroots movements. The COP21 became a good excuse for this to happen and in October 2014, the Germans called for a gathering in Cologne.
With about 80 people in a room over the weekend, a large variety of groups and struggles were represented, debating how to move forward together.
It was clear from the start that we were to learn from our mistakes and not reproduce the “Copenhagen hangover”, when back in 2009, people had mobilized together around the COP15, but failed to see beyond it. With the disastrous results that came out of the negotiations, people’s energy plummeted and the climate movement was destroyed in many countries.
Out of Cologne, the concept of “Paris & Beyond” was installed.
In January 2015, a new call out was made to gather in Brussels, opened to all who believed in fighting for climate justice from the bottom up.
At this point, it was agreed that we were creating a network of grassroots movements and a list of Common Objectives was formed. Mobilisation ideas around the COP21 were thrashed around and worked on collectively.
From then on, gatherings happened every two months or so. A Safer Space policy was agreed on. And the focus was kept on using the climate talks to build a stronger, bigger more mobilised climate justice movement, rather than to attempt to influence the negotiators.
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