"COP25, social movements and climate justice", 2 December 2019

A gathering in Chile [on 26-28 September] brought together frontline defenders to discuss...a just energy transition from the mining extractivist model that is killing Chileans and people all over the global South... We consider... national and transnational companies and governments... [are] responsible for [the] environmental breakdown due to their extractive activities... [P]eoples, communities and organisations that resist these extractive activities – in defence of life, water and territories – are stigmatised, repressed, criminalised and murdered... [E]xtractivist companies... engage in widespread corruption, eliminating trust in public institutions and the functioning of the judicial system... COPs have failed to provide real solutions to address climate injustice and inequality caused by predatory extractivism... We will fight... [t]o strengthen and respect the autonomy of communities and their organisations to define solutions... [and to ensure] mining companies... are fully liable for mine-closure processes, and that integral repair of the territory arises from collective and participatory processes...

[Signatories include Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts (OLCA), the Observatory of Mining Conflicts of Latin America (OCMAL) together with War on Want and Mining Watch Canada, and 21 other organisations)