Cooperation Jackson led sessions at the Climate Justice Forum and the Climate Action Zone

COP21 Media Coverage

Here you will find media coverage from our "Freedom Road from Jackson to Paris" contingent, as well as media from the broader "It Takes Roots to Weather the Storm" delegation.

Articles

Les Gens Doivent Savior Qu'ily A Une Alternative Aux Fausses Promesses

From Vancouver to Paris: Workers Uniting Against Climate Change

Bringing solutions to COP21 — a conversation with Cooperation Jackson’s Brandon King

Grassroots Environmental and Climate Justice at COP21

COP 21: des Americains a Sarcelles pour parler de justice climatique (Part 1)

COP21: Les Americains envient les quartiers de Sarcelles (Part 2)

Preparing for Failure in Paris

COP 21: What Paris can learn from a Mississippi Co-op

Vulnerable Communities Reject Proposed COP21 Accord - Analysis

From Jackson to Paris to Fight Climate Change

Paris Climate Accord: Crime Against Communities

Audio

An Interview with MXGM member Kali Akuno about the Great Barrier Reef Conference

Paris Attacks and The History of the Nation with Dani McClain

Left Business Observer: Sustainability and Worker Power in Mississippi

Black Power through Sustainable Development

WBAI Interview

Video

A look back on the first months of the state of emergency in Paris: activists in custody, protests shut down, warrantless house arrests, and the COP21 strangled by anti-terrorist measures. Retour sur les premiers mois d'état d'urgence à Paris: des militants en garde à vue, des manifs interdites, des perquisitions anticonstitutionnelles et la COP21 étouffée par des mesures anti-terroristes.

COP21 and False Solutions

Coming Soon!

Freedom Road Background

This year, The United Nations will host the 21st climate change conference in Paris, France from November 30-December 11, 2015. The COP21 negotiations are some of the most important negotiations in history, as global leaders aim to set a universal agreement for addressing climate change for decades. This agreement is set to do the minimum to stop climate change in order to preserve the capitalist system, leaving humanity and the worlds eco-systems in peril.

To challenge the climate negotiations and the false solutions the negotiations are upholding, social movements and activist from around the world will join together for a Global Climate Justice Convergence. Cooperation Jackson will participate in this convergence in conjunction with the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) and the Climate Justice Alliance/Our Power Campaign. Eight of our members and allies are apart of the It Takes Roots to Weather the Storm Delegation. We've named our contingent, the Freedom Road from Jackson to Paris.

We dubbed our contingent "Freedom Road from Jackson to Paris" to highlight the fact that we are being intentional about constructing a road that will enable us to make our home - Jackson, MS - a leader in the fight for climate justice by turning it into a living example of how a sustainable city with zero-emissions and zero-waste can and will look.

Cooperation Jackson's delegation will participate in this convergence in order to share our Just Transition work for Climate Justice and Economic Democracy and learn from others around the world. One of our goals is to build solid international networks and alliances that can develop, support and promote practical, here and now solutions to the climate crisis.

Our delegation will help fulfill a core part of our mission, which is to facilitate the development of a new system of production, not dependent upon the extractive economy, but centered on the practice of economic democracy and committed to finding a regenerative balance between human economic activity and the worlds eco-systems and climate. We will learn a great deal about how communities from around the world are developing sustainable models with the potential to forge networks and alliances. 

Steps on the Road from Jackson to Paris

2014                                  Cooperation Jackson Becomes a "pilot site" of the Climate Justice                                                 Alliances "Our Power Campaign"

September 2014             Cooperation Jackson’s 18 members and allies traveled to join with the                                            Climate Justice Alliance and the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance                                                where they marched with over 300,000 people in the streets of New                                              York City for climate justice in the People’s Climate March.

December 2014              Cooperation Jackson sends two members to join the Grassroots Global                                          Justice Alliance’s delegation trip to Lima, Peru for COP20 and the                                                  People’s Summit on Climate Change.

June 2015                      Cooperation Jackson hosted a "Southern People's Just Transition                                                  Assembly" to continue the process of envisioning what climate justice                                            needs to look and feel like in the US South.

October 2014                 Cooperation Jackson launches the "Jackson Just Transition Plan" to                                               open up a broader municipal discussion about how to enact our vision.

November 2015              Cooperation Jackson sends contingent of 8 members and allies to                                                  Paris for the COP21, Climate Justice convergences and actions with the                                          It Takes Roots to Weather the Storm delegation. Cooperation                                                          Jackson’s goals are to learn more about the alternatives being                                                        implemented by communities of struggle around the world and to fight                                          for a just transition and firm, legally-binding commitments from the                                                  governments and transnational institutions of the world for science-                                                based emission reductions. 

January 2016                 Cooperation will host a series of events to report back on the Freedom                                           Road from Jackson to Paris. We will bring our experiences back to                                                 Jackson to share them with our community so everyone can gain from                                           the knowledge we acquired.

Beyond!                        Cooperation Jackson will organize and develop an action plan for 2016,                                         that will advance the struggle for economic democracy, a just transition,                                         and climate justice locally and globally.  

RETURN TO THE 'JACKSON TO PARIS' HOMEPAGE

 

Jackson to Paris Blog

Meet the Delegation

We call our delegation the “Freedom Road from Jackson to Paris” which consists of 8 members and supporters.

What is Just Transition Framework

Just Transition is a framework for a fair and sustainable shift from an extractive economy towards an Economy for life.

• We must immediately begin to transition out of an extractive economy, but to do this we must create new jobs and a safety net for workers who will transition out of those specific industries as well as the broader communities impacted by extreme energy.  
• We envision creating new systems will serve as the seeds for a new economy based on local self-determination, resilience, and harmony with the Earth.

For the past 200+ years, the globalized industrial withdrawal of natural resources, the over-production, over-consumption, and products as well as human beings being seen as disposable has devastated the environment and has taken a toll on the Earth’s life support system. As a result, we’re facing a crisis in having clean water, a crisis of having biological and cultural diversity we need to continue to sustain life i.e. the bees are dying, a crisis in climate, energy, food, agriculture, and a waste and toxics crisis.

We must immediately begin to transition out of a destructive, extractive economy that isn’t benefiting us, but to do this we must create new jobs and a safety net for workers who will transition out of extractive based industries like oil, natural gas, nuclear, coal, to industries and a way of being that’s based on local self-determination, resilience, and harmony with nature.

Some concrete examples of how this could look include having local, clean, community controlled energy, food sovereignty--or the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and our right to define our own food and agriculture systems, worker ownership and democracy, community controlled housing,  zero waste, equitable access to public and mass transportation, and ecological restoration to name a few.