Secure rights are the foundation of rapid transition. Without secure rights and a say over how to address climate change, decisions imposed from above may be resented or rejected.
Story of change
Educating girls is more effective in the climate emergency than many green technologiesHydrogen powered superyachts and donations from billionaires often grab headlines in the fight against climate change. Whilst more simple and potentially more effective ways to tackle the climate...
For rapid transitions to work for all, they have to be just, and based on real, accessible and democratic decision-making. All kinds of positive rights have been agreed internationally over decades. Access to food, shelter, dignity, and freedom from persecution for all, sit alongside the rights of the child. But too often economic systems become entrenched that make securing these rights practically impossible, and climate breakdown is a further assault on all of them.
Sometimes the conflicts become stark and unmissable, such as when land, forest or fishing waters are grabbed from communities for remote, private gain, or a privatised water system prevents access to safe water. Finding ways to reclaim basic rights and see them properly realised and respected is a fundamental part of the picture of rapid transition.
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Story of change
Rojava in Syria – growing local democracy and defending ecology in the midst of conflictIn 2012 in Rojava, Northern Syria, a group of Kurds set up a secular, ethnically inclusive and bottom-up democratic system, in which all ethnic and...
Story of change
S**t matters – how the Covid-19 crisis reveals both progress and the challenge of universal sanitationNever has a resource crisis been brought so swiftly to the attention of the global North than when toilet paper was suddenly in short supply and even...
Commentary
Squaring urgency and equity in the just transition debateIs it possible to accelerate transitions in inclusive ways? Can rapidity be squared with attending to questions of equity and social justice? The question...
Story of change
The land is ours – movements reversing legacies of inequality and modern land grabsFood security is one of the first victims of the increasingly extreme weather patterns linked to the climate emergency. People face even greater insecurity...
Story of change
The Medellin miracleIn the early 1990s Medellín, the second largest city in Colombia, was the most violent city in the world. The homicide rate reached an unprecedented and...
Story of change
The rise of the rights of natureA global movement to give nature rights is growing in the face of a mass extinction event driven by climate change and human over-use of the natural...
Story of change
The simple strike goes global, led by young peopleIt might seem strange that bringing things to a standstill might help bring about a rapid transition, but that is exactly what a huge number of young people...
Story of change
Transition Towns – the quiet, networked revolutionThe Transition Network began in 2006 in the small rural UK town of Totnes, Devon. It was initially a response to the twin threats of climate change and peak...
Story of change
Turning the tide of water privatization – the rise of the new municipal movementPeople around the world are reclaiming their access to water as a basic human right, by seizing control of their water supplies from private companies. This...