In honor of Mother Earth Day next week, we continue our ceaseless work for people and planet, while amplifying and uplifting the struggles and solutions of powerful women and feminists who are taking climate action every day.

WECAN remains vigilant in the run-up to President Biden's Leaders Summit on Climate on April 22, where the U.S., one of the largest contributors to climate change in the world, and other global leaders will discuss and outline how their countries will contribute to stronger climate ambition. As countries work to finalize their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) and governments and corporations announce "net zero" pledges, we are keenly aware of how offset schemes, market-based mechanisms, and false climate solutions are being used to maintain the power and wealth of those who are the most responsible for furthering the climate crisis. We are demanding real solutions that are community-led and call for systemic change.

We also are mourning the loss of LaDonna Tamakawastewin Brave Bull Allard, and are heartbroken and outraged by the killing of Daunte Wright. We are holding our community tight this week. To fully address this pivotal moment in time, we must be unwavering in our work to uproot and confront structural colonization, racism, patriarchy, and capitalism, which lie at the root of the many interlocking crises we are facing.

WECAN is committed to ensuring the voices, solutions, and leadership of women globally are centered as governments assemble next week and throughout the years ahead as we organize for climate justice. Please continue on in this newsletter to learn more about our newest WECAN report that highlights the intersections of gender, race, the fossil fuel industry, and financial institutions— as well as some of our upcoming events in the next two weeks. Thank you for all you do— together we will continue to rise and collectively build a future founded on care, love, and respect for each other and Mother Earth.

LaDonna Brave Bull Allard

(Standing Rock Sioux Tribe)

Founder/Landowner of the Sacred Stone Camp and Lakota Historian

Sharon Lavigne

Founder and President of RISE St. James, St. James Parish, Louisiana

Rosanna Esparza

Community Organizer and Environmental Researcher, Kern County, California

In the run-up to President Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate and AGM season, the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) is releasing a 100-page report highlighting the intersections of gender, race, the fossil fuel industry and complicit financial institutions.

The report, Gendered and Racial Impacts of the Fossil Fuel Industry in North America and Complicit Financial Institutions: A Call to Action for the Health of our Communities and Nature in the Climate Crisis addresses the disproportionate gender and race-specific health and safety impacts as well as human and Indigenous rights issues of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure in the United States and selected parts of Canada; interlocking issues that have been sorely neglected in the discourse regarding fossil fuel extraction.

Based on the analysis of first-hand women’s accounts, peer-reviewed scientific articles, and other published papers, this report identifies a myriad of links between the fossil fuel activity that particular financial institutions support and threats to the health and safety of African American/Black/African Diaspora, Indigenous, Latina/Chicana, and low-income women. The report covers gender-based and race-specific effects that include environmental racism, breaches to Indigenous rights, air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, heat islands, fertility issues, “man camps”, physical and mental health impacts, as well as the unequal caretaking role that women play across the United States, Canada and globally.

The report provides scientific evidence for the many disproportionate health impacts women experience from fossil fuel pollution. For example, air pollution and water contamination have been linked to breast cancer, ovarian diseases, and risks to women’s pregnancies. Proximity to fracking has been linked to adverse birth outcomes, including premature births and high risk pregnancies.

The report also spotlights Vanguard, BlackRock, Capital Group, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of America, and Liberty Mutual, as complicit financial institutions that are preserving and perpetuating negative gender and racial impacts due to financing, insuring, and investing in fossil fuel companies.

All seven of these financial institutions have voiced support of the Paris Agreement and human rights via statements or by signing various international frameworks, yet, these financial institutions continue to provide financing to companies whose operations are disproportionately harming women and communities of color, while also violating Indigenous rights and furthering the climate crisis. Please read more via our press release here.

Many thanks to Grist for covering our report, please read the full article here.

It is with deep care that WECAN sends our love and condolences to the family and loved ones of LaDonna Tamakawastewin Brave Bull Allard (Standing Rock Sioux), a fierce and loving leader, Lakota historian, and founder of the Sacred Stone Camp, along the Dakota Access Pipeline Route.

We send prayers for LaDonna on her journey to the stars. Thank you for your incredible strength, leadership and vision— and being a powerful Matriarch whose brilliant light will shine ever onward into time. You have inspired generations of people the world over to lead with love and courage, and to fight for the water, land, and all we hold dear.

WECAN has been very honored to work with LaDonna Tamakawastewin Brave Bull Allard in various advocacy efforts ongoing since Standing Rock. In 2016, we interviewed LaDonna while we were at Standing Rock and below we share a few of her words of great wisdom and strength:

We stand with you, Ladonna and fight on! #NoDAPL

Across the globe women and feminists are leading just solutions to the climate crisis that address economic inequality, white supremacy, patriarchy and colonization as we seek community-led solutions and climate justice across all sectors of society.

Please join us on April 19th, for "Women and Feminists Act for Climate Justice", which is being held as part of the Powershift 2021 Convergence, a massive convergence that makes space for youth activists to get trained on critical skills and grow powerful campaigns for climate, environmental, and social justice for the coming decade. Please be welcome to register for the convergence and our session at this link. Additionally, we will livestream this event via Facebook, please see our Facebook for more details coming soon.

As governments and corporations commit to “net zero” climate pledges, we know what is needed is not more greenwashing, offset schemes, or market-based false solutions, but instead deep and rapid investment in care economics, community-led solutions, rights of nature, and women-led and feminist solutions that refuse the commodification of Nature or sacrifice people and sacrifice zones. Grassroots, frontline and Black, Brown, and Indigenous women leaders, alongside representatives from feminist international climate justice organizations, will speak out to share struggles and solutions based in a climate justice framework, including forest and biodiversity protection, Indigenous rights, agro-ecology, food sovereignty, fossil fuel resistance, and feminist climate policy. Women are on the frontlines of climate impacts and solutions - it is time for women to be recognized as the leaders of climate action.

Speakers include:

Casey Camp-Horinek (Ponca Nation), Environmental Ambassador, WECAN Senior Project Lead/Board Member; Sharon Lavigne, environmental activist and Founder and President of RISE St. James; Monique Verdin (Houma Nation), member of Another Gulf is Possible, Director of The Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange, and WECAN Indigenous Food Security & Sovereignty Program Coordinator; Kari Ames (Tlingit), WECAN Indigenous Women's Tongass Representative; Akhila Kolisetty, Policy and Campaigns Manager, MADRE; and comments and analysis by Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, known as the Escazú Agreement, guarantees the full and effective implementation of the rights to environmental information, public participation in the process of decision making, capacity building, empowerment, and cooperation. If implemented properly, The Escazú Agreement promises to radically shift the way environmental issues are addressed in the region, reinforcing the fact that multilateralism, as well as public participation, are essential in facing environmental crises and upholding human and Indigenous rights. To enter into full force the agreement needed 11 ratifications, and on November 5, 2020 Mexico became the 11th country to ratify the Agreement. Countries can now start the process for the accord to enter the implementation phase across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Patricia Gualinga (Kichwa), Indigenous leader from Sarayaku, Spokeswoman for Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva, Ecuador; María Luisa Rafael, Quechua leader, Human Rights and Environmental activist (Bolivia); Carmen Capriles, Founder of Reacción Climática, WECAN Coordinator for Latin America (Bolivia); and Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director.

Today, Amazonian representatives, joined by Barbra Streisand, U.S. members of Congress, and other artists came together to announce the Amazon Climate Platform and call on President Biden to act for the Amazon rainforest in solidarity with Indigenous peoples!

Please be welcome to learn more about this platform and today's event here: AmazonClimatePlatform.org.

The administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris has the opportunity to fulfill its climate action commitments and Amazon Rainforest protection pledge by taking the 16 priority actions laid out in the Amazon Climate Platform, within the first 100 days in office. These actions have been distilled by Amazon leaders and experts including Indigenous peoples and organizations, a broad range of NGOs, scientists, artists, and influencers as effective ways to meet the needs of the urgent situation in the Amazon Rainforest.

WECAN is honored to be one of the endorsers of this action platform, which is based on the principles of human rights, science, transparency, support for democratic participation, and respect for the sovereign rights of Amazon countries over their territories and natural resources, including the sustainable use and development of those resources, as recognized by international law.

Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN Executive Director and Executive Committee member of the Global Alliance on the Rights of Nature, will be presenting on this exciting panel to talk about the coincidences, differences and cooperation opportunities between the Rights of Nature, Ecocide and Restorative Justice.

Please join us for this dynamic event via livestream: @GARNGlobal Facebook and YouTube

In the case of environmental law, the Rights of Nature, Ecocide and Restorative Justice are three similar and closely-related concepts, which underlie two new and different approaches to environmental law and conflict resolution with new and transformative paradigms. These three approaches acknowledge that the kind of environmental law that currently exists is incapable of truly addressing the ecological crises of our day, and both present a fundamental ecocentric re-thinking of environmental law. However, they have different advantages and limitations, and a different history in terms of how they have so far been applied. Ecocide is the recognition that, as a living entity, the killing, maiming, or destruction of Nature and the beings that compose is must be a crime under the relevant penal code; Rights of Nature, is the recognition that, as a living entity, Nature has inalienable rights, interests, and responsibilities, just like a human being does, and these rights must have representation in a court of law. Restorative justice focuses on addressing the harm caused by crime while holding the offender responsible for their actions, by providing an opportunity for the parties directly affected by the crime– victims, offenders and communities. The three are different paths that lead to the same place.

Please join movement organizers for this upcoming event to begin Earth Week as a unified movement determined to fight for Indigenous Rights and climate justice. RSVP here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83147222035

Water is Life and the fight for clean water is the fight for survival as Mother Earth reacts to the violent destruction of forests, displacement of Indigenous Peoples and burning of fossil fuels.

Hear from matriarchs about reclaiming Earth Day for the Mother and uniting the climate movement under Indigenous leadership.

Speakers to date include:

Today, the Feminist Green New Deal Coalition is launching a landmark Issue Brief, “Care & Climate: Understanding the Policy Intersections" that brings new analysis to the discourse around climate investment and infrastructure, arguing that policy design must be attentive to the role that care infrastructure must play in just economic recovery and for gender and racial justice. 

After exploring four crucial intersections between the need for care and climate investment, the Issue Brief examines the current Biden-Harris administration proposals for investment in care and climate resilience and note where there are areas for integration and improvement, closing with a set of initial suggestions for strengthening the proposals made by the Biden-Harris administration. Rather than advocating for these plans separately and in parallel, the Biden-Harris administration can make progress more effectively by directly linking care and climate policy— and committing to high-quality jobs in care and clean energy— in the minds of policymakers and the public.

As a co-founder of the Feminist Coalition for a Green New Deal, and a member of the Steering Committee, WECAN is excited to share this important resource!

On April 1st, Indigenous youth and frontline DAPL and Line 3 Water Protectors took action in Washington D.C. to demand the Biden-Harris Administration #StopLine3 and #ShutdownDAPL.

For too long Indigenous communities have carried the weight of extraction and fossil fuel pollution despite their objections. To strengthen Indigenous sovereignty, the tenants of Free, Prior and Informed Consent and Treaty Rights must be the standard for Tribal Nations impacted by dangerous oil and gas infrastructure. During the action, water protectors delivered petitions to the Army Corps of Engineers calling for the shutdown of DAPL and Line 3, and participants marched to the White House with a 300 ft black snake where they held space and called for President Biden to Build Back Fossil Free.

WECAN was on the ground live-streaming the action, and specifically highlighting the voices of women and femmes on the frontlines. Watch the action livestream here.

This is a vital stand for water, climate, Indigenous rights and our collective future. Find more photos of the action here.

On April 9th, the Biden-Harris Administration refused to shutdown DAPL while the Army Corps of Engineers completes an environmental impact statement. Please continue to support frontline DAPL and Line 3 organizers who are fighting for clean water, Indigenous sovereignty and our climate:

Please stay tuned as we continue to uplift the leadership and solutions of women worldwide fighting for climate justice and the defense of the planet for current and future generations.