Local:
Stop fossil fuel expansion
Pass short- and longer-term local regulations that curb the ability of fossil fuel corporations to extract, transport, or promote their product in local jurisdictions.
What does this look like?
Cities, towns, and communities take proactive action to Stand Against Fossil Fuel Expansion by becoming SAFE cities that pass local laws to prohibit fossil fuel projects.
Implement local government resolutions that commit to immediately ending fossil fuel and agri-business expansion in your city, town or community.
Pass a moratorium that immediately prohibits the development of any new fossil fuel infrastructure, beginning with wealthy and diversified countries that are best positioned to do so.
Just as a community in Northern Washington state, U.S. did. [86]
Follow through with legislation that makes these restrictions permanent, which also has the additional effect of protecting against environmental hazards like oil spills.
Prohibit the transport or storage of fossil fuels through or in your jurisdiction.
As South Portland, Maine did in 2014, when tar sands were no longer allowed to pass through the city. [87]
Or as Portland, Oregon did in 2016, when it became the first major municipality in the U.S. to prohibit the bulk storage of fossil fuels, essentially ceasing oil trains from passing through the jurisdiction. [88]
Defund police departments, which have long used their power both to violently protect polluting industries’ infrastructure over people’s lives, and to terrorize and communities of color. [89, 90]
Instead, invest funding in measures that make communities safer, healthier, and more sustainable such as education, restorative justice, and community-based renewable energy infrastructure. [91]
Implementing the measures of the liability roadmap
Decision-makers and movements at all levels should keep the following in mind when implementing the measures laid out in this roadmap:
Enacting these policies and measures is simply the first step to holding polluting and destructive industries liable: There will be much work for government officials, decision-makers, activists and civil society alike to do to ensure these measures are fully implemented and move us toward the transformative change the world needs.
Liability should be applied to all industries and corporations that make business decisions that contribute to climate change and its impacts, or that cause harm to people and nature. In addition to the fossil fuel industry, these industries include but are not limited to agribusiness, forestry, mining, and the energy sector.
Many of these measures could equally apply to State-owned corporations. Because the national contexts and unique needs vary from country to country, it is worth considering where to apply and how to adapt the principles and measures listed in the liability roadmap to address State-owned polluting corporations. Factors to consider when doing so could include but are not limited to the degree of democratic control over the entity, role and use of funding from oil/gas revenues, and responsiveness of the entity to transition to regenerative, renewable energy sources.
Measures implemented at the national level should support and reinforce, rather than contradict, measures implemented at the sub-national and local, and vice versa.
1 "How Whatcom County is making history," Stand.earth, accessed August 27, 2020, https://safe.stand.earth/page/15461/petition/1.
2 Susan Sharon, "Maine City Council Votes To Keep Tar Sands Out Of Its Ports," National Public Radio, July 22, 2014, https://www.npr.org/2014/07/22/334074055/maine-city-council-votes-to-keep-tar-sands-out-of-its-port.
3 "How Portland passed a groundbreaking fossil fuel ban in their city," Stand.earth, accessed August 27, 2020, https://www.stand.earth/page/fossil-fuel-free/local-to-global/how-portland-passed-groundbreaking-fossil-fuel-ban-their-city.
4 Hannah Summers, "Amnesty seeks criminal inquiry into Shell over alleged complicity in murder and torture in Nigeria," The Guardian, November 28, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/nov/28/amnesty-seeks-criminal-inquiry-into-shell-over-alleged-complicity-in-murder-and-torture-in-nigeria.
5 Gin Armstrong and Derek Seidman, "Fossil Fuel Industry Pollutes Black & Brown Communities While Propping Up Racist Policing," LittleSis, July 27, 2020, https://news.littlesis.org/2020/07/27/fossil-fuel-industry-pollutes-black-brown-communities-while-propping-up-racist-policing/.
6 "Invest-Divest," The Movement For Black Lives, accessed August 26, 2020, https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/invest-divest/.