Real COP-2024
INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
FOR POST CARBON PROSPERITY
November 2-10
Broadcast and Streaming Everywhere
We are the wave.
Why do we need history’s largest mass protests to support the first annual Real COP?
The UN-sponsored COP 29 will be held in oil-producer Azerbaijan, and will be led by an oil company veteran, so we can be certain of yet another COP, with carefully worded resolutions, and with absolutely no enforcement mechanisms. Further, COP 29 will do precious little to actually reduce the extraction and the burning of fossil fuels, and to limit the production of petrochemicals and unnecessary plastics—this at a time when the planet is screaming at us to drastically reduce right now.
Therefore, we will conduct a Real COP, our own COP that represents all humans on the planet, to be held November 2-10, just prior to the UN-sponsored COP 29 (which is November 11-22). Why then? For one, we can demonstrate, for all to see, what a real discussion looks like regarding the future of humanity and our planet. We will be publicly charting a course for post carbon prosperity, anticipating the difficulties, and planning for the changes. Plus, our COP will apply massive pressure to the entire UN COP structure and negotiations. All participants in Real COP-2024 agree that we simply must begin an immediate phase-out of most fossil fuels and petro-chemicals. And further, all involved in Real COP-2024 agree that this reduction means that we will be moving away from our current economic model which features unlimited growth and profit above all.
It is required that Real COP-2024 be propelled and supported by the largest mass movement in human history. Nothing less will suffice for the enormous task before us. The ideas put forward and the resolutions passed at Real COP-2024 will carry the immeasurable weight of the largest gatherings of humanity around any single endeavor ever. Which means that any sham negotiating at the UN COP, fueled by the fossil fuel-petrochemical lobby, will be loudly called out by millions of humans from around the planet. The power coming from Real COP-2024 will force the UN COP 29 negotiators to deliver real fossil reduction results. The forces in the streets will be undeniable, unavoidable, and un-ignorable. Haste requires us to move to a post carbon prosperity lifestyle immediately. (Please see the slides below for brainstormed details.)
In short, Real COP-2024 brings together two tried-and-true strands for a grand purpose. We bring 1) people power in the streets, gathering for a righteous cause, and 2) the energy of which is then funneled into the nine-day Real COP events: the daily music, education, inspiration and future-planning, all happening in public gathering spaces and streaming world-wide. Our purpose in doing those two things is to be the wave that washes the UN COP 29 clean, such that we force our governments to do more than make empty promises about reducing fossil fuels and petro-chemicals.
What exactly does the Real COP-2024 look like?
Each country or region will use luminaries from all the major fields to participate in the Real COP 2024 panels. (See the slides below for examples.) In addition, Real COP-2024 will be punctuated with the most popular celebrities possible, from each country and region, throughout the nine-day event. We will also begin and end each day with a relevant, popular and inspiring music performance.
Logistics. Each country, or group of small countries from a region, would operate their own televised and streamed events, with their own luminaries from all fields, live in their own time zone. Each day would end with an international gathering, broadcast globally, to take stock of progress and chart the next day’s events and direction. The final day would bring the world together to plot a course for how humanity will reduce fossil fuel extraction and burning, and curtail the production of petro toxics beginning immediately.
Painful truths
Please note, all parties to Real COP-2024 agree that the time for gradual action was 30 years ago—or before. We have literally no extra time to begin a full-scale reduction, along with foundational global and local economic restructuring.
Yes, we all recognize the painful truth that post carbon prosperity will look different from petroleum age prosperity. It will require unprecedented change on a global scale. A guiding principle for our movement is that the global economy is a subsystem of the biosphere, not the other way around. The same holds true for nation, state and city economies. Real COP-2024 will begin the work of disassembling our fossil-based economic system and way of life. This is the most enormous and important task facing humanity.
Please view the slides below to see how the Real COP proposal might be fleshed out. And please join with the 30+ organizations listed—and spread the word! Only together, globally, can we truly make this happen.
INVITED ORGANIZATIONS (in alphabetical order)
Alliance Biodiversity International Greenpeace International
The Carbon Underground Indigenous Environmental Network
Chipko Movement (India) Just Stop Oil
Clean Air Task Force Ladauto Si’ Movement
Climate Emergency Fund Natural Resources Defense Council
Climate Xchange Oil Change International
Depave Post Carbon Institute
Earth Island Institute Project Drawdown
Earthjustice Rainforest Action Network
Earthworks Rainforest Alliance
Environmental Defense Fund Rising Tide
Environmental Justice Foundation Sunrise Movement
Ende Gelände SustainUS
Extinction Rebellion Third Act
Fairtrade International Union of Concerned Scientists
Fridays For Future Uplift Climate
Friends of the Earth World Wildlife Fund
