With over 150 different activist groups on the streets of San Francisco this week, waving banners for an equal number of causes, it can be a challenge to read the concerns of the crowd. But Wednesday morning’s 7 a.m. march from Powell and Market Streets will center on the unifying theme of climate.
“When we see free trade pacts taking place, like the North American Free Trade Agreement we saw in the 1990s, it’s about opening reserves of natural minerals for corporations,” said Nik Evasco with No To APEC, the coalition organizing the march. He said corporations in the global north are the ones doing most of the extraction. “That means often displacing indigenous populations.”
Indigenous rights became intertwined with climate issues because native lands contain mineral or water resources important to industry. Self-protection and resource protection become the same cause. In some countries, there may be no laws to protect indigenous populations. So, local governments, eager for foreign investment, will relocate them away from the path of progress.
Evasco’s coalition has organized thousands of participants from a diversity of groups representing causes from the Philippines to Malaysia, Haiti to the South Bay. Directly or indirectly, they are affected by the climate impacts of globally scaled production.
“You see a big shift into a region for a specific thing,” said Newsha Ajami, a water expert who works in the Earth and Environmental Science Area at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, which is financed by the U.S. Department of Energy.
They are just putting money out to push everything forward. The sense of urgency is quite real, and this administration is doing as much as they can because on the other side of that is no action.
Newsha Ajami, water expert at lawrence berkeley lab
“If it’s cheaper to get timber from one location, and they can provide that resource to the market much lower than everybody else — and we are all looking for access to cheaper products — then obviously, they’re going to corner that market.”
Those inconsistencies can become negative impacts in other regions, she said, and lead to more lenient environmental and labor regulations.
Originally, international trade agreements were meant to reduce tariffs and incentivize wealthy countries to invest in production and labor abroad, said Evasco.
“But over decades, we’ve seen an erosion of unionization among labor in those nations where extraction is happening,” he said. “And it’s become increasingly difficult for people to migrate to find better opportunities. So, corporations have free movement, they have no borders due to these agreements, but people are kept in place and made vulnerable to human rights abuses.”
Real versus ‘fake’ climate solutions
No To APEC proposes solutions like a Climate Peace Treaty that would prohibit corporations from challenging environmental or labor laws in other countries. Another one of their proposals is to make them contribute to a Loss and Damage Fund to help mitigate the impact of industry. But not all damage is coming from outside industry.
“Some of these decisions happen at the local level, a national level,” said Ajami. “And it’s very difficult to get involved in other countries’ policymaking process.”
A policy being decided at APEC is the Indo Pacific Economic Framework, but it was derailed Tuesday by Senate Democrats for lacking enforceable labor standards. Activists in San Francisco were against the agreement because they said Biden was not including a transition away from fossil fuels.
“It is fossil fuel companies that are trying to frame transition,” Evasco said. “And California and the federal government are positioning themselves front and center in transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
Oil companies like Exxon are investing in the costly process of carbon capture, often building the carbon vacuums near the same areas they are drilling for oil, or near processing plants. Ajami compared it to running the water in a bathtub with the drain partially open.
“It will never fully drain,” she said. “All solutions must include minimizing the amount of use.”
The activists say Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is sending money to the fossil fuel industry to create what they call “false” solutions, like carbon capture. “But they have no intention to stop making fossil fuels,” Evasco said.
“That is a valid comment,” said Ajami.
What about the minerals needed for solar panels and batteries? Evasco said those minerals are vital, but they are not being sustainably extracted.
“We are seeing this under President Bongbong Marcos in the Philippines. It is done under heavy handed governments,” he said.
The Lawrence Berkeley Lab just received federal funds through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to research and respond to community concerns over carbon capture technology. No oil or gas companies are involved in the project.
“They are just putting money out to push everything forward,” Ajami said of the president’s bill. “The sense of urgency is quite real, and this administration is doing as much as they can because on the other side of that is no action.”