There is no lasting peace without environmental justice

The produce of the earth is a gift from our gracious Creator to the inhabitants, and to impoverish the earth now to support outward greatness appears to be an injury to the succeeding age.

-John Woolman, 1772

The American Friends Service Committee is committed to climate justice, sustainability, and a right relationship with the natural world. Quakers believe that there is a divine Light within each person, and Quaker testimonies of stewardship, equality, peace, and community inform our approach. We believe climate justice is the pursuit of a healthy environment grounded in equality and human rights.

AFSC's climate justice work is guided by 10 principles:

1. Climate justice means systemic change. Climate change is an existential issue of our own creation, one which endangers all life on our planet. False solutions, technocratic fixes, and colonial approaches are insufficient to address this problem. We need real, immediate, and systemic action.
2. Addressing oppression and inequality is central to climate justice. While a small number of powerful people and nations profit from environmental destruction, the rest of the world suffers the consequences. Across time and place, environmental crises have disproportionately harmed poor and working class people, people of color, indigenous people, women, ethnic and religious minorities, youth, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.
3. Pollution and environmental destruction are inexorably tied to war and militarism. We need to end armed conflicts and redistribute destructive military funding towards life-sustaining human needs. This includes the dismantling of systems of authoritarianism, incarceration, and state brutality, as well as a global commitment to demilitarization.
4. The movement should be led by and prioritize the needs of communities who suffer the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We call for a participatory, egalitarian, feminist, and anti-racist response that guarantees the right to a healthy environment, provides for everyone's needs, ends violent and unjust hierarchies, and guarantees a life of dignity for present and future generations.
5. We must protect land defenders and environmental activists. Powerful economic and political forces use violence and incarceration as tools to crush environmental justice movements. We must protect and support the individuals and communities who are facing repercussions for their courageous actions in defense of the earth and its inhabitants.
6. Climate justice means welcoming migrants. Freedom of movement must be guaranteed for all people, particularly as the effects of climate change force people to flee their homes in search of safety and stability. The human rights and dignity of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced people requires that we recognize both the right to live in one's chosen home and the right to move elsewhere.
7. Green internationalism and climate reparations are the path forward. Wealthy, industrialized nations disproportionately contribute to the climate crisis and have a responsibility to disproportionately contribute to the solution. We are strongly committed to global adaptation and mitigation efforts, reparations for loss and damages, debt relief and international economic reform, support for climate refugees, open source technology transfers, and international cooperation and climate diplomacy.
8. We need sustainable development. All people have the right to clean air, water, and land; food, medicine, and shelter; and clean renewable energy. We must live within our ecological limits by reducing waste and addressing inequalities both within and between nations. Wealthy nations should take the lead in reducing their outsized ecological footprint.
9. Corporations must be held accountable. Multinational corporations and other forms of private power have dramatically accelerated the climate crisis. Extractivist sectors like fossil fuels, mining, timber, industrial fishing, and industrial agriculture cause irreparable damage to our shared planet. We need to reduce the undemocratic power of private industry and promote development models that are not reliant on major corporations.
10. It's time for a just transition. The future of humanity depends on a transition away from fossil fuels, extractivist industries, and other major sources of pollution. We need new investments in climate-friendly renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, clean public transit, and green public goods; good jobs and labor rights for all workers; community input and democratic participation in the creation of public policies; open access to information; respect for indigenous knowledge and ways of life; and a lasting end to poverty and hunger worldwide.