The climate crisis worsens day by day. Despite increasing mobilization around the world, greenhouse gas emissions continue to reach record levels. Climate change, pollution and mass extinctions are intensifying, causing instability, migration and conflict. According to the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, we are on “the highway to climate hell, with our foot on the accelerator”.
Our governance system has reached its limits. Political and economic decision makers are powerless, and sometimes even complicit, in the face of the magnitude of a crisis of which they are fully aware. However, hope persists. Many act to change the status quo through demonstrations, civil disobedience and judicial actions. However, too many fundamental decisions for the future of humanity are made without any citizen control and behind closed doors. This organized opacity contributes to preserving the impunity of those who are responsible. The climate crisis is also a transparency crisis.
Imagine a world in which anyone who has access to information of general interest and vital for the preservation of the environment can disclose it in a serene manner, while receiving support. Image laundering, carbon accounting, tax benefits, impact studies… Imagine a world in which consumers, citizens, politicians, judges, everyone, have access to this information that is often hidden from them and that would force those responsible for the climate crisis to account.
Whistleblowers, also called leakers, whistleblowers, informants or whistleblowers, are essential for climate movement. They provide accurate and substantial evidence, as well as powerful testimony, that can have a direct impact by sparking public debate, providing input for legal proceedings, and inspiring others to take action. Whistleblowers are often the embodiment of a gradual paradigm shift. By publishing accurate information and sometimes providing evidence, they can shake public opinion, as Edward Snowden demonstrated with mass surveillance, or Antoine Deltour with tax optimization.
Too many fundamental decisions for the future of humanity are made without any citizen control and behind closed doors. This organized opacity contributes to preserving the impunity of those who are responsible. The climate crisis is also a transparency crisis
The recent European directive to improve the protection of whistleblowers, or the Waserman law in Franceare proof of recognition by legislators of the role played by whistleblowers in our modern societies in the face of economic and political powers, increasingly inclined to fragment decision-making processes.
At a time when humanity is at a crossroads, these legislative developments should help those on the front lines revealing sensitive and vital information for our planet, which is often hidden for the benefit of few. A banker revealing an opaque fossil fuel financing project, an employee warning about image laundering practices, an engineer revealing the ins and outs of massive deforestation… Many can become guardians of the climate. Many are able to abandon the cognitive dissonance that leads us to close our eyes for the sake of professional stability.
Revealing these abuses is a long, dangerous and risky road. These leakers threaten powerful and opaque interests. Because they are exposing themselves to risks to their own safety and that of their loved ones, these defenders of the general interest need protection against possible reprisals by the accused organization or group, and support to entrust this highly sensitive information to the authorities. , media or civil society groups.
With this objective, the NGO Climate Whistleblowers (CW) has been created this week. And their goal is to act as a shield for the weather sentinels. Lawyers, journalists, activists: as founders of The CW, we put our experience at the service of climate whistleblowers to protect them and allow their disclosures to have a significant impact.
A single whistleblower can be the beginning of a greater impulse, and act as a catalyst for collective and massive actions against the opacity organized to maintain the status quo. The act of denouncing can give a voice to the Earth.
You can follow PLANETA FUTURO on Twitter, Facebook and instagramand subscribe here to our newsletter.
#organization #climate #reporters #born