There are solutions to the climate crisis. What people and the planet need is a just and sustainable transition of our societies to a form that will ensure the rights of life and dignity of all people and deliver a more fertile planet and more fulfilling lives to present and future generations. This transition must be based on principles of solidarity – especially on behalf of the most vulnerable – non-discrimination, gender equality, equity, and sustainability, acknowledging that we are part of nature, which we love and respect. To address the climate crisis, however, awareness creation and determined actions adhering to a rights-based framework are required. All nations have an obligation to cooperate internationally to ensure respect for human rights everywhere in the world, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

We, participating peoples, communities, and all organizations at the Klimaforum09 in Copenhagen, call upon every person, organization, government, and institution, including the United Nations (UN), to contribute to this necessary transition. It will be a challenging task. The crisis of today has economic, social, environmental, geopolitical, and ideological aspects interacting with and reinforcing each other as well as the climate crisis. This very moment of conjunction of crises – climate, energy, financial, food, and water crises, among others –, urges us to unite and transform the dominant social and economic system as well as global governance, which currently block necessary solutions to the climate crisis. For this reason, a movement from below is called upon to act now.

Environmental and climate debts must be paid. No false, dangerous, or short-term solutions should be promoted and adopted, such as nuclear power, agro-fuels, offsetting, carbon capture and storage (CCS), biochar, geo-engineering, and carbon trading. Instead, we should implement a truly sustainable transition built on clean, safe, and renewable resources as well as energy conservation. We welcome alliances across social movements and sectors, representing all ages, genders, ethnicities, faiths, communities, and nationalities. We want to take the future into our own hands by building a strong and popular movement of youth, women, men, workers, peasants, fisher folks, indigenous peoples, people of colour, and urban and rural social groups; a movement that is able to act at all levels of society to deal with environmental degradation and climate change. We call for a new international economic order and support a strong and democratic UN as opposed to G8, G20 or other closed groups of powerful countries.