Friends,
I want to give you an update from Istanbul, where we are a bit low on sleep but quite high on energy.
After months of hard work to prepare, climate organisers from 134 countries on every continent are in Istanbul for Phase 1 of Global Power Shift, spending every waking hour building new relationships, skills, and power. The days are divided between intensive skills trainings, regional collaborations, global visioning, and meals over the reddest tomatoes you’ll ever see.
The skills that we’re sharing will give us the tools we need to prepare for a wave of national and regional Power Shift actions in coming months, and the connections to people across the world will give us the vision to translate that energy into international action.
I’m writing you now to ask you to join what comes next. After we wrap up here in Istanbul, there will be a wave of regional and national Power Shifts across the planet. We’re making those plans now, and we need to know if you will be there with us to continue our amazing growth.
You can join phase 2 of Global Power Shift by signing up here — will you join us? act.350.org/signup/global_power_shift/
Phase 2 of Global Power Shift will put pressure directly on national governments across the world.
Tomorrow, Christiana Figueres the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will be coming to GPS here in Istanbul to discuss the path forward to international climate action, and we want her to leave here with the strongest mandate possible to push leaders to take action.
We want to be able to show her messages from tens of thousands of people who have pledged to create a bold wave of climate activism in countries around the world. If you sign on today, we’ll be able to do that — and will be that much closer to strong international action on climate.
In a fight this big, everyone has a role to play. Can you step into yours by pledging to ramp up the climate movement in your home countries for Phase 2 of Global Power Shift? act.350.org/signup/global_power_shift/
I also want to let you know a bit more about who you’ll be fighting alongside during Phase 2.
You’ll be shoulder-to-shoulder with the warriors of the Pacific, who told everyone here about their Warrior Day of Action, sending the message that as the ocean waters rise about their island homes, they are not drowning — they are fighting. You’ll also be standing with youth here from Eastern Europe who are winning hearts and minds to shut down gigantic coal plants and end a generations-long legacy of industrial pollution. And you’ll be joining the fight alongside our friends here from central Africa who are defending climate-critical forests while also adapting their communities to the early impacts of climate change.
There are many more stories to come that you will only be able discover by joining in. I’m amazed by the hard work and joyful solidarity on display here in Turkey — but the most amazing thing about what’s happening now in Istanbul is that it’s just the beginning.
I hope you’ll join us for what’s next.
-Samantha
P.S. Get a look at the amazing Southern Africa crew on stage at the opening plenary — this is the kind of energy in this movement:
(photo: Shadia Fayne Wood)
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