Issued by impacted communities, workers and workers  groups, climate groups, experts, scientists, negotiators, the legal community and youth groups

We the street vendors, fisherfolk, farmers, gig workers, construction workers, warehouse workers, home based workers, coastal and Indigenous communities, women, youth, workers and trade unionists, elected representatives, climate negotiators, legal community,  scientists and climate advocates, from across Asia, Africa, the Pacific, the Middle East, North Africa and beyond come together at a moment of escalating climate disasters like  floods, extreme heat, droughts, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, cyclones and typhoons that are destroying homes, livelihoods, health and futures across our regions.

These disasters are not natural, they are the direct consequence of decades of greenhouse gas emissions from a smaller number of oil and gas companies. Some of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers and their financiers, trade associations and lobbyists  have known for decades that the emissions from the production of oil and gas is causing climate change and would destabilise the climate. Instead of acting upon this information, they chose to conceal that knowledge, mislead the public, block climate policy and continue expanding oil, gas and coal production and exploration. Meanwhile, workers and impacted communities who have contributed the least to the crisis are paying with their lives, homes, health, jobs and cultural heritage. As climate impacts intensify, they are also deepening existing inequalities and threatening the fundamental human rights of people who are least responsible and least equipped to cope with the crisis.

We reject the idea that this damage is simply the cost of doing business or that responsibility can be diffused onto governments and individuals alone. The companies and industries most responsible for causing this crisis must be held accountable legally, financially and politically for the harm they have caused and continue to cause. The ICJ’s 2025 Advisory Opinion reinforces that governments have a duty to protect people and the climate, including by regulating private actors whose activities contribute to climate harm

As we also approach COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye and the decisions that will follow it, we issue this statement to carry our testimonies, demands and solidarity into that process and beyond. We call on governments, international institutions, financial actors and the fossil fuel industry itself to act on the following.

Our Demands

  1. Hold global oil and gas polluters accountable: Fossil fuel companies must be held legally, financially and politically accountable for the climate damage they have caused through litigation, regulatory action and international and national human rights mechanisms, wherever impacted communities and workers choose to pursue it.
  2. Make polluters pay for loss and damage:  Governments must adopt and enforce “polluters pay” laws, climate funds and equivalent mechanisms that require fossil fuel companies to fund loss and damage, adaptation and resilience building in the communities and countries they have harmed, in addition to  public climate finance.
  3. Secure strong, binding commitments at COP31 and beyond:  World leaders must use COP31 and future negotiations to agree binding, enforceable commitments on emissions reduction, further fossil fuel explorations and transition away from fossil fuels and dedicated finance for loss and damage 
  4. End fossil fuel expansion and public support for it: Governments and financial institutions must stop approving new oil, gas and coal projects, end subsidies and public finance for fossil fuel expansion and redirect that support to fund climate adaptation, resilience building and loss and damage.
  5. Protect and resource frontline and impacted communities: Governments must ensure impacted communities have access to early warning systems, adaptation finance, healthcare, social security provisions, loss of wages and livelihood support, designed and delivered with workers participation and grounded in respect for workers rights. 
  6. Defend the right to organise, litigate and speak out: Communities, workers, activists and lawyers pursuing climate and polluter accountability must be protected from harassment, intimidation, surveillance and legal retaliation, including strategic lawsuits designed to silence them .
  7. Guarantee transparency and end disinformation:  Fossil fuel companies must fully disclose emissions, climate risk and internal knowledge of climate harm and must be held accountable for past and ongoing climate disinformation and obstruction of climate policy.
  8. Centre impacted communities and workers in decision-making: Impacted communities, workers and workers  groups must have a direct and meaningful presence in national and global climate decision making, including in COP negotiations and national climate plans.
  9. Climate impacts as a human rights violation: Climate impacts which  includes loss of life, health, livelihood, food, water, housing, income, cultural heritage etc must be recognised as human rights violations under international and national law. Governments and international bodies must ensure that human rights frameworks and remedies are fully available to communities harmed by climate change and by the polluters responsible for it.
  10. National climate accountability and liability legislations: Governments must introduce national climate accountability and liability legislation that establishes clear legal responsibility for climate harm, enables communities and workers to seek redress, and ensures polluters not the public bear the cost of the damage they have caused.
  11. Tax the biggest corporate polluters to fund climate adaptation and resilience: Protecting climate impacted people and communities need far more funding and polluters, not communities and workers, should pay. Global South governments should press the Global North to meet its climate finance obligations by endorsing progressive environmental taxation, in line with CBDR-RC, in UNFCCC negotiations. Back global tax reform under the UN tax convention and introduce a higher, permanent profit tax on large corporate polluters to fund climate resilience and shift investment towards renewable energy.

Our Call

We call on workers and workers groups, trade unions, climate experts, climate groups and scientists, negotiators, the legal community, youth groups and impacted communities across the world to endorse this statement, so that it reflects a truly global demand for climate and polluter accountability going into COP31 and beyond.

This statement will be publicly released and shared with governments, international institutions, fossil fuel companies and national and global media.