Open Letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

We stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and victims of war around the world, and urge you and your cabinet to resist the oil and gas lobby’s demands for short-sighted policies to scale up oil and gas production and infrastructure to profiteer from this crisis.

We call on you to swiftly adopt the climate policies your government has promised that bring us closer to a 1.5°C compatible pathway, and to implement a windfall tax on soaring oil and gas profits and redirect that revenue to the communities and families who need it.

This crisis has reminded the world how vulnerable our dependence on fossil fuels makes us. Western countries’ addiction to fossil fuels has funded Russia’s invasion and created untold suffering in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the climate crisis has caused floods, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires that are wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of people.

The only way to achieve energy security and climate safety is to break our addiction to oil and gas and accelerate the global transition to stable, renewable energy.

We urge you to:

• Implement a windfall tax on skyrocketing oil and gas profits. Oil and gas companies must not be allowed to profiteer while people suffer the consequences.
• Swiftly implement your COP26 commitment to cap the oil and gas sector’s emissions at current levels. The oil and gas cap currently being developed must require the fossil fuel industry to take on their fair share of the climate effort by reducing emissions by at least 60% below 2005 levels by 2030.
• Support workers and communities through a Just Transition. Workers deserve certainty about their future.

The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine must not be used as a pretext to justify the expansion of destructive extractive industries or to further entrench Western imperialism, militarism, and nationalism. Rather, it must galvanize global cooperation and solidarity in the face of intersecting crises. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine has shown how quickly governments can act - and act together - in an emergency situation.

Sincerely,