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Writer's pictureManushya Foundation
Dec 1, 2022

All you need to know about the main demands of our People’s Declaration!












While Thailand is among the top 10 countries most impacted by the climate crisis, what are the government and companies doing to save our Planet? Making profits and polluting! People have had enough of greenwashing, false climate solutions, fossil fuels, and the worsening climate crisis. To speak with one unified voice and amplify our concerns, we have launched the People’s Declaration for a Just, Feminist, Green, and Inclusive Transition on Energy, Environment, Natural Resources, and Forests! As the newly created #WeAreJustTransition Movement, these are our demands!



"We are the people of Thailand, local communities, indigenous peoples, including indigenous women, forest-dependent communities, farmers, human rights defenders, environmental and climate activists, youth, representatives of Thailand’s Muslim population, LGBTIQ+ persons, migrant workers, and sex workers united as the Just Transition Movement."

Our new coalition, the #WeAreJustTransition Movement was established during the Just Transition Coalition-building Workshop held in Bangkok on 16-17 November 2022, organized by Manushya Foundation, Thai Climate Justice For All, and Green South Foundation. This intersectional coalition consists of people who have felt firsthand the negative impacts of climate change, became victims of government-led criminalization of forest-dependent communities, had to fight against ruthless development projects or faced harassment, intimidation and violence for their legitimate human rights work. The Movement presented the People's Declaration during a press conference 'There Will Be No Just Transition Without Us' on 18 November 2022 in Bangkok.


Watch the press conference "There Will Be No Just Transition Without Us!"


Why do we need the People's Declaration?


"As the climate crisis worsens, we see no constructive contributions to climate change policies on the global level, nor from our Thai government. According to the latest report of The United Nations Environment Programme in 2022, State parties to the Paris Agreement’s targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are far from achieving the goal to stay below 1.5 °C of global warming."

The States, companies, and international fora are not doing enough to stop climate change but people on the ground have already started feeling its negative impacts. Instead of centering their lives and livelihoods in climate action, governments still put profit first, allowing companies to continue polluting the environment unrestricted.


"We recognize the main obstacle to reducing greenhouse gas emissions being the national and global development models still bowing to the interests of the Big Polluters such as energy, including fossil fuel, heavy Industry and agriculture corporations. Through corporate capture, business enterprises continue to unduly influence decision-making processes on the national and global levels, in order to obtain further benefits and maximize their financial gain. Profit is still put over People and the Planet."

Greenwashing is not climate action!

The Thai government is, as always, trying to save face on the international stage and show how much it does to stop climate change. But its new emission targets are not enough to prevent the coming climate crisis and the government policies - the false climate solutions - hurt whole communities on the ground. Just remember #SaveSabWaiVillagers or #SaveBangkloi who have suffered because of Thailand's unfair forest conservation laws. Greenwashing is spread by companies just as much as by governments, both working in tandem on schemes such as the Bio-Circular-Green Economy model in Thailand.


"The terms “Carbon Neutrality” and “Nature-based Solutions'' are invented to simply greenwash, hiding the fact that companies should rapidly reduce carbon emissions activities and work towards the carbon emissions reduction targets. These companies turn to afforestation and new technologies for climate change mitigation, even though there is no certainty that such methods guarantee decarbonization."

The People's Declaration and the establishment of the #WeAreJustTransition Movement came at a time of two important international fora: the 27th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) and Thailand-hosted meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC2022). Both of these fora turned into empty platforms used by the Thai government to promote its greenwashing policies and missed the opportunity to phase out fossil fuels once and for all.


"We have been following the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) but we feel hopeless seeing this mutual admiration club where big words are followed by little action."

To put an end to greenwashing and corporate capture of the climate crisis, our coalition had to act: amplify the concerns of grassroots communities from around Thailand and offer solutions that are in line with the international human rights obligations of the Thai government and its responsibilities under international environmental treaties such as the Paris Agreement. At the same time, our demands were addressed to the international fora, COP27 and APEC2022 themselves, as well as to the private sector, the main perpetrator of the worsening climate crisis.


What do we want?


Our demands to COP27:

  • Declare climate change as an emergency;

  • Developed countries and transnational companies have to take accountability by paying climate reparations;

  • Adequate Loss & Damage finance to prepare people at risk;

  • Rethink carbon market policies (carbon offsets, carbon neutrality, carbon credits) and ensure that they are not turned into greenwashing;

  • Integrate human rights language.


Our demands to APEC22:

  • Denounce the Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) Economic Model;

  • Implement mechanisms addressing people’s and climate protections needs;

  • Ensure APEC is open and is a democratic space for civil society.


Our demands to the Thai government:

  • Thailand’s climate action has to be aligned with its international human rights obligations;

  • Ensure a just transition from fossil fuels to renewable and clean energy;

  • Complete the transition from monoculture farming to agroecology within 2030;

  • Stop its false climate solutions criminalizing indigenous peoples & forest-dependent communities, instead celebrate them as Guardians of the Forest!

  • Recognize the status of indigenous peoples in Thailand.


The demands to the Thai government to ensure a Just, Feminist, Green, and Inclusive Transition are in line with Thailand’s international human rights obligations such as:

  • All international human rights treaties ratified by Thailand;

  • Five UPR recommendations of Thailand’s 3rd Universal Periodic Review on climate action, especially the recommendations received from Fiji, Cyprus, Maldives, and Costa Rica;

  • Protection of the rights of indigenous peoples, as called for by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2021.


Our demands to the private sector:

  • Respect the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), Thailand’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (NAP-BHR), and establish effective human rights and environmental due diligence;

  • Reduce and end greenhouse gas emissions.


#WeAreManushyan - Equal Human Beings


👉Join us in our efforts in demanding the Just, Feminist, Green and Inclusive Transition! How can you start?

  • Read our People’s Declaration for a Just, Feminist, Green, and Inclusive Transition on Energy, Environment, Natural Resources, and Forests here.

  • Would you like to be part of our #WeAreJustTransition Movement? Get in touch and join us in our collective campaigning and advocacy!

  • Follow our social media to stay up to date with our work on Corporate Accountability & Climate Justice!


While you're here...

Read about our work and impact, demanding the Just, Feminist, Green, and Inclusive Transition!



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