The Global Climate Action Summit: What happened, who protested, and why?
September 23, 2018 by Lauren Phillips
Protestors march in downtown San Francisco ahead of the Global Climate Action Summit.
The 2018 Global Climate Action Summit brought thousands of people to San Francisco last week to announce commitments to fighting climate change. Outside the summit, however, protestors demanded that leaders set more ambitious goals. What happened inside and outside the summit, and did it represent a meaningful step to fighting climate change?
By Lauren Phillips, Online Managing Editor
Last week, thousands of people, including US mayors, governors, and civic leaders, gathered in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit (“GCAS”). California’s Governor Jerry Brown and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the summit after President Trump made public his intention to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement on climate change. GCAS was meant to help strengthen subnational commitments to fight climate change and show the world that (at least some) US subnational leaders are still committed to fighting climate change. But what, exactly, did the summit achieve?
Here’s a roundup of some notable climate action pledges made at GCAS:
- A bipartisan group of U.S. governors and mayors vowed to continue fighting climate change, and announced that they are on track to meet two-thirds of the emissions reductions pledged in the Paris Climate Accords, even without any federal action.[1]
- New York City announced its goal to invest $4 billion from the city’s pension fund in renewable energy and other climate change solutions.[2]
- Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota, and New York pledged to move towards eliminating coal-fired power generation in their states.[3]
- Virginia became the thirteenth state to join a collaboration on clean energy among East Coast states (a collaboration facilitated by Georgetown’s own Climate Center).[4]
- California announced its intention, in the words of Governor Brown, to launch “its own damn satellite” to track climate-change-inducing pollutants with new precision.[5]
But will these pledges be enough to avert catastrophic climate change? Almost certainly, no. Protestors outside the summit called on leaders inside the summit not only to commit to 100% renewable energy, but also to halt all new fossil fuel extraction, in line with what scientific study of climate change says is necessary to avert catastrophic warming.[6] As Bill McKibben, climate activist and one of the architects of the Keep it in the Ground movement[7] noted after praising leaders for coming together to discuss next steps to combat climate change, “[t]he goal [of fighting climate change]… is not to be Paris-compliant. It’s not. The goal here is to deal with the physics and chemistry of climate change. And one big part of doing that is stopping the supply of these fossil fuels, at least not expanding their operation.” For example, protestors highlighted the fact that even as California sets new, ambitious climate goals, protestors outside objected to the fact that California continues to issue new leases for fossil fuel extraction in the state, undermining its own emissions-reductions goals and burdening Californians – often people of color and low-income people – living near such projects with dire health impacts.[8]
Beyond calling for a halt to all new fossil fuel infrastructure, protestors demanded climate justice– i.e., assurances that climate change mitigation and adaptation measures are just for all people, including for marginalized groups. For example, protestors rejected summit members’ support for cap-and-trade programs, which, opponents say, unjustly commodify natural resources sacred to indigenous peoples while doing little to reduce actual emissions.[9] While state, local, and global leaders in the summit largely cheered on climate change progress based on capitalistic market forces and incremental progress, some protestors rejected the idea that capitalism and preventing climate change are compatible.[10] Protestors observed that the market-based solutions GCAS attendees largely supported– carbon offsets, carbon pricing, cap-and-trade– would not sufficiently address climate change because they would not cut off emissions at their source.[11] Some protestors and speakers also drew connections between climate change, racism, and colonialism. Jamie Margolin, the sixteen-year-old founder of the youth climate activism group Zero Hour[12] and a speaker at one of the summit’s climate justice panels, perhaps summarized many protester’s mindsets best: “The systems of oppression that caused the climate crisis are what we have to dismantle.”[13]
In short, for many, GCAS was a step in the right direction, but one that fell far short of the commitments needed to drive emissions reductions. After hosting GCAS and setting the nation’s most stringent emissions reductions goals, California can rightly claim title as the nation’s leading climate fighter. But given the dire physics of climate change, and the ongoing social crisis fossil fuel extraction has caused around the world, protesters have ample grounds to assert that even California and likeminded state and local governments have not yet done enough to combat humanity’s greatest threat.
Lauren Phillips was a youth delegate to the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit, and attended the summit with around 300 other under-30 climate activists from around the world.
[1] Mark Chediak, U.S. on Track to Meet Some Paris Climate Goals, Report Says, Bloomberg (Sept. 13, 2018, 2:16 PM), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-13/u-s-doesn-t-need-trump-to-tackle-carbon-goals-report-shows.
[2] Press Release, Office of the New York City Comptroller, Mayor and Comptroller Announce Pension Fund Goal To Invest $4 Billion In Climate Change Solutions By 2021 (Sept. 13, 2018), https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/mayor-and-comptroller-announce-pension-fund-goal-to-invest-4-billion-in-climate-change-solutions-by-2021/.
[3] Press Release, Global Climate Action Summit, Powering Past Coal Alliance Announces 10 New Members At Global Climate Action Summit (Sept. 14, 2018).
https://www.globalclimateactionsummit.org/powering-past-coal-alliance/.
[4] Press Release, Georgetown Climate Center, TCI Welcomes the Commonwealth of Virginia (Sept. 12, 218), http://www.transportationandclimate.org/tci-welcomes-commonwealth-virginia.
[5] Press Release, Governor Brown Closes Global Climate Action Summit: “We’re Launching Our Own Damn Satellite” (Sept. 14, 2018),
[6] See Rise for Climate, https://riseforclimate.org(last visited Sept. 23, 2019) (outlining the organized protestor’s platform); see also Climate Science Basics, 350, https://350.org/science/(giving a brief overview of climate science and the need to halt fossil fuel extraction).
[7] The Keep-it-in-the Ground movement seeks to halt the development of all new fossil fuel infrastructure, including new extraction, refineries, and power plants– an effort which science indicates is necessary to prevent warming above two degrees centigrade. Bill McKibben first outlined the need for the “Keep it in the Ground” movement in 2012. See Bill McKibben, Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math, Rolling Stone, (July 19, 2012 1:35PM), https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-188550/; see also Bill McKibben, Recalculating the Climate Math, The New Republic, Sept. 22, 2016, https://newrepublic.com/article/136987/recalculating-climate-math (highlighting a study that indicates the world cannot extract any more fossil fuels and still meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accord).
[8] Brown’s Last Chance, http://brownslastchance.org/campaign/(last visited Sept. 23, 2018).
[9] Over 100 Indigenous Activists Decry California Gov. Jerry Brown’s Market-Based Climate Solutions, Democracy Now!, (Sept. 14, 2018) https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/14/over_100_indigenous_activists_decry_california(last visited Sept. 23, 2018).
[10] “Climate Capitalism Is Killing Our Communities”: Protesters Disrupt Gov. Brown’s SF Climate Summit, Democracy Now!, (Sept. 23, 2018),
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/14/climate_capitalism_is_killing_our_communities (last visited Sept. 23, 2018). Some protestors also observed that the summit’s sponsors included Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and other large financial institutions know for financing fossil fuel projects. See Sponsors, Global Climate Action Summit, https://www.globalclimateactionsummit.org/sponsors/ (last visited Sept. 23, 2018).
[12] Who We Are, This is Zero Hour, https://www.thisiszerohour.org/whoweare, (last visited Sept. 23, 2018).
[13] Jamie Margolin, Panel Discussion at the Global Climate Action Summit (Sept. 14, 2018).