Making the Leap Towards Climate Justice

Naomi Klein and her team create plan, suggest fifteen steps towards a brighter future

“The Leap Manifesto is an unashamedly radical plan to convert the world to 100 per cent renewable energy, fast,” says world-famous activist and author, Naomi Klein. “And you can be a part of it.”

Klein drafted the Manifesto during a meeting with her team from This Changes Everything, a book-turned-documentary she wrote about reforming the economy to avoid environmental disaster. The team consisted of “60 leaders from Canada’s Indigenous rights, social and food justice, environmental, faith-based, and labour movements.” Their goal, according to the Manifesto’s website, was to “stop the worst attacks on our rights and environment” with sustainable solutions.

The document that came out of it—now known as the Leap Manifesto—lists fifteen demands for climate justice. It was released to the public in September 2015, and has since been endorsed by over 150 organizations and signed by more than 30,000 people. Some recognizable names amongst the list of signatories are Neil Young, Ellen Page, Ashley Callingbull, Black Lives Matter Toronto, and Greenpeace.

The name of the Manifesto was based on 2016 being a leap year, but it’s not just convenient timing that led to the title. It’s also a “powerful analogy” for recognizing that it’s easier to change the rules of human society than the rules of nature.

“We periodically add an extra day to our calendars because if we didn’t, the seasons would gradually fall out of alignment and eventually the seasons would go wacky,” Klein wrote in a blog post. “That’s why we chose “The Leap” as the name for our manifesto—the gap between where we are and where we need to be is so great, and the time so short, that small steps simply will not cut it.”

The Manifesto outlines fifteen big steps which must be taken. It demands a 100 per cent clean economy by 2050, which would be achieved through ceasing involvement with all environmentally harmful industries and creating community-controlled clean energy systems, housing, transit, agriculture and infrastructure. In the process of making those changes, workers in carbon-intensive jobs and new refugees and migrants to Canada would be trained to work in clean energy sectors.

The removal of fossil fuel subsidies, military spending, and corporate money from political campaigns as well as the introduction of universal basic annual income, financial transaction and carbon taxes on companies, and income taxes on the wealthy are also outlined in the Manifesto. Finally, it calls for “an end to all trade deals that interfere with our attempts to rebuild local economies, regulate corporations, and stop damaging extractive projects.”

This process is called a “justice-based energy transition to a clean energy economy,” and it means that everyone must work together to shape a healthy future economy, society, and environment. At the same time, we must ensure “those hardest hit by the worst effects of climate change should be first in line benefit from the renewable economy.”

Over 600 people attended the Leap Manifesto workshop at the Paris Climate Talks last December, and although CNN called the Manifesto “a blueprint that could be used across the world,” no concrete progress was made. Several goals—such as keeping Earth from warming more than two degrees Celsius and donating money to countries struggling as a result of climate change—were outlined, but not mandated, by world leaders.

The public reaction to the failure of the Climate Talks was the realization that perhaps people needed to take matters into their own hands. With the publishing of the Manifesto, they are doing just that by organizing discussions, film screenings, workshops, and mobilizations known as “Leap Events.”

One example was a 24-hour sit-in held by high school students in Nelson, B.C. this past February. They call themselves “Project Beginning,” and they organized the event to raise awareness for The Leap Manifesto in their community.

“For us as youth, we are the ones who will be around to see the damage that climate change has on our earth,” says Sage Cowan, a Project Beginning member. “In many ways, it is our responsibility to make certain we have a future—but it’s a shared responsibility with past and future generations.”

They called the experience “inspiring and incredible,” and were grateful for the opportunity to talk to a local MP, Wayne Stetski, and give feedback on a carbon neutral plan being written in their school district.

Countless other Leap Events around the world have been held, from Vancouver to Croatia, but support for the Manifesto is hardly universal. The primary concern from detractors is that the Manifesto’s terms might not be affordable enough to be practical. If taxes are raised on the rich, the possibility of capital flight also rises. If military spending is cut in Canada, the nation’s relationships to other counties as well as its self-defence may suffer. Most importantly, those who relied heavily on fossil fuel extraction will have to dramatically adjust to a clean energy economy, and it will take immense amounts of time and money to help them get there.

The bottom line is that those in power may not be willing or able to spend the resources that it will take to dismantle capitalism in so little time. As said by Active History writer Jonathan McQuarrie, “too many people do well by the revenues produced from global capitalism to seriously consider locally orientated alternatives.” Especially if those alternatives must be in use within the next forty years.

The means of paying for the Manifesto’s terms are outlined in the Manifesto itself, says Bianca Mugyenyi, Outreach Lead for the Leap Manifesto. “But there was a media backlash when the Leap Manifesto initially launched.”

Writing for The National Post, Conrad Black released an article titled “Few will support Naomi Klein’s revolution, thankfully sparing us from national suicide” in which he criticizes the document as a “Marxist roadmap.” He calls the Manifesto’s demands “a comprehensive assault on the whole concept of economic growth” for its anti-capitalist values, and commenters on the article seem to agree with him. Troy Media writer Karen Selick reminds readers that those who are already using wind and solar-powered energy, “don’t want [it] in their backyards” as turbines cause “adverse health effects to nearby residents.” Several members of the NDP have also signed the document, which has led to suspicion about how non-partisan the Manifesto truly is.

In agreement with the Manifesto, Canada Post workers have put forward a motion to reform their post offices. The proposal, called “Delivering Community Power,” would enforce “postal banking that finances green energy, services for seniors, farm-to-table food delivery, coast-to-coast charging stations for electric cars, and much more.” The company’s senior executives, however, have refused to “meet with them on these ideas.”

It’s obvious that what the Manifesto suggests is a rapid, radical overhaul of the economic and political system that is currently at the foundation of modern, North American life. However, its followers believe that it is now the only option. Time is of the essence, and the earth is ever-warming.