Filipino People’s Climate Justice Declaration

Today, at a time of climate emergency, we, communities and Filipinos from across the country, are raising the alarm for climate justice.

Our fundamental rights to life, food, shelter, health and livelihoods, among others, are violated and continues to be violated by the actions and/or inactions of Shell and other fossil fuel companies, the Carbon Majors. As Shell continues with its business as usual stance, it accelerates the climate crisis to which it has historically contributed, and exacerbates the climate harms we experience. The most vulnerable communities in the Philippines are some of the first to suffer the gravest consequences of climate change.

Meanwhile, even as the human cost of climate change is steep, those who contributed most to it continue to profit from this catastrophe.

Restoring our rights, and redressing these injustices should be the paramount concern of all, especially those who have contributed the most.

We, the Filipino people, together with millions of people including the youth from all over the world, are rising up to reclaim our future.

We are rising up to challenge fossil fuel companies to show accountability for their huge role in fueling the climate crisis. They must heed the call of communities for climate justice and they must immediately start a rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels.

We are rising up to challenge the system they perpetrated, encouraging governments and people to believe and accept that climate injustice is a fact of life, the climate crisis the new normal, and that no one is responsible for this catastrophe.

Filipinos should not be living in the shadow of fear and want brought on by the greed of Carbon Majors. The falsities they peddle to undermine climate actions and solutions and to cloud the truth about the real state of the climate must be known, denounced and acted upon by everyone.

These Carbon Majors are fueling climate change. They are burning our future. We, together with communities and youth throughout the country, are holding these companies to account and are calling for climate justice.

Only when Shell and other Carbon Majors have acknowledged their responsibility and provide meaningful solutions that respect and protect the rights of Filipinos, can our human dignity be restored.

For more information, please see the Memorandum for the Petitioners in In Re: National Inquiry on the Impact of Climate Change on the Human Rights of the Filipino People and the Responsibility therefor, if any, of the “Carbon Majors,” docketed as CHR-NI-2016-0001, filed before the Commission on Human Rights and also available online at:

https://www.greenpeace.org/philippines/press/1237/the-climate-change-and-human-rights-petition/