Texas Climate Emergency
Texas Climate Emergency is a left-of-center environmentalist advocacy initiative fiscally sponsored by the Texas Campaign for the Environment. 1
Contents
On its website, Texas Climate Emergency makes several “demands” of a group of unspecified major global institutions involved in some way with the natural gas industry, which it collectively dubs the “World Petrochemical Congress.” The organization demands that this group of institutions stop all natural gas projects, immediately divest from extraction-based industries, invest in environmentalist projects, stop harm being caused to “Native Lands,” pay reparations to the “Global South” for the purposes of a recovery from the effects of “Native Genocide” and slavery, respect voting rights, and respect the will of the people. 2
Background
Texas Climate Emergency is an environmentalist initiative fiscally sponsored by the Texas Campaign for the Environment, an advocacy group that opposes the oil and gas industry in Texas. Generally, the initiative supports divestment from all extraction-based industries, such as natural gas, and favors investment in weather-dependent energy sources favored by environmentalists. 2 3 1
Advocacy
On its website, Texas Climate Emergency makes several “demands” of a group of unspecified major global institutions involved in some way with the natural gas industry, which it collectively dubs the “World Petrochemical Congress.” The organization demands that this group of institutions stop all natural gas projects, immediately divest from extraction-based industries, invest in environmentalist projects, stop harm being caused to “Native Lands,” pay reparations to the “Global South” for the purposes of a recovery from the effects of “Native Genocide” and slavery, respect voting rights, and respect the will of the people. 2
During the Biden administration, Texas Climate Emergency also made particular demands of then-President Joe Biden in alignment with similar ones made by People vs. Fossil Fuels, a left-of-center environmentalist organization, including that he declare a “national climate emergency;” stop the construction of oil and gas pipelines; ban natural gas exports; stop the production and use of natural gas, coal, and plastics; establish the means of a general transition to energy sources favored by environmentalists in a manner aligned with left-of-center ideological prerogatives; direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Maritime Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to various projects and industrial effects, including pollution from natural gas and coal facilities, the failures of the “electric grid,” harm caused to “Native Ancestral Lands,” construction of a border wall on the U.S. southern border, natural gas extraction activities in Texas (particularly in the Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale, Barnett Shale, and Oklahoma Shale), a proposal to build a plastics facility on the Gulf Coast, abandoned and uncapped wells, major natural gas pipelines (including those in Rio Bravo, Whistler, Valley Crossing, and Kinder Morgan), the practice of offshore leasing in federal waters, the leaking of natural gas storage tanks and transfer stations, hydrogen and carbon capture projects, and the practice of companies acquiring oil and gas mineral rights from private property owners who do not “want to oil and gas on their lands.” The group also demands the government stop infiltration and entrapment activities and generally overturning any laws that are unconstitutional, “anti-protest,” and “anti-free speech.” 2
Additionally, Texas Climate Emergency demands that the U.S. Congress pass legislation to protect voters from unspecified “racist voter suppression laws” and gerrymandering. 2
Affiliates
“Frontline Communities” of the Texas Climate Emergency Initiative include the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribal Nation, Port Arthur Community Action Network, Society of Native Nations, Choices Interlinking, and Another Gulf is Possible. 2
Leadership
Texas Climate Emergency lists several individuals on its website as “media contacts” for the organization, including Marlene Plua, a delegate of People vs. Fossil Fuels; Juan Mancias, a member of the Carrizo-Comecrudo Tribal Nation; John Beard, a member of the Port Arthur Community Action Network; Donna Hoffman, a delegate and communications coordinator of People vs. Fossil Fuels; and Bob Henricks, the chair of the Austin Sierra Club’s board of directors. 4