Tessa Khan on the fight for a fossil fuel free future
All The Small Things
Venetia La Manna
4.9 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2021
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tessa Khan is an international climate change and human rights lawyer, campaigner and strategist.
She is the founder and director of Uplift, a new organisation helping to move the UK towards a fossil fuel-free future. They strategically resource, connect, and elevate ideas and voices to set in motion a just transition away from fossil fuel production that is in proportion with the scale of the climate crisis. Before this role, she co-founded and is co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, a project of the Urgenda Foundation, which supports groundbreaking strategic climate litigation around the world.
She has spent more than fifteen years supporting grassroots, regional and international movements for justice and has served as an expert advisor to UN human rights bodies and national governments, while working in Thailand, Egypt, India, the US, the Netherlands and Australia. Tessa is a trustee of Global Greengrants Fund UK and a member of the Steering Committee of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.
Her writing has been published in international media outlets and academic publications, and she has been invited to speak at the United Nations and events convened by The Economist, Wall Street Journal and TEDx. In 2019, Tessa was named by TIME magazine as one of fifteen women leading the fight against climate change. She is also an awardee of the Climate Breakthrough Project.
If you’re UK based, you should know that the government has spent 4 BILLION propping up the oil and gas industry since we signed the Pairs Agreement in 2016. At the end of October 2021, The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP2 6will be taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. Boris Johnson has referred to this as the turning point for humanity, yet our government is spending billions propping up the oil and gas industry, which is directly causing the overheating and destruction of our planet.
Actions and links for this episode
Learn more about the work of Uplift.
The Government are set to approve the climate-wrecking Cambo oil field later this year. If we want a liveable climate, we can’t allow any new oil and gas extraction. To learn more and take action please head to: stopcambo.org.uk/take-action
Write to your local MP to ask that they take action at COP26 and speak up against fossil fuels
Check out the PaidToPollute campaign
Check out podcast guest Daze Aghaji's campaign to sue the government for failing to tackle climate change: crowdjustice.com/case/carbon-budgets/
Find me: @venetialamanna
Find the show: @atstpodcast
This episode was co-produced by Venetia La Manna and Holly Falconer and edited by Nada Smiljanic. The music was composed by William Haxworth and the artwork was designed by Alex Sedano.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome back to all the small things with me, Venetia. If you're new here, you |
| 0:07.2 | are so welcome. Please do make sure you're subscribed, as I'd love to have you back. |
| 0:11.8 | And there is an archive of really wonderful conversations for you to dive headfirst into |
| 0:17.6 | after you finish this episode. If you've been here plenty of times before and you're enjoying |
| 0:21.9 | the show, please do leave me a five-star review on iTunes. This takes no time at all and |
| 0:26.9 | is massively helpful in getting the word of the podcast out there. Now, if you're anything |
| 0:31.8 | like me, you will spend a lot of time worrying about the climate crisis. So many of my thoughts |
| 0:37.1 | are consumed with what the climate crisis means for the future of our planet. And I worry |
| 0:44.4 | about it a lot, which is why I'm super grateful to have today's guest Tessa Khan on the show |
| 0:49.8 | with us. She is someone who's doing such fantastic work to look out for the future of our planet |
| 0:56.7 | and I hope you find this podcast useful. Tessa Khan is an environmental lawyer and she is the |
| 1:02.2 | founder and director of Uplift, a new organisation helping to move the UK towards a fossil fuel-free |
| 1:09.4 | future. They strategically resource, connect and elevate ideas and voices to set in motion a |
| 1:15.0 | just transition away from fossil fuel production that's in proportion with the scale of the climate |
| 1:20.3 | crisis. Before this role, she co-founded and was co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, |
| 1:26.1 | which supports legal cases related to climate change mitigation and climate justice. |
| 1:31.5 | She's also a trustee for Green Grant's fund UK and the Green New Deal UK, and she's part of |
| 1:37.3 | the Steering Committee for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, which is a global |
| 1:42.8 | initiative to phase out fossil fuels faster, fairly and forever. In short, Tessa CV is highly |
| 1:49.5 | impressive. If you know me, you'll know that I'm big on calling out Greenwashing in the fashion |
| 1:54.5 | industry, but guess who invented Greenwashing? It's the fossil fuel industry. If your UK-based, |
| 2:01.6 | you should know that the government has spent £4 billion propping up the oil and gas industry |
... |
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