The Green Zone Foundation promotes the values and visions of Green political parties and movements around the world, as reflected in the Liverpool Declaration, adopted at the Congress of European and Global Greens on 2 April 2017, attended by delegates of ninety Green parties from around the world and representatives of many Green political organisations – think tanks, foundations and institutes, among them the Green Zone Foundation:

Greens: a global movement, a unified vision

The world is facing worrying, dangerous trends. Many people are committed to tackling the challenges they raise. Greens around the world, as advocates for change promoting a sustainable, just, peaceful, free and democratic future for human civilisation on Earth, have joined the myriad battles for our shared values. We pledge to work together even more intensively in the future for the fundamental changes needed to give back to the next generation the world we have merely borrowed from them.

Environmental crises, conflicts and inequalities are on the rise, creating an expectation of political and social change. Unscrupulous authoritarian leaders and right-wing politicians are exploiting this discontent. Using populist means, they blame minorities, dissidents, ‘others’, especially migrants and asylum seekers, for virtually all problems. In response to real problems, such as climate change or austerity policies and social divisions, leaders such as Putin, Trump, Erdogan, Duterte and others offer imaginary solutions. We Greens are the opposite of this – we seek to replace fear with hope, hate with compassion, racism with respect for all.

We Greens offer policies that are both practical and visionary. We believe in a society that respects diversity, promotes peace, creates true democracy, fights inequality and, above all, respects both nature and future generations. These Green values are shared by all Green parties around the world. While respecting the diversity of Green parties, at the same time we stand firm on the commonality of both principles and practical ways of implementing them.

CLIMATE CHANGE.

Climate change is the greatest threat we face, a threat to individuals, to human society, to the environment and to the future. We Greens are committed to acting swiftly on climate change to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Clean electricity for all

The sun, wind and other renewable sources can power the planet. The Greens are working to ensure that everyone has access to clean energy, with nuclear power plants excluded and new large hydroelectric dams and industrial-scale biomass energy rejected.

Leave fossil fuels in the ground

We Greens are fighting for an end to fossil fuel subsidies in G20 countries by 2020, and for divestment from fossil fuels by governments and public authorities at all levels. The Greens oppose hydraulic fracturing, the construction of new or expansion of existing coal mines and the extraction of oil and gas from the seabed.

Protect forests
Natural forests are part of the solution to the climate problem, as are other types of natural environment. The Greens will protect them.

Compensate for loss and damage

We Greens are committed to helping countries that are particularly vulnerable to the loss and damage caused by climate change to obtain ways and means, including under international law, to compensate for this damage.

ECOLOGY
Earth’s systems, on which all life depends, are being destroyed, polluted or degraded at an unprecedented rate. Without urgent transformative change that places human activity within limits that allow the world to survive, the consequences could be catastrophic. Greens are particularly called to lead collective action for ecological sustainability and adaptation to changing conditions at all levels – from local to global.

Protect and restore nature

We Greens are committed to protecting and restoring biodiversity and particularly threatened ecosystems, including forests, oceans and sea and mountain glaciers.

Transform vital human support systems

We Greens promote a green economy and new governance arrangements that serve sustainable food, sustainable water and sanitation and other urban systems. Greens work for ecological balance and sustainability. Greens are animal advocates, promoting compassion for other species and fighting industrial breeding and other forms of cruelty.

DEMOCRACY

We cannot tackle climate, environmental and social problems without a dynamic democracy. We believe that participatory democracy allows citizens to develop effective solutions to the problems we face.

Enable representation

We Greens are committed to removing barriers to political representation, such as high candidate fees and stringent party registration rules, and to introducing proportional representation. We condemn anti-democratic practices such as one-party rule and lifetime presidentialism. Greens will join election observation missions wherever possible.

Give women the opportunity to participate fully in political life
We Greens will work together to remove barriers to women’s political participation and promote women’s equal participation in all dimensions of political life. We will strengthen and support the work of the Global Greens Women’s Network.

Encourage young people to become politically engaged

We Greens will actively encourage young people to participate in all dimensions of political life. We will work with the Global Young Greens network to empower young people within participatory democracy.

Re-launch the Green Shield

Green Shield, launched in 2001, mobilises Green MPs and activists to defend Greens who are in danger. It is a mechanism for putting pressure on governments wherever people are imprisoned, tortured, deprived of their rights or living in extreme danger.

Governments, not corporations, set public policy

We Greens will work to reclaim public space and power and erode corporate supremacy over democracy. We will prevent trade agreement provisions from giving corporations the power to sue countries in secret tribunals outside the normal legal order (the Investor State Dispute Settlement, ISDS mechanism).

We Greens are committed to countering the ecological exploitation and damage caused by transnational and foreign-located corporations such as Canadian mining companies in Latin America or Shell in Nigeria, in particular exposing the actions and influence of these corporations in the parliaments of their home countries.

Defend civil society

We Greens defend the right to self-determination for every individual and for all social groups and the right to social self-organisation. We appreciate every step forward in creating more space for civil society and its organisations and oppose any infringement of this space by regimes or authoritarian tendencies.

Defend media freedom

We Greens promote respect for media freedom and all civil liberties. We condemn the illegal detention of journalists and repression of independent media.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

We Greens support a more egalitarian society. Inequality is detrimental to all, and drastic income disparities breed poverty and lead to social corruption. While globalisation has created wonderful conditions for social progress and opened up new opportunities, the negative side of it is the huge increase in wealth and power of a very small minority. Inclusion and equality is key to improving everyone’s lives.

Gender and sexual identity

We Greens promote liberation and diversity. We reject a society in which women are not fully equal and argue that women’s empowerment is a prerequisite and the basis of Green values. We recognise that gender is not binary and that gender identities are diverse. Greens have long promoted equal rights for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and intersex community.

Migration and refugees

We Greens defend the right to seek asylum and the rights of immigrants. We reject the policy of making them a scapegoat. Climate change, global inequality, wars and political conflicts are accelerating the number of refugees. All governments, especially in the richest countries, have a responsibility to address the causes of forced population movements and to help provide solutions.

Fiscal justice

We Greens are committed to fighting tax evasion nationally, regionally and globally so that corporations and wealthy people get their fair share. Greens reject a deal that allows eight super-rich individuals to control as much or more wealth as 50 per cent of the global population combined.

Education
We Greens defend the right of every person to a good education, obtained free of charge. The Greens promote international youth exchange as an important contribution to democratic and internationalist education. As working conditions change, people must have the opportunity for lifelong learning.

Fair and appropriate adaptation

We Greens are committed to ensuring fair and appropriate adaptation for individuals and communities affected by changes in the nature and distribution of work due to ecological necessity, the digital revolution and mechanisation.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

We Greens want to build a new economy – an economy of, thanks to and for those people who protect ecosystems and respect nature.

Economic transformation

We Greens actively promote economic transformation strategies in industry, services and agriculture that combine economic success with the requirements of sustainability and sustainability, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. These strategies will also reduce monopolies, corporate privilege and domination and land grabbing.

Living within the limitations of the planet

Infinite economic growth is impossible. We Greens are committed to actively and urgently working together to move towards living within the safe and equitable space of human functioning on Earth.

Developing social innovation

Green culture opposes consumerism. Greens support a closed-loop economy in which it is easy to reuse, repair and recycle products. We support a social economy based on common ownership, in the form of cooperatives and similar institutions, so that the economy can work for the majority.

PEACE

Environmental issues, social justice, democracy and peace are interlinked. Only where people have democratic control and enjoy civil and human rights, including women’s rights, will there be opportunities for peaceful resolution of contradictions. Humanity must “develop rules at multiple levels that allow people over time to adapt, learn and change” (Elinor Ostrom) in order to pass on to future generations what we have inherited.

A nuclear-free world

We Greens will work to end the mining, export and use of uranium and campaign for nuclear disarmament.

Rule of law

We Greens will work to maintain and further develop the multilateral international order with the UN as its base. We reject a system of international relations in which the strong act according to their wishes and the weak must act according to their will.

Fair trade

Fair trade is a necessary condition for peaceful international development. We Greens oppose exploitation through trade, which destroys the social fabric.

Reject militarisation

We Greens reject the militarisation of international relations. We will never accept the use of military means to change borders or deprive nations of their freedom.

Liverpool Declaration, adopted on 2 April 2017.

As a Green political foundation, we are one of the partner organisations of the Green European Foundation (GEF) and the Warsaw representative office of the German Heinrich Böll Green Foundation (HBS).

In the summer we organise for the GEF and in partnership with the HBS the “Green Summer University” – a place for the exchange of knowledge, thoughts and skills and a place for the integration of Polish and European communities and activists close to green values. At the Women’s Congress, we coordinate a “Green Centre” dedicated to ecology and environmental protection, as we believe that active, open-minded, competent women, inclined to long-term thinking and foresight, are better prepared than men for the necessary pro-environmental transformation. In the meantime, we organise conferences, debates, meetings, film screenings and exhibitions. We report on current major civic activities, we produce electronic and paper publications, and our people present an ecopolitical vision of the world in the media, above all in our partner newspaper Green News, but also on the streets, in schools and organisations.

Because we are not just a think-tank. Reality is forcing us to become increasingly active within Polish, European and global networks of organisations and communities taking peaceful initiatives – petitions, demonstrations, letters to MPs and authorities, happenings, social media campaigns, online and official media appearances, participation in public consultations – to stop the humanly and environmentally destructive trends of the neoliberal global economy. Our priorities are the protection of climate, biodiversity, food sovereignty, democracy, human rights and peace, but also progressive urban policies, as cities are the vanguard of pro-environmental, pro-democracy and anti-discrimination transformation in today’s conditions. We are also fighting against unfair trade agreements like TTIP, CETA and TISA, as part of a group of committed organisations among the 80 organisations that signed the TTIP Attention Declaration. We have joined the More Than Energy coalition for the development of renewable energy, in particular the so-called citizen energy, i.e. small distributed RES installations and energy cooperatives and communities. We are a member of the Let them Live! coalition defending wildlife rights. We have also joined the global Nyeleni network for food sovereignty, as part of its Polish Nyeleni Poland platform, as we fully agree with the Nyeleni Declaration adopted in 2007 , as well as with the Nyeleni Europe Declaration of 2011. We participated in the creation of the Save the Rivers Coalition, formed at the end of 2016, opposing, among other things, irrational, expensive and dangerous plans to turn our largest rivers into major international waterways. In May 2017, we joined the Association of Associations of the Congress of Urban Movements and actively participated in the 5th Congress of Urban Movements.

We support all civic movements in defence of civil rights: in defence of women’s rights like #blackprotest, the rights of non-heterosexual and transgender people, democracy and freedom, like the Citizens of Poland protests and the demonstrations in defence of freedom and the European Union by KOD.

We also actively support European networks and movements: the network against the development of the unconventional fossil fuel (shale gas) extraction industry and the network against unfair and dangerous EU free trade and investment agreements (TTIP, CETA, TISA and about 30 more waiting in line…).

In cases of environmental degradation, we enter, together with environmental organisations, in administrative proceedings as a party when necessary, supporting local communities at risk.

We look forward to working with you!

Our activity gives hope for a more progressive and pro-environmental development of our country, provided that we receive support from citizens and citizens who would and would like their children to live in a better, cleaner, healthier, more tolerant and diversity-friendly country.

If you believe that Poland, as well as other European and non-European countries, needs a Green political movement, please get involved in our activities as a volunteer or support us with a one-off or systematic donation.