Starting on May 1st, a special journey will take to the roads of Brazil: the Caravan of the Future, a project that believes in the power of meeting, listening and collective construction to debate the energy transition with a human and fair perspective.
The initiative, created by Aurora Lab, will depart from Rio Grande do Sul and head to Pará, with stops in 35 strategic cities in the five regions of the country. All this totaling more than 21 thousand kilometers traveled until reaching COP 30, in Belém.
And the idea is not just to walk around. Along the way, the caravan will promote public dialogues, cultural activities and educational actions, always seeking to reflect on how work, climate and social justice can and should go hand in hand in times of climate crisis.
The kick-off takes place on Labor Day, in partnership with unions and social movements, in an event at Casa do Gaucho, in Porto Alegre.
The date, which marks the appreciation of work, also carries the symbolic weight of the tragedy of the rains in the state in 2024, which impacted more than 2 million people. A reminder that climate change is already part of our reality and requires action.
“We want to provoke reflections on the way we have been relating to the environment based on energy generation processes and a central element in people’s lives: work”, says Gabriela Vuolo, executive director of Aurora Lab.
She also emphasizes that the caravan represents a call for transformation and the t search for viable paths.
“This journey across the country is an invitation to change and to collectively build possible paths towards a truly fair energy transition, looking at historical problems, but also learning about experiences and proposing collective solutions for the future,” he said.
With stops in cities such as São Bernardo do Campo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Fortaleza and Brasília, the caravan aims to understand the impacts of the energy transition in different corners of the country.
At each location, organizers are holding so-called “Labor and Climate Dialogues,” bringing together workers, unions, and environmental movements to think together about the future of employment in a more sustainable world.
“Laboratories of the Future”
Another innovative proposal is the “Laboratories of the Future”. These will be meetings to exchange ideas between workers from areas such as coal, oil, transport, agriculture and clean energy, to together think about real paths for an energy transition.
In Rio de Janeiro, a special character enters the scene: an electric truck that transforms into a stage for caravan events.
The vehicle, a pioneer in Brazil in traveling such a long distance with this structure, will be accompanied by smaller electric cars, which will visit another 25 cities recording the history and proposals of those who are facing the effects of the climate crisis up close.
Together, the proposals developed will be taken to Brasília, with the aim of influencing public policies and commitments of the Brazilian government.
The first laboratory will be carried out in partnership with the ABC Metalworkers Union, one of the most emblematic in the country in the fight for labor rights.
For Luz Gonzalez, director of networks and partnerships at Aurora Lab, discussing work, climate and just transition is essential to bringing structural issues closer to the population's reality.
“People are worried about their survival and that of their families, and ignoring the issue of work when we talk about the climate crisis makes us just alarmists. The discussion about just transition needs to move beyond specific spaces and become transversal, everyday,” he concluded.
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