As the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Monday put out a report that warns, “If the current warming rate continues, the world would reach human-induced global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F) around 2040,” 350.org released a compilation of stories from 13 communities “fighting against fossil fuel projects and for a fast and just transition to 100 percent renewable energy.”

“With a planet barely 1°C warmer than pre-industrial times, we are witnessing a chain of catastrophic climate-related extremes all over the globe. If we want to avoid even more dramatic impacts, we have to stay under a 1.5°C increase in global mean temperatures,” 350.org program director Payal Parekh writes in The People’s Dossier on 1.5°C (pdf).

After outlining why “scientists say we must stop global warming now,” the dossier details a collection of stories that, as Parekh explains, “shows readers why we should all care more for this existential fight, and how each one of us can make the difference, not only through personal choices, but joining others, building grassroot movements from the ground up.”

The Arctic

As the Arctic warms more quickly than the rest of the world, the Saami people inhabiting regions of Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden face a variety of issues with herding reindeer, which they use for transportation and food. While melting ice sheets and deforestation pose threats, the report also points out that large energy projects do as well—such as hydropower dams and wind farms on reindeer grazing land, providing “a stark reminder that clean energy solutions need to be implemented taking into account the needs of the ecosystem and of the local communities.”

Brazil

Ceará, a state in northeastern Brazil, has been enduring its longest drought in recorded history since 2010, and water scarcity has devastated local agriculture and fishery. “With the reservoirs of the hydroelectric plants—the country’s main source of electricity—empty and for lack of investments in other renewable energy sources, the government has to activate the fossil fuel-fired thermoelectric plants.” These dirty energy plants also require water, and extraction from supposedly protected areas have led to conflicts with indigenous groups in the region.

Canada

Faced with mounting opposition from indigenous communities and environmental groups, fossil fuel giant Kinder Morgan sought to bail on the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline—and much to the frustration of local opponents, sold it off to the Canadian government. “Despite increasingly dangerous climate impacts and strong public opposition, the government of Canada continues to promote and expand tar sands expansion—Canada’s fastest growing source of emissions and a fossil fuel reserve that, if fully exploited, could burn up nearly a quarter of the entire world’s remaining carbon budget for the 1.5°C threshold,” the report warns.

Italy

Residents of Salento, a southern region of Italy, are fighting against the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which, as the report notes, “would come onshore in the beautiful seaside town of San Foca, Puglia.” Facing off against the Italian government and European Commission, locals are organizing peaceful protest of TAP, which they fear will “damage and pollute the local landscape, coastline, and clear blue waters.” The project would also contribute to planet-warming emissions, which force up global temperatures that are already endangering “olive groves and grapes that have shaped the Salento region over thousands of years.”

Japan

In the historic city of Kobe—designated one of the most susceptible in the world to sea level rise—activists are working to quash plans to build two large-scale coal power plants. The steel manufacturer trying to construct the plants, the report points out, “has a notorious history when it comes to air pollution.” Critics of the plants have turned to the courts, citing concerns about air pollution and climate change, in an efforts to stop them.

Pacific Islander and Australian activist have teamed up to take on the the Carmichael coal mine project, a proposal by the Indian fossil fuel company Adani that would entail shipping millions of ton of coal through the Great Barrier Reef, which is already significantly impacted by rising ocean temperatures. “To build and run its proposed Carmichael coal mine,” the report notes, “Adani also wants to extract a billion liters of water per year from a river in drought-stricken central Queensland for decades to come.” 

The Philippines