James Shinfah Wan

Managing & Climate editor @africaarguments. British Sino-Mauritian. Possible sense of humour, but no more than a sense. “Bloody idiot” — Olusegun Obasanjo.

[James Shinfah Wan @jamesjwan]

#TrueStory: In the early days of Facebook, I befriended someone called James Wanless. Nominative determinism demanded he unfriend me, which he did days later. It hurt, but I still sometimes think about him and hope he, and everyone else who is James Wanless, is doing ok.

[Judd Devermont @JDevermont]

Deep appreciation to ⁦@jamesjwan⁩ for his remarkable stewardship of ⁦@africaarguments⁩. His work has been a trusted source for me of insights and provocations — and a great podcast partner when I hosted Into Africa ⁦@CSISAfrica⁩. https://t.co/RgFujdW8iF

[Charles Pensulo @charles_pensulo]

Thanks @jamesjwan for skillfully - yet with patience - helping us to narrate #African stories with @africaarguments .

[African Arguments @africaarguments]

"As well as sadness for the unfinished business, it seems appropriate my main feelings are of boundless gratitude to the 1,000s of incredible people who worked with us and a little pride I got to work with them."

@jamesjwan on leaving AA after ten years

https://t.co/HXcp2jPVBj

[African Arguments @africaarguments]

In a time of #climate breakdown, corporate capture, and unhealthy diets, can the humble #food of #Lesotho show us the future? https://t.co/xs9MvHuvUx

[African Arguments @africaarguments]

With the #COP29 #climate talks on the brink, experts call the latest #climatefinance draft a “disgrace” and say “no deal is better than a bad deal”. https://t.co/Qktz0AuLtq

[Zoe Gardner @ZoeJardiniere]

Yvette Cooper’s borders announcement today is a betrayal of everyone who voted for change.

Ten days since racists attacked asylum seekers & mosques & today Labour announce they’re ramping up the failed narrative that we can just get rid of the people we don’t want here. #r4today

[Daniela Gabor @DanielaGabor]

green hydrogen is a McKinsey/Germany fever dream that capital isnt buying into

[African Arguments @africaarguments]

#Greenhydrogen: #Africa is not #Europe’s battery

Like elsewhere, #Tunisia’s rush of proposed green hydrogen projects prioritise Europe’s needs over its own.

https://t.co/YoDEIQ6fZi

[Jemaine Clement @AJemaineClement]

I've been to Australia. That was their best dancer.

[Keir Starmer @Keir_Starmer]

We must scrap the inhuman Work Capability Assessments and private provision of disability assessments (e.g. ATOS), scrap punitive sanctions, two-child limit and benefits cap.

[Akwaaba @AkwaabaHackney]

⭐Want to get involved in our migrant mutual aid community⭐
Akwaaba is looking for trustees to help make sure that Akwaaba is run legally & responsibly, and in line with our values. Trustees are expected to commit to the role for 2 years and volunteer once per month.

[Roger Hallam @RogerHallamCS21]

I've just been sentenced to 5 years in prison.

The longest ever for nonviolent action.

The 'crime'?

Giving a talk on civil disobedience as an effective, evidence-based method for stopping the elite from putting enough carbon in the atmosphere to send us to extinction.

I have given hundreds of similar speeches encouraging nonviolent action and have never been arrested for it. This time I was an advisor to the M25 motorway disruption, recommending the action to go ahead to wake up the British public to societal collapse.

I was not part of the planning or action itself.

In the trial, I swore before God to tell the truth. The truth is the science. The science is clear. We're heading for billions of deaths and ecological collapse. To prove this, I presented the jury with a 250-page dossier of leading scientists' research as evidence in my defence. This was denied by the judge as an invalid - climate science is now illegal in the British courtroom.

I then began to speak about the apocalyptic conditions humanity faces - floods, wildfires, mass heat deaths - and was silenced by the judge. He sent out the jury and threatened to arrest me if I didn't stop. Instead, I stayed in the dock and argued that until I was given the right to complete my defence – I would not move. Even the prosecution tried to argue in my defence and the judge let me continue.

When the jury had shuffled in again, I spoke about the legal concept of “equality of arms” – that as the prosecution had had a right to lay facts over a whole week, I also wanted an equal opportunity. I spoke of various cases where juries had acquitted defendants when they had heard the facts, such as the Extinction Rebellion cracking of Shell's windows in 2018 as a reasonable action against criminal destruction. The Dutch Supreme Court has even said that all governments have a legal obligation to prevent the emission of greenhouse gases. Whilst the prosecution accepted that emissions pose an existential threat, for the first time in British history no less, they still tried to convict us for public nuisance rather than praise us for trying to stop those emissions. Given the objectivity of existential threat, there were overwhelming grounds to be involved in a plan to cause some disruption to the M25.

In the British law on public nuisance, there is a ‘reasonable excuse’ clause. Science says there is an overwhelming threat to my life, my children, you and your children. To argue there is not a reasonable excuse directly defies the wish of this legislation. Things are happening that cause harm – people are engaged in physical acts to stop that harm – it doesn’t matter whether it’s a protest or not.

As I began to offer up some case law, the judge kept intervening telling me I was “wasting my time” and ordering the jury to disregard me. To illustrate that I was not talking about my motivations but speaking about real necessity, I referred to a famous case over a decision to operate on conjoined twins with the likelihood that one would die. In this dilemma, I quoted the 19th Century principle that the action was necessary if the threat faced was inevitable and irrevocable, that no more should be done than essential, and that it must be proportionate. I argued that there was a “duress of circumstances” including the objective danger I’ve experienced as a farmer unable to grow food, and the global significance of “food insecurity” – a euphemism for famine and starvation.

There has never been a moment in history where ‘necessity’ has been more supported by objective facts – more than 10,000 scientific and peer-reviewed papers, indicating an outcome of mass starvation and death from man-made climate collapse.

In response, Judge Hehir called for an early lunch and dismissed the jury. He turned to me and warned that I wasn't a lawyer and that “this is not the Roger Hallam show”.

He then gave me just 15 more minutes to put forward my “beliefs” - a totally fucking incoherent statement. This isn’t belief - it’s the objective threat of destruction of property and livelihoods of billions of people and the secondary effects of famine i.e. war, rape, and torture.

I outlined four characteristics of the effects of emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere, describing them as easy to understand, but unique to human experience and so horrific that they are impossible to assimilate.

1. They have universal effects – what’s emitted in India affects the USA, a melting Arctic affects Argentina and so on.

2. The ultimate consequence of GHGs in the atmosphere is that you destroy the basis of life – some experts say for 100,000 years, others 50 million, and some say the Earth will simply become like Venus. In other words, for the first time in human history, a group of people, namely a 1% of wealthy elites, are responsible for destroying everything forever.

3. The Earth has reached a 1.5˚C rise in temperature already and at some point in the next decade we’ll have triggered geological tipping points – regardless of any action, we’ll have started unstoppable change. In other words, we don’t have time to not pull that person from in front of the lorry, if we don’t act now it will be too late. Some scientists contend it’s already too late – the UN has said we have two years in which to make radical changes – so we’re not just trying to stop people from doing bad things, but to prevent them from doing bad things which will create badness forever.

4. There is not an insubstantial possibility of entire human extinction as a result of pumping GHGs into the atmosphere, we’re talking about a crime fundamentally different from any other in history. This, I said, is why I want to be able to show the jury expert evidence.

The judge, showing obvious disinterest, told me to wrap up in a few minutes.

Returning to the idea of ‘necessity’, I gave more examples. We agree that if a man pulls a dagger out in a pub and someone else pushes him and disarms him then there would be no question of prosecution.

In Ireland, a cyclist who stopped and intervened when an immigrant was being attacked became a national hero. But what if someone plants a bomb under the table in a pub, set to explode in 30 minutes? If you push him over, grab the bomb and take it out to the police, you wouldn’t be prosecuted, even though the harm you’re trying to prevent is in the future.

And what about those people pulling down houses in the Great Fire Of London? Their action was to try and prevent harm in other parts of London if the fire had spread. So just because something causes damage over a long time or space is irrelevant – it comes down to causality. The fact that emissions will cause damage across the planet for millions of years is not a reason to stop it from coming into court. In fact, the massive extent of the time and space is the very reason it should be in every court.

At this point, the judge sent the jury home, and again scoffed at me for defending myself as an “amateur lawyer” getting “amateur results”.

The next day reminded the courtroom that I was under oath to tell the whole truth and would continue with my evidence. The judge immediately ordered the jury out, and when I continued to declare I was under an obligation to continue, the public gallery was cleared and I was warned he would be arrested if he didn’t return to his seat.

Then three police officers arrived. I said I would not resist, but also would not assist in my own arrest. As they forcibly dragged me towards the prisoner dock I announced to the observing journalists that this was “Democracy in Action” - Nonviolent resistance to a grossly unjust system. This obscene miscarriage of justice happened to me five times throughout the trial. What a fucking indignity.

I received no good reason why I could not tell the jury what is blindingly obvious - that the elite putting carbon in the atmosphere will kill billions.

Without the whole truth, it is not a fair trial.

If thousands of people were going to die further up that motorway, we would have a reasonable excuse to disrupt it. Except it's not further up the motorway - it's everyone, all around us. Humanity, gone forever.

The judge began the next morning by bizarrely reading out my Twitter feed, which alerted my followers to the fact I wasn’t allowed to give my whole defence and called for support for a presence outside the court. But then he moved on to gleefully recounting some of the various trolls – why this was any part of a serious trial, no one could fathom. I was ordered to take them down by lunchtime or I’d be in contempt of court. This is a British judge in 2024.

Meanwhile, the UN special rapporteur for Environmental Defenders, Michel Forst sat in the gallery, watching. He had previously put out a statement on the injustice of our treatment. It states that the UK could be breaking international law on the rights of environmental protesters. A repressed, UN phrase for trying to stop the carbon elite from killing us all.

I stood up and told the jury that after they’d been ejected yesterday, I had been arrested and removed, but that they had a right to hear my evidence. Once again, the judge ordered the jury and forcibly removed me. The UN guy watched as I was dragged away. I was sent to prison and couldn’t hear the rest of the day’s trial.

Afterwards, the judge falsely claimed that I was behind the jury protection campaign, Defend Our Juries, and had ‘conned’ vulnerable people into coming to the court. No evidence was given. Fair, right?

The next day I again explained that blocking motorways has direct effects on society e.g. the farmers’ protests quickly changed EU policy, and road protests held fuel prices down. The judge dismissed this by asking whether the action had any effect on global temperatures and told me to sit down. I stayed standing and the judge just left the courtroom. What the fuck? I even looked to the prosecution for help again against the judge’s incoherent madness.

When he came back, he started quoting his favourite movie, Goodfellas, and asked me “What are you still doing here?”. Then he ordered me arrested and sent to prison, again.

Whilst I was jailed, the judge gave my friends a pathetic 15 minutes each to defend themselves. When they also spoke of the necessity for action against mass death from carbon emissions, the judge ordered them all to be arrested. After this gagging, people began to call us the #WholeTruthFive.

Finally, we came to the prosecution's closing statement, where, I kid you not, they argued that the jury must take direction from the judge, that the rule of law keeps our society free from collapse, and that climate change is irrelevant. I, of course, was dismissed as someone who “waffles about the cause”. Not a cofounder of the most influential climate movements in the world and academic on social change. Show trials are about lies, remember?

In response I gave my final statement, from behind the glass panel of the dock, reminding jurors they must be sure, not almost sure or on the verge of being sure, and that they must consider ALL the evidence and make a decision that they have actually been given all the evidence. I reminded them of the placard in the Old Bailey that confirms they can acquit based on their conscience without having to give an explanation and without any legal repercussions.

There are two elements to the indictment - conspiracy and disruption. The prosecution had presented what they say is ‘powerful evidence’ of involvement in the plan, but this is not the same as ‘conclusive evidence’. I was there to make arguments for action, and not directly involved in actual planning.

What does it say about civil liberties if people are imprisoned for making speeches? I offered an alternative explanation for what happened – that a Murdoch-owned newspaper, the Sun, had a journalist who just wanted to make a film of my arrest and so recorded and leaked the public Zoom meeting to the police.

Let me remind you that for this I have already been to prison for four months in 2022 without a trial and have been tagged with an 11pm curfew ever since.

Even during my closing statement, the judge tried to shut me down but I went on. I argued that I just wanted the jury to hear the defendants for a few hours and to present them with three or four expert witnesses to give the whole evidence.

Of course, I wasn’t allowed to mention the ‘C-word’ but the jury had heard the undisputed facts of existential threats – which between them describe an unimaginable harm lasting tens of thousands of years. I simply asked them to consider doing what many other juries have done, let good people go free when they are persecuted by the state.

This was about facts, not beliefs. Without facts, this is not a ‘functioning democracy’ but a government that is facilitating the destruction and death of our population. That’s why UN people sat in on the trial – because we do NOT have a functioning democratic state. If you go and ask people in the street, many would laugh at the idea that they have a say in how this country is run. Plenty of expert witnesses would come and tell us we live in a capitalist democracy, a democracy for the rich. In other words no kind of democracy at all.

In the end, I said to the jury that if I speak the truth to them I may end up in prison. If the lawyers speak the truth to them they may lose their jobs. If the jury speaks the truth, nothing will happen to them. I begged them to consult their conscience and ask themselves if they were really sure we didn’t have a reasonable excuse.

The result of this kangaroo court?

You have guessed it. The jury representative stood up the next day, and one by one gave guilty verdicts for all of us, all unanimous.

After the verdict, the judge accused me of fraud and ‘grifting’ because my social media post asked for donations towards ‘court fees’. A slight miswording by my friend who writes the posts, as there were no such fees in this trial. But of course, there are massive costs around the whole legal team supporting us and the consequences of going to prison. Please donate towards them at https://t.co/Wa0nZ20WDu.

The judge then slandered me by proposing to the jurors that if I was telling lies to obtain money, I might be telling people other lies, and maybe other protesters outside the court were being told lies. He said one of them had been an elderly man hard of hearing and was worried I was exploiting vulnerable people. The public gallery gasped. The man in question was a retired GP in full possession of his faculties with a keen knowledge of the issues – what an insult, and what baseless accusations.

To top it off, he said I was 'incapable of introspection'. Guess I’ll have plenty of time for that now…

The judge finished his attacks by then personally thanking the jury for not being ‘intimidated’ and said “Well done”. He said he didn’t care what we thought of him. He was just 'doing his job'.

This is the banality of evil all over again.

He claimed our conviction was just a result of our “single issue fanaticism”. Again, no bias there from a judge who is planning to fly off on holiday when @JustStop_Oil are planning to disrupt airports…

Repression is increasing around the world. Amnesty just put out a report on the systematic state attacks on peaceful protest. Look it up.

Either we resist the the carbon elites' repression and build a true democracy, led by ordinary people in Citizen’s Assemblies, or Covid-like, ecological and economic shocks spark chaos and fascism. We've seen it over and over again.

It's time to say never again.

Never again will we let fascism produce a holocaust.

Never again we will fail to tell the whole truth: that we face the greatest holocaust ever known, a worldwide gas chamber of carbon that could kill us all.

Today it was me imprisoned for telling the truth.

Next, it could be you.

Join the resistance at https://t.co/PYjMdWeLBh before it’s too late.

[James Shinfah Wan @jamesjwan]

"#Kenya can have democracy or neocolonial extraction, but not both", writes @FadhelKaboub https://t.co/uFmsISnRr0

[James Shinfah Wan @jamesjwan]

@mattzarb @schneiderhome I can say the exact same, from my years working v closely with James in the Africa journalism world.

Talented and creative of course but also kind, thoughtful, full of integrity. 🫶

[GlennyRodge @GlennyRodge]

“That’s, erm, interesting. Mine? He was the Duke of Edinburgh”.

[Freddie Sayers @freddiesayers]

Votes for Labour in:

2017 (Jeremy Corbyn) — 12,877,918
2019 (Jeremy Corbyn) — 10,269,051
2024 (Keir Starmer) — 9,686,329

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

John Curtice: "Actually, but for the rise of the Labour Party in Scotland... we would be reporting that basically Labours vote has not changed from what it was in 2019"

[Richard Murphy @RichardJMurphy]

This is telling. Labour has not won. The Tories lost and the SNP have lost, whilst Reform and the Greens have won, and the LibDems have been exceedingly organised. But Labour has not won hearts and minds. Not in the slightest.

[James Shinfah Wan @jamesjwan]

"Could the lessons that protesters are learning today...be preparing them for pitched battles with #fossilcapital on the other side of the horizon of current possibilities?" asks @triofrancos, responding to @OlufemiOTaiwo. 🤞https://t.co/3ljuORVdxa