Raakhee Suryaprakash
Climate
negotiations are making news as the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) to
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)gets underway
at Katowice, Poland (Dec 2-14, 2018).Also, the period between November 25th (International
Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) and December 10th (Human
Rights Day) is the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign –
a time to step up efforts and galvanize action to end
violence against women and girls around the world.
One of the key
drivers of this climate conference is getting in place the Paris Rulebook– the
rulebook to implement the Paris Climate Agreement agreed at COP21. With the
Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change (IPCC) report released earlier this year
giving the world just twelve years to cut emissions significantly to prevent
irreversible global warming, it’s essential that the Paris Rulebook be put in
place with nations stepping up their efforts to cut emissions. Global warming
leaves the most vulnerable most at risk – the poor, the indigenous peoples,
women, children, endangered species, coral reefs, etc. Climate action can help curb environmental
drivers of violence against women.
Monster natural
disasters, supersized thanks to climate change, lead to displacement, disease,
violence and war, all conditions that affect the most vulnerable in society
more than others. The People’s Demand for Climate Justice frames
climate action in the lens of social justice and environmental justice. When
intersectionality of climate change and challenges to human security climate
justice and a Just
Transition are needs of the hour.
As climate
negotiations continue and nations bicker over words and Big Oil subtly and
overtly lobbies to maintain the status quo – economies fuelled by fossil fuels
– some positive action taken over the past year by young people, women and
indigenous people helps provide a gleam of hope. Instead of remaining climate
victims women, young people and indigenous communities have emerged as the most
powerful heroes initiating powerful climate action.
From Chipko to
today’s Climate Action, women and indigenous communities have stood up to
exploiters and protected the environment. Vandana Shiva the prominent Indian
environmental activist, who was and key to both the ChipkoMovement of
yesteryears and contributes powerfully to climate action and climate justice
today puts it best when she says, “We
have learnt from the forests. And the forests teaches us diversity, it teaches
us freedom, it teaches us democracy.” Protecting forests and adding to forest
cover and sustaining urban green cover are among the truest climate actions. Forests
and their humus rich soil are the most natural and powerful climate sinks
available to us. Organic farmer and soil
conservation can also exponentially increase natural carbon capture. Through
projects that protect and sustain forests and promotion of organic regenerative
agriculture, forest-dwelling communities, farmers, and indigenous people can be
made stakeholders of climate action and beneficiaries of climate finance. Thus
ensuring climate justice.
As Youth Day
activities and Indigenous Women‘s Day was observed
in the first week of COP24, it makes sense for those on the frontlines of
climate change be given a seat at the table, a voice that is heard, and
opinions and concerns that are taken into account at climate negotiations in
order for the “just transition” to a “fossil fuel free future” to happen
quickly. And the most obvious way to
fund this just transition to a low carbon growth model is to move the money
from war to climate action.For an efficient transition to a world where global
warming is kept under 1.5 degrees, the Paris Rulebook needs to honour the rights
of people not the profits and power of Big Oil. It should includeHuman
Rights, Indigenous People’s Rights, Intergenerational Equality, Just
Transition, Food Security, Gender Equality, Public Participation, Ecosystem
Integrity and Protection of Biodiversity.
The
stories of the people on the frontline of climate change will put a human face
to bland facts and figures in the climate negotiations. Teaching children about
the effects of climate change and getting children and young people in
proposing to solutions climate change and involved in climate adaptation
programmes will add a fillip to environmental studies, climate action and even
sustainable development. Case in point, the many post cards from children
around the world who were taught about climate change, which will go on to form
a massive poster on a glacier in Switzerland is a powerful symbol of the next
generation’s commitment to climate change and concern for climate change.
At a time when the
Global Carbon Project (GCP) report
has found that global carbon emissions are set for an all-time high in 2018,
projected to increase by 2.7 per cent, higher than the 1.6 per cent rise in
2017 efforts to curb emissions needs to happen now.UN climate chief Christiana
Figueres highlighted the urgency, “Global CO2 emissions must start to fall from
2020 if we are to meet the temperature goals of the Paris agreement, but this
is within our grasp. We have already achieved things that seemed unimaginable
just a decade ago.”
Human activities
on land and deforestation contributed to an additional 5 billion tonnes of carbondioxide
this year. Emissions from the transport sector and automobiles using fossil
fuels have also continued to rise. Fossil fuels remain the mainstay of power
grids globally. When taxes are imposed on fossil fuels, riots break out as seen
in the City of Lights and Love, Paris becoming the city of riots and rampage
this past week. This is mainly because stop gap taxes are imposed instead of
facilitating change that does not burden the people but justly taxes
corporations.
Corporations
continue to plunder resources with impunity for profits with no thought to
people and planet and the governments are seen complicit with them, as they and
their rich leaders benefit from massive tax breaks even as the common person is
taxed for using the car or filling its tanks with fossil fuels.
Environmentalists have urged governments to bring forward targets to ban the
sale of all petrol and diesel vehicles, but before that public transport needs
to be green and enhanced to cater to the needs of people – e.g., Luxembourg
becomes the first country to make all its public transport free.
Electric
vehicle policies need to be put in place like in Norway,
with electric vehicle sales incentivized and petrol and diesel vehicles taxed.
In the context of the developing world and to avoid overconsumption,
conversions of fuel cars to hybrid or electric mode needs to be promoted as
well. This could yield green jobs and help fuel a truly just transition.
The needs,
voices and efforts of women, young people and indigenous communities need to be
front and centre in the road to an anthropogenic climate change–free world.
