After two weeks on the ground in Paris working inside and outside of COP21 climate negotiations – the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network has released the following statement in response to the adoption of the final Paris climate accord:
“The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network delegation has just returned from an intense, inspiring and moving two weeks on the ground in Paris during COP21 climate negotiations. We come home with hope derived from the epic efforts of the climate justice movement, and with a deepened sense of the great work ahead.
In Paris, world governments from 195 nations signed onto an unprecedented global climate agreement. WECAN acknowledges the groundbreaking effort, which sends critical signals around the end of the fossil fuel era – however we must be very real about what the agreement is not.
Countries have agreed to aim for a temperature rise below the 2 degree level and included 1.5 degrees as an aspirational target, however thus far there are not nearly sufficient carbon emission reduction commitments, legal and financial mechanisms and resources needed to achieve this. Due to the level of urgency for the most vulnerable communities, we find this type of vague commitment simply unacceptable – we are talking about life and death circumstances for frontline communities.
Our goal during COP21, alongside many allies, was to advocate for climate justice and systemic change. Important strides were made – however it is clear that the Paris accord fails to address the root causes of the climate crisis and the structures of injustice that perpetuate it.
The operative text of the Agreement fails to uphold Indigenous rights and human rights – and allows major polluters to continue to skirt around their historic responsibilities. Gender equality is upheld in some sections of the Agreement, but not nearly enough considering the impacts of climate change that are already being experienced by women worldwide and the leadership role and solutions that women are already implementing. Governments are not held to leaving 80% of fossil fuel reserves in the ground, despite clear messages from scientists that this is what must happen.
We cannot continue business as usual, nor promote and implement the false solutions (carbon offsets, carbon-trading, geo-engineering, nuclear) that the agreement perpetuates. Instead, we must put people and planet first and now demand that our governments really rise to their claimed 1.5 goal with genuine and just solutions.
The good news coming out of Paris is that people around the world are standing up boldly and calling forth the healthy, just future that we are envisioning together. The climate justice movement made an impact in pushing governments to act more ambitiously then they would have and has been vibrantly displayed in Paris, with major actions on the streets with tens of thousands of people, hundreds of events, assemblies, concerts and educational workshops all focused on just climate solutions. People’s movements are where power and hope lies as we move forward. And move forward we will!
We return home more dedicated than ever to care for our Mother Earth, all generations and all species.” – Osprey Orielle Lake, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network Executive Director
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The Women and Gender Constituency, with whom WECAN stands in solidarity, has also released a powerful reaction, copied below. Click here to view the original text on the Women and Gender Constituency webpage.
A Reality Check on the Paris Agreement from the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC) 12 December 2015 As the Women and Gender Constituency we came to this process asking one question: what is the purpose of a global climate agreement if not to save people and the planet?
We see that the world wants hope, that we want to congratulate ourselves for moving forward with this process, but leaders, we are here for a reality check. This agreement fundamentally does not address the needs of the most vulnerable countries, communities and people of the world. It fails to address the structures of injustice and inequality which have caused the climate crisis and hold the historical polluters sufficiently to account.
We know that climate change is the greatest threat to rights in our time, and we know that women often bear the brunt of these impacts. We have made progress under this Convention in understanding and responding to the gendered impacts of climate change in the last few years. We believe that operational language on gender equality, alongside other fundamental rights, in Article 2, defining the purpose of the agreement, would have gone far to ensure that all forthcoming climate actions take into account the rights, needs and perspectives of women and men and encourage women’s full and equal participation in decision-making. This was the moment to set the right path, the just path for climate action.
Critical issues like clear emission reductions without offsetting and misleading market approaches; ensuring the quality of technologies which should be safe and socially and environmentally sound; the quality of and a goal for scaling up adequate and predictable, largely public finance; the responsibilities of developed countries to take the lead, the responsibility to protect people’s rights and our ecosystems, have been either surgically removed throughout the text or lack specificity. That we are not protecting food security but instead are protecting food production – and the business interests that have lobbied hard in our home countries – is a clear indication that only certain segments of our population are meant to be served by this agreement.
Governments maintained their commitment to corporations over people and signaled opportunities for profit to be made from crisis.
We know we need to stay below 1.5 degrees for a chance at survival, and we recognize the importance of seeing this goal in the final Paris Agreement. But seeing this goal on paper is not enough. We demand it in actions as the proof of the full commitment to that goal, not a vague aspiration. If not significantly ramped up, countries’ collective emissions plans lead us to the prospect of a 3.2 – 3.7 degree rise.
Furthermore, the Paris Agreement served to undermine the concept of international solidarity – a founding principle of the UN that requires differentiation amongst states in a way that should lead to redistribution and shared prosperity.
It is clear that in Paris we have not found the political will to make the Paris Agreement the platform the world truly needs to tackle this urgent challenge.
We will not be silenced from telling the truth to power, to highlight the lack of ambition and injustice in this agreement. We will never give up on our beautiful planet. We will never give up on our demand for climate justice.
This agreement has failed to embrace and respond to this moment for urgent and just transitions, but we have not. We have used this space of international policy-making to raise our voices and embolden our movements.
Together, we will continue to challenge injustice for the protection of the people and the planet: Another world is possible!
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