Members of the WECAN delegation and allies present during the COP21 climate negotiations in Paris, France. Pictured left to right: Casey Camp Horinek (Ponca Nation leader, Indigenous Environmental Network representative, WECAN Special Projects Advisor) and Neema Namadamu (WECAN DR Congo Coordinator)
On December 12, 2015, representatives from 195 countries finalized the Paris Climate Accord, a historic document hailed as the most ambitious ever international plan for action on climate change. Today, Earth Day, April 22, 2016, more than 160 nations are gathered at the United Nations in New York City to officially sign the agreement and initiate domestic ratification processes.
The US and China, collectively responsible for over 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, have released statements vowing to sign the Paris Accord. The Accord will take effect when 55 nations representing at least 55% of global emissions have completed both the official signing and national ratification process.
On the streets in Paris, France during COP21 highlighting the power of the growing people’s movement for climate justice.
The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network recognizes the immense effort in the drafting and adoption of this historic document, and is invigorated by the critical global unity displayed in its creation. We celebrate world governments reaching for an aspirational target of no more than 1.5 degree Celsius temperature rise, noting that it was the pressure of civil society that ensured this critical target, and that it will be the power of people that will keep governments feet to the fire as we move forward towards this goal.
We recognize however, that for all of its historic strides, the Paris Accord is wholly insufficient given the urgency and the scale of the environmental and social devastation with which we are faced.
It is an agreement that rests on non-binding commitments, that skirts around historic responsibility, and which relies upon carbon markets and techno-fixes which will ultimately only push the Earth further towards climate crisis through dependence on destructive extractive economies. It is an agreement void of any direct mention of fossil fuels, despite clear scientific data that 84% of remaining fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
In choosing to continue down the path of economic disparity and commodification of nature, our world governments fail to see the stark reality of the climate crisis – a crisis that can only be addressed through confronting and transforming the systemic injustices of our political, social and economic systems from the ground, up.
The change that we seeks requires fundamental respect for human rights, Indigenous rights, women’s rights, rights of Mother Earth, and the rights of all generations to come – and these aspects are all missing from the binding section of the Paris Agreement.
The math of the Accord simply does not add up – we remain on a path towards a 3.2 to 3.7 degree global temperature rise. From where women stand on the frontlines, in the streets, in the homes, in the forests, on the farms, on the edges of the rising seas – we know that this is not a future that we can or will accept.
Today and everyday, we the people must speak up and take action without fail, pushing to ensure that our governments raise the bar and enact much more ambitious national policies, just action plans and strong Paris Agreement commitments.
Simultaneously, we must organize, reclaim our community power, and continue actively building the world that we envision, in resistance to the economic, social, and political institutions that refuse to break with the status quo.
We must continue to bring the voices of women to the forefront, acknowledging that they are at once both the most severely impacted by climate change, and also the key to just climate solutions, community strength and a living, thriving future.
Our work, the work that will define our time and the lives of generations to come, has just begun – and we have only a short window of time for meaningful action. We as a peoples movement must rise up like the immune system of the Earth herself, demanding just, decentralized and democratic systems, fighting false climate solutions, and actively building the world that we seek.
Press and media requests: emily@wecaninternational.org