Civil society members from across the world, including from the Africa Make Big Polluters Pay (MBPP), have held a People’s Plenary themed “Pay Up, Stand Up: Finance Climate Action, Not Genocide” at the COP29 United Nations climate talks which ends Friday, 22 November 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Speaking with one voice, they shared their pain at and condemned incidents of injustice perpetrated by the Global North, including neocolonialism, genocide, and the excessive appetite of Western civilisation for fossil fuels. They affirmed their resolve to stand together to fight for a better world.
The plenary featured climate activists from indigenous communities, women groups, labour unions, and people with disabilities, among others from both the Global South and North, who affirmed their resolve to stand together for a more equitable world.
Gathered in the Caspian Plenary Hall, just outside negotiation rooms in which world leaders failed to hammer out an acceptable global climate finance deal, they displayed and read out the names of Palestinians who have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon, the civil war in Sudan and also demanded an end to ecocide worldwide.
After almost two weeks of negotiations, and despite COP29 being referred to as the “Finance COP,” countries of the Global North and South are in disagreement about virtually all aspects of climate finance, including an acceptable total amount – the Global South wants $5 trillion yearly – to forms of funding, donors and recipients.
Linking the climate crisis to the crisis in her home country, Lebanese activist Baturi Nuru Habin said: “There’s no climate justice with blood on our hands.”
Christina Chock, who spoke on behalf of the indigenous peoples, said: “We call for the end of inequality and injustice that has allowed for the rich to become richer and the dominant economic systems to destroy our planet. The future belongs to us as indigenous people. We gather here to amplify our voices for our mother earth and our children. We have travelled from distant lands of the seven geographic regions to say to this world that there will be nothing about us, without us.”
Anna Bohushenko of Climate Action Network Eastern Europe and Central Asia, added: “We will not stop fighting, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”
The session ended with activists pledging to “Stand in solidarity with those facing genocide and stop our governments’ complicity in arming and fuelling genocide.
“Continue fighting for the $5 trillion per annum climate debt owed by the Global North to the Global South and commit to pushing our governments to deliver an ambitious grant-based climate finance outcome at this COP29 for real solutions that serve justice.
“Commit to fighting for the right of everyone to live with dignity and in harmony with the planet, through a vision of a better world” and “continue to build and use the collective power of our movement of movements, to mobilise and act in support of each other both inside and outside of climate movement.”