Category: COP28

“Environmental defenders are forgotten by COP.”

David Munene, the Programs Manager of the Catholic Youth Network for Environmental Sustainability in Africa opens this panel discussion with these harrowing words in a room where many of those forgotten sit. 

Let me set the scene for you some. I am at one of the many COP28 side events where  panel discussions of any and all topics relating to the environment take place. While I specifically chose to go to this event, I couldn’t have expected the impact it would have on me and how grateful I will continue to be to have been in that space. The event, “Youth Rising in Solidarity for Environmental Defenders and Safeguarding Lives, Nature and the Future”  was a storytelling event that shared lived experiences of a few youth environmental defenders. According to the UN, environmental defenders are “individuals and groups who, in their personal or professional capacity and in a peaceful manner, strive to protect and promote human rights relating to the environment, including water, air, land, flora and fauna.”

“They offer you protection where there is none to be offered.”, Munene says in his introduction.

As you can see from the above photos, the panel chairs at the front of the room were empty. Unlike every other panel event I went to all the panelists were scattered throughout the audience seats. It was made clear by the event hosts that speakers should be at the same level of the audience, not above them. Wow. It is easy to forget the hierarchical and authoritative practices that seem to weave throughout almost everything we do. But this emphasis on having all individuals on the same footing begins to show you the extreme power this room holds to unravel the institutions that seek to destroy them. There were five speakers in total and I will highlight some of their stories. 

Nansedalia Ramirez is a youth leader from Mexico. She says that her and her community have suffered due to mining and hydropower.  Her home is among the forests. Her home is being logged and destroyed, and due to her activism she has faced several threats.

“As youth, we want to unite our voice, voices who can’t be heard, who are putting their lives in danger on a daily basis.” – Nansedalia Ramirez

“A young girl is being threatened for carrying the heart of the community.” – David Munene

Nidia’s family was forcefully displaced due to hydropower infrastructure in 1974. She wasn’t able to learn her own language. Her people lost their traditions, their dances, their culture, their food sovereignty. Her organization works to recover everything they lost. It was from her father that she inherited this fight and fighting spirit. Her father had been imprisoned due to his activism and his fight for his people’s rights and land tenure. She hopes to convince other youth to also continue this fight and to fight for their ancestors. 

“Someone will publish a language that was lost…How do you discover a language that was lost?” -David Munene

Munene then ends with asking a woman named Annabelle to come up to the front to play violin for an “intermission” to “heal the soul.” The song is called “The End of the World”.   

The last speaker I will highlight and the last of the speakers was Ina-Maria. She is from Namibia but was born in exile in Angola during the liberation struggle against South African apartheid occupation in Namibia. Her father, a commander, was killed in the war from a car bomb. She grew up in a refugee camp for a few years before being displaced to the former East Germany in 1985. This is why she speaks German as well now. Growing up in East Germany, she was told to fight capitalism from a young age, something she still holds in her heart now.

After 1990, she returned home to Namibia but notes that she “never really felt at home”. She was too black for the White elite in Namibia but too white for Black people there. 

She found her passion in fashion design, but knew that she could not work in the fashion industry. She could not look past the industry’s exploration of the environment and of people, so she found her calling in community work.

In 2020, a Canadian company was going to begin fracking for oil and gas in the Kavango Basin. She felt betrayed. The actual people living there, never benefited or gained anything from the war. And since independence, the government has been captured more and more by corporate powers.

“But for me, you are not going to touch the Kavango. That is our homeland.”

Namibia is a very dry country, the Kavango delta is the only place they can grow food. It is the home to several endangered species. But it is also home of the first nations, to the San people. They are hunter gatherers who depend on their land. 

Since many knew of her father and many of the kids that were exiled have become part of the elite community, she actually got a call from the Secretary General of the ruling party (who was actually her neighbor and someone she thought of as a friend before) to intimidate her from her activism. Unfortunately it did not stop there. After organizing a protest where they went to an UNESCO office, since the basin is an UNESCO heritage site, a PR person from UNESCO used their profile to get information about Ina Maria. This was a further attempt to intimidate and silence her and her efforts.   

This Canadian company did zero community engagement early on. Without a newspaper article that came out about the fracking, no one in the community would have known. So when they were finally forced to start doing community engagement, Ina Maria went to one of the events. She asked them about their lack of community engagement, putting them on the spot. On her way out, she was approached by two police officers. They wanted to arrest her for causing a disturbance. She said she didn’t know how she got the strength, but she pulled out her phone and started filming them and told them to leave her alone. They got so scared that they let her go. But this was just a start, unfortunately. At COP26 she was chased and intimidated. She was able to speak before Greta Thunberg spoke, and was able to raise awareness about the campaign. After the conferences she had to stay behind for several weeks to do security training and other security measures. Even when she goes to a club or a restaurant she sees people taking photos of her that she knows are part of the oil industry. This happened that week as well during COP28. But no matter the threat and the difficulty, she is not afraid. 

“Fear is not something in our hearts. I don’t even know what fear is. I just know I have to defend my homeland. There is space for a better world.”

Annabelle is then invited back up and is asked to also introduce herself. She is a young woman from Hong Kong who uses music to spread the message about climate change. “Music is always a tool to inspire, to empower people.”

Her second and final song is titled “Heal The World”.

“This event shows me why I am here.” – a man from west Papua says about COP when the floor is opened up for anyone to speak. 

Munene ends the panel part, reminding everyone to “Now give names to environmental defenders…they are not just a statistic”, and to “call out their names when we need courage.” Environmental defenders; “they are just like you and I, but they are not afraid.” Fear isn’t in the vocabulary of environmental defenders. They knowingly put their lives in danger everyday fighting for the environment and the people. But they cannot stop, because if they dont fight, then who will fight for them? They continue to fight after seeing their land destroyed and threatened over and over again. But they prove their immense power and ability to organize, and protect the people and land over and over again. 

For the last five minutes of the event, everyone is asked to stand up and to hold hands with the person to your left and right. We all end up in a big circle of sorts and are led through a spoken meditation. We are all reminded once again of the power love holds in all of us. To use love in our fight and let it flow throughout us as we go into the world. I close my eyes and take in all the feelings and emotions I have felt and seen today. It’s truly beautiful. I may not know the two people I am holding hands with nor all the people in the room personally, but I do know we all hold the same love and want to protect. I leave the room with nothing but hope.

By: Emmy Li’25 (she/her)

For the second year in a row, the Swarthmore delegation attended the People’s Plenary, a large gathering of civil society representatives making their voices and demands heard. Similar to COP27, this event was nowhere to be found on the UNFCCC COP28 Daily Programme schedule despite being an official UN sanctioned event. However, after learning of it in group chats, we officially marked it on our calendars and excitedly attended. 

The People’s Plenary, by far, did not disappoint. After spending nearly two weeks sitting in on stalled negotiations or witnessing the constant greenwashing around the venue, it was rejuvenating to hear the voices of those fighting climate change on the frontlines. Representatives from Indigenous Peoples, youth, women and gender constituencies, environmental NGOs, trade unions, and farmers all came together to give impassioned speeches calling for real climate solutions – ones that recognize Indigenous rights, labor rights, land rights, and human dignity. Hearing their voices gave me hope that we will find real solutions to combat climate change. That eventual fossil fuel phase out is possible despite parties blocking it from happening in negotiations currently. 

A noticeable theme across speeches at the People’s Plenary this year was a calling for the immediate ceasefire in Palestine. During the opening speech, the co-chair started by stating that she is from Palestine. Immediately, the whole room erupted into cheers of support and solidarity that continued for more than a minute. The calls for solidarity with Palestinians continued throughout the People’s Plenary, despite the regulations put in place by the UNFCCC Secretariat. I later learned from an organizer with the Climate Action Network (CAN) Australia that protests at COP28 are all strictly approved, controlled, and enforced. In regards to support for Palestine, protestors are not allowed to mention Palestine by name (despite the State of Palestine having a designated pavilion), cannot chant “From the River to the Sea,” and can only call for a “Ceasefire” but NOT “Ceasefire Now”. If protestors violate these restrictions, they risk having their badge taken away and being barred from attending COPs in the future. Despite these restrictions, those who spoke at the People’s Plenary asserted their voices to echo the overall theme that “there is no climate justice without human rights.” 

Given the various moving speeches, I would like to take the rest of this blog post and dedicate it to sharing the voice of the people. Representatives from all across the globe emphasized their extreme frustration with the existing UNFCCC system, a need for a just transition, and an overhaul of the existing capitalist, exploitative system that causes marginalized BIPOC communities to suffer the most at the hands of rich countries in the Global North.

From the Co-Chairs of the People’s Plenary:

• “There is no climate justice, without human rights” 
• “Ceasefire Now!” 
• “What has Palestine got to do with climate change? It has everything to do with climate change! It is the very same system that is responsible for climate change and colonialism.”

From the Representatives of the Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPO) Constituency: 

• “I am the water and the water is me. I am the fire and the fire is me. I am the air and the air is me. I am the earth and the earth is me.” 
• “You cannot put a price on humanity and nature.”
• “Earth, air, fire, water show no prejudice. Greed, greed created that.”
• “We are the regions [Global South] that have the most killings just because we defend our lands.”
• “When they talk about nature based solutions, we are part of the relationship with nature to engage in activities. We are the solutions.”
• “We should stop commodifying indigenous territories, Indigenous lands. We are not an economic resource for the system and we will fight towards the end.”
• “We are not here as passive observers, but experts, custodians of knowledge.” 

From the Representatives of the Youth (YOUNGO): 

• Naomi, a 13 year old girl from South Sudan:
  • “I come from a country where children’s rights are being deprived because of flooding.”
  • “We’ve attended 28 COPs but nothing has been implemented from what we speak.” 
  • “If there was action, children wouldn’t die in rural areas, there wouldn’t be hunger in places.”
• Roa, a youth from Sudan:
  • “An error does not become a mistake until we refuse to correct it.”
  • “If we don’t work together to save the environment, we will be equally extinct.”

From the Representatives of Trade Unions (TUNGO):

• Joy Hernandez, a trade union worker in the Philippines:
  • “There is no just transition without labor rights.”
  • ”A just transition must be an opportunity to uphold our dignity.”
• Bert Del Wel, the head of TUNGO:
  • “A just transition is about solidarity and justice. It’s about a decent life and jobs for everyone and everywhere. It’s about justice in and for Palestine. It’s about cooperation and support for equality and protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples.” 
  • “We need organized workers. We need collective bargaining, social dialogue, and a social protection system to deliver this climate justice.” 

From the Representatives of FARMERS Constituency: 

• “We need protection of land rights, because land is the fundamental source of life.”
• “How many people at this COP talk about land as the source of everything we need. They talk about markets. They talk about oil. They talk about money. Yet land is where we are rooted.”
• “The agribusinesses that are here today trying to say that they provide the solutions to feeding the planet in the place of increasing climate chaos are not the ones providing the real solutions. The small scale farmers are.”
• “They thought they could bury us, but they didn’t know that we were seeds. And that’s exactly what small scale farmers do. They provide the seeds of the future. When you bury us, we will grow.”

From the Representatives of the Women and Gender Constituency: 

• “There cannot be climate justice on occupied land.” 
• “The elephant in the room is demilitarization.” 
• “We are tired of being your bargaining chips.”
• “We call resistance. [Repeated in Arabic]. We call liberation. [Repeated in Arabic]. We call equity. [Repeated in Arabic].”
• “The silence and global north organization in positions of power is unbearable. The limitations on freedom of speech imposed in this space by the UNFCCC are left on the shoulders of the civil society movement is unacceptable and beyond paid for.“

From a Representative of an organization to demand climate justice: 

• “La tierra no se vende, la tierra se defiende.” 
• “Nobody is free until everybody is free.”

From the Representatives of Environmental NGOs (ENGO) Constituency: 

• Tasmeen Essop, director of Climate Action Network and from South Africa:
  • “The governments today are disappointing us and our Palestinians. But it’s the people across the world that are rising up and standing with Palestinians. That is our power. We will not let down our brother and sisters in Palestine, just like we did let down the people in South Africa”
• Speaker 2: Male representative from the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice:
  • “Their broken promises on climate finance, on equity, and on justice litter 28 COPs. Their empty words no longer fool anyone. But our fight has never simply been about reducing carbon. Our fight has always been about ending injustice and inequity.”
  • “Our goal is to uproot this rotten system and injustice of 500 years of exploitation and extraction.”
  • “Our fight is not just about a just transition.  We want a justice transition. Our fight is a fight for humanity.”
  • “Yes, we say ceasefire now. Yes, we say end the occupation….And yes, we say we want an end to this rotten system. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!” 

As the People’s Plenary concluded, the collective call for climate justice continued to echo through the halls of COP. We all marched out of the plenary led by youth activists to a climate parody of the Backstreet Boys’ song “I Want It That Way.” I hope that seeing, reading, and hearing these activists make you feel as empowered as I do for the future of climate action.

By: Ethan Weiss ’25 (he/him) and Emmy Li ’25 (she/her)

Hi everyone!  While we come to you rather late into the process of this year’s Conference of Parties, we would like to share our thoughts, reflections, and ideas as we wrap up week one of COP28 Dubai.  For those that are not familiar with the UNFCCC and COP, we will do our best to explain!  The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change operates as the international body upon which climate policies are negotiated and adopted.  The Conference of Parties (COP) is an annual two-week convention where all representatives come to ‘finalize’ the year’s worth of smaller discussions into larger bodies of work.  These smaller discussions occur in cities like Bonn, Germany, and New York City, USA, to build negotiations upon previous meetings, set agendas moving forward, and build slowly toward the culminating work that occurs at COP.  While COP is the big summit of this work, it is not just an event.  It is very much a process.  Hannah’s post from earlier last week does a great job explaining this more!

This year, COP28 is characterized by a unique level of controversy due to its host nation.  Dubai is a state (emirate) inside one of the UAE, one of the world’s largest oil exporting countries.  Until very recently, the UAE’s economy has been based solely on its fossil fuel industry.  Development as a world wonder and shifts in investment toward sustainable systems have backed the UAE’s aspirations to be a role model for climate action.  That being said, they still export industry-leading amounts of oil with no plans to stop.

Days before the conference’s official start, the BBC released an investigative report outlining leaked memos that indicate the UAE’s intention of creating new oil deals during the COP’s proceedings. COP President Sultan al-Jaber had long faced criticism for his conflicts of interest as the head of a state-run oil company.  A main agenda piece of COP is solidifying commitments to alternatives to fossil fuels and shifting toward a renewable future.  If the leadership is entrenched in the industry that their conference seeks to absolve, how can they effectively fulfill their responsibility?

These thoughts remain at the forefront of our approach here in Dubai.  Week One consisted of a mix of attending negotiation sessions, protests, and side events in a venue that seems to purposefully isolate these avenues of engagement.  While the locations of these conversations are widely spread, the seemingly constant presence of fossil fuel private sector representatives trips our internal alarms.  Save for the party-only negotiations and informal consultations, there have been executives, representatives, or lobbyists for  pollutive industries at every single event we’ve attended.  This ubiquity is not just anecdotal.  The Associated Press counts a record-setting 1,300 oil representatives registered in attendance at this year’s COP.  This is triple the number from last year at COP27 Sharm-el-Sheikh.  Expo City’s blue zone layout includes one-hundred buildings, which breaks down to an average of thirteen representatives per location.

Hey everyone, Ethan here.  My interests lay primarily within the realm of carbon markets.  Such markets exist at different scales.  Under the UNFCCC, Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement addresses a forthcoming framework for an international carbon exchange scheme.  There are also voluntary carbon markets (VCM), country- and state-specific compliance markets (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and California Air Resources Board (CARB)), and union-level markets such as the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme.  Discussions over non-Article 6.4 matters have occurred at side events in the form of panel discussions.  These panels on voluntary carbon markets have all had a mix of independent research leaders, institutional representatives, and our ever-present fossil fuel lobby.  Their contributions (as our title suggests) are rooted in idealism that lacks substantive backing.  An American oil executive was a panelist at the opening remarks for the thematic day on methane reductions where, upon first opportunity to speak, the conversation shifted to self-congratulatory remarks on their recognition of the need to abate methane emissions.  Their commitments reduce methane, but not GHG emissions overall.  Their comments are framed as “we should” or “we must” in reference to changing fossil fuel dependency.  Their action smells distinctly of self-preservation.

Those that are on the side of creating offset solutions for voluntary carbon markets are at fault as well.  One panel discussion, entitled “The Science Behind Carbon Markets,” was composed of two independent research representatives, a state environmental manager, and two forestry-based offset project firms.  These two private-sector project developers spoke to the successes of their companies and the great potential of carbon sinking in creating forests.  Items left unmentioned by any panelist were the fact that an estimated 80% of carbon offsets from forestry projects are either non-additional, reversed, or leaked to other areas.  Pervasively low prices that do not reflect social costs of carbon were also omitted from the conversation.  With the voluntary carbon market already under great duress from lack of confidence by investors, representing this topic with individuals from projects with arguably the least integrity is not only unhelpful, it’s embarrassing.  Members from a previous panel spoke to the end-goal of uniting voluntary offset projects under a set of identified best-practices such that their contributions would be recognized by international regulatory markets.  If this truly is the anticipated route, someone needs to tell these folks.

Hi! Emmy taking over!  Looking beyond the carbon markets, panels directly engaging in discussions with private sector banking executives do not seem to offer any more hope either.  These executives continue speaking to what should be done rather than what they are doing to fulfill these needs. In an event titled, “Accelerating Private Capital into Nature-based Solution Projects: a multi-stakeholder collaboration approach” in the Capacity Building Hub as part of Private Sector Finance Capacities Day, the speakers from various banks such as Barclays and HSBC came together to discuss how to channel more private capital funding into nature based solution (NbS for short) projects, specifically exploring the Mangrove Breakthrough Initiative created at COP27. However, once again, instead of explaining the process to de-risk the environment to encourage more private sector financing, the panelists focused more on highlighting how the current market into investing into NbS projects does not exist and will likely struggle to exist in the future as projects are not “bankable” in size, in addition to country scope issues. As I walked away from this panel, I was left with a more pessimistic view and one big question as to how to scale up private sector financing: if everyone thinks that private sector financing is supposed to facilitate early activity, where does talk stop being just talk?

We hope that as the conference moves into Week Two, more substantive answers will arise.  Side events seem to take a back seat to the larger negotiations with the shortening timeline, though we will be keeping a keen eye on the contributions of private sector speakers around the conference.  Perhaps their language will become more specific if the higher-level negotiations begin to settle on debates surrounding Paris Articles 6.2, 6.4, and 6.8.  We look forward to keeping track of these discussions.

Till next time,

Ethan and Emmy

Today, the Swarthmore delegation embarked on it’s first day at COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates!

COP28, which officially kicked off on November 30, 2023, stands for the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Sounds simple, right? In reality, it’s incredibly complex, with this title actually referring to negotiations on multiple international climate agreements happening in parallel to each other.

The Swarthmore delegation is attending COP28 with observer badges – a designation that provides the opportunity for those outside of party delegations to essentially observe the negotiations. While this also sounds pretty simple, observers have valuable roles to play in transparency, advocating for certain outcomes, and bringing innovative research and ideas to the table. During the next 12 days, we’ll be navigating the complexity of COP28 to engage on a wide variety of topics and share what we are learn. Check out our first impressions and what we’re looking forward to below. Follow along on this blog for updates from our delegation!

First impressions:

Oviya Kumaran (’24)
“You are able to experience and see so many different aspects of the world of climate action. I got to sit in informal meetings relating to the Green Climate fund and gender and climate change but also attend a panel on the intersectional climate action being done by local communities and indigenous community leaders . Everyone is truly represented in the climate world.”

Emmy Li (’25)
“I am extremely grateful to be a part of Swarthmore’s delegation to COP28 this year! COP is the largest annual climate change conference, and after the first day, it’s been very inspiring to be surrounded by over 70,000+ people who are all passionate about solving the climate crisis. In addition to attending negotiation meetings on the Santiago Network and the Green Climate Fund, I attended a side event titled “Operationalizing the Loss and Damage Fund with Equity and Efficacy” and explored a few country’s pavilions (Palau, China, EU, and Nigeria). Overall, I’ve noticed that while negotiations may progress at a very slow pace, it’s been super rewarding to engage in conversations with fellow attendees to learn more about their background experiences and passions.”

Hannah Ulloa (Climate Action Manager)
“COP is this massive convergence of people and ideas. At first glance, you might think you are witnessing a two-week event with a set beginning and end. But really it’s a culmination of months, even years, of work to move forward on international climate agreements. Every COP builds upon the last, just as every meeting or event you attend while there builds upon the previous one. It’s a fascinating process to follow and incredibly valuable context to discuss climate action on any scale.”

Looking ahead:

Ethan Weiss (’24/25)
“The negotiations that take place over how to proceed with existing protocols, namely Kyoto and Paris, take place across multiple scheduled events that cause pauses in conversation. Such pauses slow the process of mending agreements, though this makes sense given the need for group consensus. Chatting with other observes and folks in the Green Zone has been just as informative as meetings in the Blue Zone, so I look forward to the rest of my time in both!”

Emmy Li
“Throughout the next two weeks, I am most interested in following negotiations and events surrounding climate finance, specifically looking at scaling up finance from all stakeholders from public, private, and multilateral channels for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damages. It’ll be particularly interesting to see how the details shake out with the L&D fund (such as whether more pledges come in), considering that it was officially operationalized on the first day at COP28.”

Oviya Kumaran
“I’m looking forward to topics related to a just transition, aviation, carbon offsets, the global stocktake, and the role of indigenous groups.”