COP28 organizing & other important moments for Climate Justice in 2023

There are a lot of events and moments of organizing happening in 2023 beyond the COP28. The COP28 is however an entry point for understanding the demands of the climate justice movement. In this short series of conversations hosted by the Climate Justice Initiative, we will center the voices of movements and funders in understanding upcoming organizing moments to ensure philanthropy is best equipped to move money in their support.

If you would like to be part of these kinds of conversations and learn in community, become an EDGE member!

Who is this for? 

This is for Funders who are looking to move their money towards towards Just Transition and Climate Justice in a way that aligns with what movements needs and priorities. This is also for movements to to see what other movements are prioritizing to enable movement-movement collaboration and intersectionality.

If anything especially resonates from the text below that you would like to know more about or connect to someone around, reach out to Hana.

Session 3: COP28 Policy Priorities, False Solutions and Events

November 21st, 2023

In this third meeting, we focused on COP28 happening in less than a week. Below are some key ideas discussed, resources and the recording.

Notes from the conversation

Equity and Differentiated Responsibility: The Collective Quantified Goal and Loss & Damage
  • 55% of all new fossil fuel expansion is by the 5 biggest richest developed countries US, UK, Australia, Canada and in the EU..
  • The collective quantified goal on financing is meant to be a goal that comes into play in 2025 so the decision has to be made by 2024. Discussions are still ongoing and developing countries are saying it should be based on need.
  • The UNF did a calculation where they looked at 30% of the developing country’s needs and calculated that it would be between 5 and 11 trillion dollars but developed countries are refuting the number.
  • Considering that there are US elections next year, the current administration is extra reluctant to make any financial promises.
  • Loss and damage was the big success of last year as conversations moved forward. This year has been taken up by where the funds will sit. An agreement has been reached on a compromise that the fund would sit at the World Bank at least for the next 4 years and then would be evaluated. It wouldn’t be governed by the World Bank.
  • There are still debates by developed countries arguing that all countries should contribute to the loss and damage fund. But due to historical responsibility, developing countries are pushing for the obligation to be on developed countries and for contribution to be optional for developing countries.
  • The U.S.A. particularly wants developed countries’ contributions to be all voluntary but according to the Paris Agreement, they are actually mandated as developed countries to provide financing. This is the constant fight at COP, to make sure mandates are not weakened.
  • Lack on agreement on financial responsibility affects other points of discussion. Developed countries for example do not work towards the adaptation goal since that would entail financial implications on them.
Carbon Reduction, Carbon Offsetting and Geo-engineering: False Solution
  • The focus of the global stocktake will be about every country adopting a net 0 target and then looking at the means to achieve that, which has 2 priorities: carbon markets and geo-engineering
  • There is a quite aggressive push for a new carbon market as to not make any carbon reductions but appear as they are taking some measure. And that is the umbrella of this concept of net 0 because instead of going to 0, it’s about accountability: we can increase emissions if we compensate them. So in reality for them it is very practical because it’s a new business. So they don’t reduce anything, they increase their emissions and they make a new business of taking them away.
  • There will be discussion on mechanisms for a new carbon markets that will accept new sources of carbon credits under article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The article is basically about how to not reduce but to trade emissions. Article 6.2 is about how to trade emissions among countries.
  • Article 6.4 is about a new current market and this carbon market being considered which talks about different kinds of compensations but also a series of dangerous technologies to capture carbon including marine geo engineering technologies and land based geo-engineering technologies.
  • Almost 95% of these technologies are unproven and can even consumes more fossil fuels than it captures.
  • Artificially fertilizing massive algae plantations in the oceans to capture carbon will have lots of impacts not only on the environment but also on coastal communities.
  • Offsetting and capturing carbon schemes are being pushed by the UAE like the company Blue Horizon  which land grabs in Africa.
  • Philanthropy needs to be against carbon markets and not fund any projects solidifying that narrative.
Tripling Renewable Energy, a Main Target
  • Developing countries are pushing for this target without considering the means of implementation including finance, technology and more. This shifts the burden of action on tackling the climate crisis away from rich countries and unto developing countries.
  • Developing countries want to dominate the green economy through trade and industrial policies in the same way as the fossil fuel based economy is dominated. They want to control the technology and sell them to the developing countries.
  • Renewable energy solutions require massive extraction of rare minerals to feed all the energy transition. Civil society is bringing this intersectional lens to the table: to push against the same old model of extractivism.
  • Developed countries like this goal because it is about new markets and making money.
Climate Modeling Accepting Income Inequality
  • A big challenge will be around some of the climate modeling. A number of Indian climate scientists pointed out that some of the modeling scenarios used predicts that income in the global south would grow from $1,000 to $3,000 while income in the global north will grow from $38,000 to $68,000. Such predictions that inform decisions accept deep inequality between the global north and south instead of imagining a future without those gaps.
Work Program on Just Transition
  • The Transition Work Program which is the new work program that was agreed at Shamel Sheikh is an incredible opportunity. Many people see it as a way of bringing a systematic change analysis and connecting climate and inequality questions and issues about dependency between the global south and the global north. How do you ensure we have a just transition that is equitable? And just globally.
  • The Just Transition Work Program, which is at least 3 to 5 years, has to arrive at decisions and be more than sharing best practice. There will be an ability to make submissions of suggestions and people will be able to take expert testimony and evidence to be able to shape what that transition can begin to look like on a national level.
Oiling Entanglement of the Fossil Fuel Lobby in the Climate Negotiations
  • The UK Youth Climate Coalition and other civil society are working to show the conflict of interest policy in the UNFCCC and highlighting the oiling entanglement of the fossil fuel lobby within the negotiation process.
  • A spotlight is particularly on the company of the  president of the COP who is the CEO of ADNOC, which is the national state-owned oil company in the UAE.
Weakening of Labor and Environmental Standards to De-risk
  • There’s gonna be a big fight around what article 2.1C. Article 2 has three articles: 2.1 A,  2.1 B, 2.1 C the first a is about the temperature goal, to keep temperatures below 2 degrees and strive and pursue efforts to limit them at 1.5 and under that the questions about adaptation and finance and all those things grow. 2.1 B is the adaptation goal.
  • And 2.1 C is about making finance flows consistent with the temperature goals. Now on paper that sounds really great but developed countries understand that to mean that developing countries need to create an enabling environment at a national level to attract private finance. To attract private finance, the state has got to de-risk.
  • So basically the states of the global south will become the guarantees for private capital which leads to weakening of labor, environmental standards and again puts the burden of financing on them despite their relatively low emissions.

 

Palestine and Human Rights
  • The COP is platforming quite a lot of Israeli companies, particularly water companies and a thousand Israeli government delegates will be at the COP in a huge Israeli Pavilion.
  • During the World Summit on Climate which is basically the world leaders event, Netenhahu and the Israeli president will be present.
  • Civil society seems united on the call for ceasefire and there will be attempts to center joint solidarity similar to COP27 and the #freeAlaa campaign.
  • There are three human rights priorities this COP: Palestine, migrant workers, a continuation of the calls in COP27 for the release of political prisoners in Egypt.
  •  Palestine will need to be a very central part of the story of the global day of action on the ninth of December, which will draw on a slogan to end settler colonialism and climate colonialism to draw the links between the underlying issues about the disposability of people.
  • Safety will be a priority since it is illegal to criticize any state while in the UAE.

 

Events Happening at COP28 we Suggest You Attend or Take Note of
  • The Gaia Foundation is coordinating a delegation of Global South representatives working on 0 waste solutions and alternatives to incineration. They will present some of the work with leaders from 41 countries towards a frame of environmental justice principles for methane reduction in the waste sector and beyond. The method reduction agenda has been getting momentum in the last 2 years since the global methane pledge in Glasgow.  Find them in the Civil Society Hub.
  • If you are a funder, here is a list of philanthropic organizing spaces: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZJz2JZi7MJgAAAO5roynRhgnqT2EZnodxYCLsuM_kmo/edit#gid=433504460
  • UK Youth Climate Coalition are bringing 18 to 19 activists to COP by supplying accreditations to Google South organizations which are usually quite hard to come by and collaborating with the 10 to 15 youth activists from the UK to amplify voices from the global south speaking truth to power and leading with the youth constituency of the conflict of interest working group.
  • The  civil society hub has its own program and you can request space there to hold either a strategy meeting, do your own panel, etc. This is so that more of the movement community can have an opportunity to share all of their incredible knowledge and learning that they have, which are often restricted to hard to land side events.  If you are coming with a delegation of people who want to speak and want to do an event you can go to either the Global Campaign Demand Climate Justice or COP28 coalition and there’s a form there which you can fill and make an application for some time and space in their civil society hub.

Extra Resources:

Africa is the most affected yet least responsible for climate change. Power Shift Africa aims to mobilise climate action in Africa, amplify African voices through increased visibility in media; and leverage this voice internationally: https://www.powershiftafrica.org

 

Join us for a radical one-day festival of panel discussions, workshops and training, bringing together social justice movements from all over the world to forge global solidarity, inspire collective action, and build solutions to turn crisis into justice: https://secure.waronwant.org/page/136283/event/1



It’s time for the people to take the power back into our own hands. It’s time we kick them out: https://kickbigpollutersout.org/

Link: https://www.climatelegaldefense.org/resources/cop28guide

(see page 8 particularly around funding and funder-organizing)

ADVANCING GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION – PHILANTHROPIC ENGAGEMENT AND ADVOCACY LEARNING INITIATIVE: https://www.avina.net/en/advancing-global-climate-action/

Session 2: Funding Activism

September 5th, 2023

In this second meeting, we will look at funding trends and funding activism. You can see below an overview of our conversations as well as the recording.

Notes from the conversation

Power dynamics and invitation-only grant cycles that pushes out some activists
  • There is a noted increase in “invitation-only” funders and this can feel quite challenging for a small organization where they feel like it depends on who they know and having the right contacts Processes for applying are becoming more and more closed and opaque.

 

  • Funders funding those they already have existing relationships with is a form of enacting power.
Venture Capital model of funding and bureaucratic violence that do not enable systemic alternatives
  • Funding models that require registrations, extensive applications and paperwork are a form of bureaucratic violence that excludes.

 

  • The venture capital model is to give resources only to expect a return, this model is reflected in private philanthropy with the expectation of extensive reporting. To break from this cycle and build systemic alternatives, there needs to be other models of fund accompaniment of grantees and models for solidarity relationships.
Trust being reflected in the simplicity of the applications and the reporting requirements
  • Low barrier applications work! These applications usually ask: who are you, what are you using this fund for, how much funds do you need and then community references to backup. Program officers can then review and approve with just a suggestion for reporting, not a requirement.

 

  • Indigenous Climate Action does this and recognizes that most grantees send pictures and other symbolic reports to maintain the relationship even if it is not a requirement.

 

  • In the UK, there is a misconception that good practice to give core and flexible funding to movements and unregistered charities is not legally possible since there are assurances that have to be made about how the money is used, but the flexibility and the core costs can absolutely be funded if the attitude from the donor is a desire that to make sure it happens. The Movement Trust has experience with this.
The advantages and flexibility of being unregistered activists
  • Some movements prefer being unregistered to maintain the agility of their cause.
  • Funders and their requirements stifle this possibility but agility is important for the movement ecosystem. Intermediaries could play a role in moving money to unregistered groups without the burden of registration.
  • For those intending to register at their own pace and are in the process of building their infrastructure, funders need to find ways to move money to them as well. Intermediaries could be an option.
Putting intermediaries out of business…eventually
  • Intermediaries have the power to influence as well, they can be allies to movements or perpetuate cycles of violence.
  • Intermediaries need to balance honesty with accountability. They are also grantees and deal with the power dynamics that come with money. That being said, intermediaries can be honest about barriers of reaching movements and the grassroots so funders reconsider their application and reporting requirements.
  • The fact that intermediaries are needed is an indication of a problem. Ideally intermediaries do not exist and money moves to in a different way that can reach movements directly. This requires constant feedback to foundations to change their grant requirements. So ultimately, good intermediaries are working to put themselves out of business.
  • The Movement Trust is  putting together a community practice for fiscal intermediaries. It is open to the different types of bodies that exist to act as that kind of fiscal intermediary. It will be a space to share practices and to learn from each other but also to be advocating for good practice at the fiscal intermediary state as well to break cycles of harm perpetuated.
  • Some of the examples of harms perpetuated is: intermediaries requiring several years of registered accounts, or giving applicants a target of the amount of money that should be raised annually. Those barriers do not need to exist.
Cooptation of activists and their messages

  • There is interest by more funders in funding movements and activists but we need to be careful about how these funds are moved

  • For instance, we see the likes of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, which had previously been very heavily focused on policy change and on technological innovation, developing a movement strategy.

  • How do we ensure that activists and movements still have the space to do their work without being co-opted into other agendas and without being subject to greenwashing or activist washing?

  • Funders are rebranding by using activists for publicity but these activists sometimes remain underfunded. The relationship is sometimes unequal.

Extra Resources:

the fundraising team in Fridays for Future MAPA (and other parts of the movement) for COP and beyond, wrote this narrative report. It contains detailed explanations of the internal process that were set up to handle funding and recommendations  for funders and the movement: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ML2x-T8Y-9t2-FXHvZbrL5sapjlZHAvv/view



Registrations are open: https://forms.gle/ytiFR89Z4uEbyvxJ7

Partnering with Roots, Greenpeace MENA, Transnational Institute, Youth 4 Climate and many others, they are aiming to create a pooled fund that can resource some of the most exciting projects that emerge from Climate Justice Camp and then share lessons and reflections in 2024. Their hope is to raise £200,000 by the end of this year, so they are looking for small but fast contributions.

Find out more here: https://www.themovementstrust.org/cjc

Session 1: Overview of Climate Justice Organizing Priorities in 2023

July 25th, 2023

In this first session, we discussed an overview of priorities for this year’s COP as well as other events happening in the lead-up to COP as well as till the end of the year to continue to push for Climate Justice and Just Transition. This session spotlighted movement voices and their plans for organizing as well as their needs to continue their important work.

Notes from the conversation

The approach is not “common and shared,” it is “common and different” to acknowledge historical emissions and responsibilities
  • To understand some of the dynamics between different parties and negotiating, there’s been an intent by developing countries to try and delete references to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was the original Climate Treaty signed back in 1992. The argument is that the Paris Agreement supersedes. However, the Paris Agreement does state very clearly that it enhances the implementation of the convention.

 

  • This one dynamic plays a thread throughout the negotiations because removing references to the convention is an erasure of the discussions on historical emissions and historical responsibility or in other words equity.

 

  • Instead of the narrative being about common but different responsibilities considering extractive histories, it is not about a common and shared approach in relation to emissions reductions or mitigation.

 

  • There is acknowledgement that  there are some groups of countries who have vulnerability who shouldbe excluded from this common and shared approach, which are largely the small island states and the LDCs.

 

  •  However,  as the IPCC states, vulnerability affects not just the lowest income countries, but middle income countries and others. As seen in Pakistan and the floods and damages that were caused there, for example.
Financing the Just Transition and the need to move away from conditionalities that exist today
  • The Global Stocktake is a major agenda item at COP28. The Global Stocktake is meant to be a review of progress to date, um, how our. All the actions that governments have promised to do, where are they?

 

  • One of the long running issues is always around finance. The hundred billion has not been met yet. This money pledged was meant to be new and additional public finance, but developed countries have really wanted to shift the focus on finance and financial obligations towards a conversation on enabling environments to attract private finance. (At the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the UNFCCC in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries committed to a collective goal of mobilising USD 100 billion per year by 2020 for climate action in developing countries, in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation. The goal was formalised at COP16 in Cancun, and at COP21 in Paris, it was reiterated and extended to 2025.)

 

  • This conversation on creating an enabling environment puts the pressure on Global South countries to de-risk, instead of Global North countries to reckon with loss and damage.

 

  • For now, there’s no indication of whether this money will form a fund or whether it will be funding arrangements. Funding arrangements, of course, are what the Global South countries have been fighting against since funding arrangements put  the, the IMF, World Bank and other institutions at the center.
The absurdity of the conditions put for financing and the need for reimagining
  • When the IMF went into Sri Lanka at the end of last year, the conditionalities they put were to open up the market privatization of their sectors of the economy, weaken environmental labor standards, create tax-free zones, et cetera, et cetera. These conditionalities go against the principles of Just Transition. Is there going to be universal global taxation, uh, power of corporations? Where are these sources of finance going to become?

 

  • The IMF and the World Bank might include carbon markets as part of their conditionalities while moving money to the Global South.

 

  • This is while the UK is cutting its climate obligation finance pledges along with the USA. The European Union is also saying they are not going to step up anymore than what they have already committed.

 

  • The renewable energy targets that are being proposed without accompanying financial assistance means these targets will not be met. This conversation will be a big part of the debate at COP28.

 

  • There is an intersection between Economic Justice and Climate Justice that is very clear when thinking about a Just Transition. In thinning about how funding for climate can be redistributed, we need the vision of economic justice….what is the governance for this financing,  what will that look like? Will it be grants or loans or conditional grants? What would be the conditions?

 

  • Currently, there’s a lot of pressure that the only finance that will flow is going to be through things, instruments, like the carbon market.

 

  • The Cop 28 coalition, recognizing the challenges of the COP being in the Emirates this year of, with no base civil society there, or civic space has been an alliance of groups in the region, in the Arab region, and then across Asia, and globally. TheCOP 28 Coalition continues its message that there is no Climate Justice without human rights.

 

  • The COP28 is currently fundraising to continue their work. If you are interested in supporting them, reach out to Asad Rehman.
The narrative has falsely become that only the Private Sector is able to solve the Climate Crisis
  • In October, the IMF and the World Bank will have the second ever meeting on the continent of Africa. It’ll be held in Marrakesh and the IMF and the World Bank are both trying to reimagine themselves and say they are the drivers of climate transition and want to rebuild the world. They have been talking about a new global financial architecture, which largely puts the IMF and the World Bank as the main channels for climate finance.
  • Since everything that comes through the IMF and the World Bank will have conditionalities (see above), the Global South is pushing back and advocating for money to move through the Green Climate Fund or instruments within the UNFCC.
  • The agenda in all of these meeting has largely been that the private sector is best positioned to deal with the Climate Crisis.
  • What is needed is more formalized rules and voices from movements, frontline communities and civil society to push back against that narrative.
Roles of CSOs to keep us grounded in what a Just Transition truly means
  • The role of CSOs is to imagine what a Just Transition looks like at the local and national level.

 

  • It is also to think through and make connections with others to imagine a Just Transition on a global level. What are the technologies needed, the resources, what are the solutions?

 

  • And also to provide interventions and ideas about that comprehensive nature of the transition to challenge the mainstreaming of the word.
Narrow definitions of Just Transition by the Global North and a push for change by the Global South
  •  The United States, the UK and the European Union have been talking about Just Transition in a very narrow way to be largely about workers in the fossil fuel sector and energy.
  • Overwhelmingly in the Global North, Just Transition is seen as a national issue and that it’s up to each country to decide and determine what it means for them. Whilst there are national specificities on Just Transition, this way of thinking will lead to an unequal and uneven, transition skewed against those that don’t have the resources available.
  • Global South countries have been pushing for a much more comprehensive vision of Just Transition,which includes transitions of economies and societies. That means including everything from food to transport. This push will also be part of the COP28 debates.
Moments for organizing in 2023
  • The Africa Climate Summit will be taking place in the first week of September in Nairobi. There is an interesting dynamic where McKinsey, is really pushing the Kenyan government to adopt carbon markets.

 

  • And alongside the general assembly, there’s an SDG summit.

 

  • Civil society and activists are holding moments of escalation between 15th and 17th of September, there’s plans for coordinated actions around energy in its broadest sense.

 

  • Calls in these escalation actions will vary from public ownership to end fossil fuels to call for renewables, all the different component parts of the transition around energy.

 

  • On the 17th, there will be a major mobilization in New York, and that is partly to try and push Biden and put pressure on the US administration.

 

  • In October, the World Bank and the IMF are meeting.

 

  • Also in October, the People summit is taking place in Marrakesh, which will try and bring the economic justice and the climate justice movements together because there is now so much overlap between these issues about financial, architecture, debt, trade tax. Over that week there’s going to  be a global week of action around climate and debt and tax and trade.

 

  • During the COP28, movements are not protesting outside because if it’s denied to the Emirati people, they don’t want that to be greenwashed by their presence. So they are not going to have a march outside of the UN space. All marches will be inside.

 

  •  9th of December will be the global day of action for climate justice. And there’s discussion about how to spotlight Just Transition as well.

 

 

  • The demands include the suspension of  exploitation to access hydrocarbons and fossil fuels and all the infrastructure for that. There is a need to transition from all the mining happening in the Amazon right now. And a demand of the presidents to guarantee prior and informed consent of indigenous people before using and ruining their lands.

 

  • There is a call to respect all the forms of indigenous governance. So determination is another issue discussed.
Roles of Funders
  • Funders are not mobilizing and moving resources as fast as companies.

 

  • Move money towards those that are excluded and erased like Indigenous Communities. Fund their travel to disrupt and represent in global moments like COP28.
We need to talk about depleting water sources for mineral mining in the name of sustainable energy
  • Some Indigenous groups in Brazil do not have rivers anymore because of the impact of climate change. The last 30 years, rivers have been disappearing. Now, the few water sources left are under threat of being taken over by so-called transition minerals, these strategic minerals companies in Brazil and many other countries are using this, idea of the green energy will free us from Fossil to justify depleting water sources.

 

  • It is important to fight fossil fuels, but need to consider access to water for local communities when thinking through a Just Transition. There is no transition without equity and human rights, and definitely no transition without people.

Extra Resources:

There is involvement of MDBs, particularly the Asian Development Bank (ADB), read more: https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ASEAN-Taxonomy-Version-2.pdf

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