COP27 in Egypt – Latin American and Caribbean peoples on the move at the Climate Conference

Por Amyra El Khalili

The next United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference will take place in the city of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from 6 to 18 November 2022.

We, who are representatives of popular organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, hope that, at COP27, Egypt and its people will welcome and support us to reflect on the climate crisis, its structural causes and its consequences, in order to promote effective actions to build climate justice.

The year in which Rio-92 was organized, the first United Nations Conference in which the issue of the climate crisis was discussed at a high level, seems distant.  Although we have already denounced and warned about the consequences of global warming on our ecosystems and the risks to the survival of life on our planet, the necessary measures for its mitigation were not implemented by governments and corporations, which ignored and neglected the effects of sudden climate change.

Thirty years after that first conference in Brazil, today we can see the current global climate scenario absolutely tragic: millions of species disappearing;  large growth in the displacement of populations affected by climate extremes;  our very survival as peoples and as a species is at risk.  We have a very clear understanding of the potential extent of this climate crisis and what needs to be done to address it effectively.

It is indisputable that climate change is a consequence of human actions as a result of the capitalist model that is highly consuming natural resources, such as water, energy, biodiversity, among others, and the dispute over land use and ownership, already proven to exhaustion by hundreds of scientific research.

The planet catches fire, floods, dries up, and all living beings face conditions incompatible with life.  All of this is increasing in the context of an aggravated context of democratic crises and serious violations of human and fundamental rights on all continents.

Our populations are the least responsible, but our territories are the most affected by the crisis.

Especially serious is the threat to life in small island states in the Caribbean, such as the islands of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which could see a large part of their territories disappear with the rise in sea levels and the blows of recurring and increasingly intense, amid successive international crises, including the ongoing food security crisis, desertification and water scarcity.  Africa and the entire Middle East are also being violently affected, as we can see by the “Climate Aparheid against the Palestinian People”.

In this meeting, which will bring together government stakeholders and civil society organizations, we call, through our international networks, to all social movements and organizations in all areas of resistance and struggle in Latin America and the Caribbean, from Egypt , to join the cause of climate justice, not to remain indifferent to actions that jeopardize common goods, such as the climate and water, wherever it is found, whether on the surface, underground, on snowy peaks or at the Earth’s poles.

Our call is for a commitment to the radical transformation of this economic-financial system, with concrete proposals that vehemently reject the “false solutions” in these political agreements between parties, as if the financial market had the competence to save us from the climate crisis, when it is precisely responsible for this crisis, to exchange it for another model that is socially just, politically participatory and integrated, based on respect for all living beings that share life on the planet, taking care of present and future generations.

We take this opportunity to thank our hostess and the entire Radio Cairo team for this dialogue that allows us to unify our networks with the traditional Arab hospitality that is peculiar to us at COP27!

Elhamdoulillah (Thank God!)

Amyra El Khalili

Access the documents in full:

Declaration of the citizens’ assembly for climate justice in Latin America and the Caribbean.

https://dialogosdosul.operamundi.uol.com.br/meio-ambiente/75807/entidades-da-america-latina-e-do-caribe-denunciam-negligencia-contra-crise-climatica

Israeli climate apartheid: Environmental policy as a weapon against Palestine.

https://dialogosdosul.operamundi.uol.com.br/direitos-humanos/76002/apartheid-climatico-israelense-a-politica-ambiental-como-arma-contra-palestina

*Text of the audio transcript for Radio Cairo – Broadcasting Radio of the Arab Republic of Egypt

Translation – Nicole Jungo El-Najjar

Amyra El khalili, is a professor of Social and Environmental Economics.  Editor of the Movimento Mulheres networks for P@Z!  and the RECO Alliance – Community Cooperation Networks Without Borders.

Published in Portuguese

PRAVDA.RU: https://port.pravda.ru/science/55999-cop_egito/

Published in Spanish

REBELIÓN: https://rebelion.org/pueblos-de-america-latina-y-el-caribe-en-movimiento-en-la-conferencia-del-clima/