By Alejandra Garcia on November 6, 2022
How can we stop climate change, which is having a strong impact on the world, especially in Latin America? What are the challenges facing the region in this regard? How can youth movements, indigenous peoples, farmers, environmental activists, and civil society organizations make their voices heard?
Climate activists are asking these questions as the United Nations Climate Change Conference (better known as COP) gets underway to discuss and make decisions once again about global warming and its consequences. The 27th edition of the annual event takes place in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, from November 6 to 18.
World leaders and negotiators from each country will meet to set carbon neutrality targets in the shortest possible time, transfer funds to countries suffering the most “loss and damage” from the climate crisis, uphold the commitment made in the Paris Agreement, that seeks to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, among other priorities.
However, this meeting poses huge challenges for environmental movements, with their heterogeneity and youth as the spearhead, who are often silenced and shut out in their attempts to claim environmental and social justice. “Although it is one of the most important events in the world to discuss these issues, young people have the great challenge of making themselves heard and transcending in these summits that have little resolution,” analyst Luz Eggel explained in an article published in Nodal news media.
Eggel’s words are not surprising. The conclusions that each COP leaves in its wake are treaties and pacts that do not work, agreements that continue to benefit the neo liberal model, climate change mitigation and adaptation objectives that are rarely met and dissatisfaction from the poorest countries.
This is the reason why Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmentalist, declared a few days ago that she won’t be attending the event. “COPs do not help to change the system but encourage gradual progress in the fight against climate change. They are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people with power to draw attention to themselves and do all kinds of green washing.” The meetings in the past have made little progress and have been sort of a window dressing with no sense of urgency for real change.
Eggel and Thunberg agree that the climate and ecological crisis demands urgent and precise action. Latin America, for example, is suffering heavily from mega-droughts, extreme precipitations, heat waves, increasingly powerful hurricanes, and melting glaciers.
These extreme weather events jeopardize food security and access to water for our communities and affect our ecosystems and the biodiversity of species that inhabit them.
“If we analyze the global balance of greenhouse gas emissions, in 2020 Latin America and the Caribbean were only responsible for 8 percent of global CO2 emissions. Thus, despite contributing a low proportion, it suffers equally from the devastating consequences of climate change. The debt of the polluting nations is owed to the South,” Eggel explained.
Therefore, “we demand that the debate at this new summit should focus on those who are generating and hoarding the world’s wealth, causing misery in our societies and destruction in our ecosystems. It is urgent to redistribute and transfer funds from the richest corporations to the nations that suffer most from the impacts of global warming,” she urged.
The eyes of the world are on COP27. Once again, the summit has the historic challenge of transforming the ecocide and unequal present, managed by a few. The time to act is now. If there is to be a future for all, as Thunberg said, “this system must be transformed at its roots.”
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – US