This statement is delivered on behalf of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice. 

Delivered by Kevin Mtai, FFT Kenya

My name is Kevin Mtai and I’m speaking on behalf of the Demand Climate Justice constituency.

No one is free until everyone is free. We stand in solidarity with prisoners of conscience, human rights defenders and all those fighting injustice here, and everywhere and demand the immediate release of individuals arbitrarily detained for exercising their rights to freedom of association, assembly, and expression.

The fight for climate justice is the fight for economic justice, political and social justice. As long as the rich continue to extract and exploit with impunity, we are not free. 

For this to be a COP of, by, and for the people, instead of polluters, we demand:

• A commitment to deliver adequate climate finance well in excess of $100 billion, based on the real needs of developing countries – including the establishment of a Loss and Damage finance facility with public funds rather than loans or insurance;
• That the Mitigation Work Programme puts us on track to end the fossil fuel era and transform the global energy system through an equitable and just transition;
• A conflict of interest policy to kick polluters out of COP27, and are disappointed that the call  to require participants to publicly declare their interests was ignored for COP27;
• Real, proven, gender just solutions to be advanced including through Article 6.8 and elsewhere, and stop the dangerous distractions of offsets,  false “nature based” solutions, and carbon markets.

Governments should be setting us free from the prisons that enslave us and the climate crisis that engulfs us. No climate justice without human rights. We are not yet defeated!