MEDIA ADVISORY

COP29 Press Conference – The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) 

  

COP29 in Baku, the so-called “Finance COP”, risks becoming a bankrupt COP as developed nations demonstrate that they have the money to fund genocide, subsidise big polluters, expand oil and gas production and fund false solutions but no public money for climate finance. As we enter the second week of COP29, at the end of a year marked by devastating wildfires, floods, heatwaves and preventable climate and geopolitical disasters, we are witnessing a failure of international cooperation embodied in the Paris Agreement.

Global North governments are turning their backs on the Global South on all critical fronts: creating pathways for equitable global cooperation, the New Collective Quantified Goal, finance and technological transfer for a Just Transition and divestment from fossil fuel investments including preventing false solutions like carbon markets from taking hold of climate finance. We are left with the Global South, disproportionately affected by the climate crisis and least responsible for it, dealing with disastrous impacts on communities and ecosystems. 

Join us as members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice RING THE ALARM on the potential failure of COP 29 to deliver on key mandates that can lead the world out of the polycrisis that we are facing.  

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When: Monday 18th November | 09:30-10:00 hs (Baku)

Where: Press Conference – Natavan, Area D / WATCH LIVE

Who:

• Lidy Nacpil, The Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development
• Kirtana Chandrasekharan, Friends of the Earth International
• Victor Menotti, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice 
• Rachitaa Gupta, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice  

The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) 

Media Advisory

Climate activists from Latin America and the Caribbean critically assess the first week of COP29 and demand that the governments of the region take positions that are equal to the gravity of the crisis.

Latin American leaders from the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ), Climate Action Network (CAN) and the Women and Gender (WGC) constituency will refer to the first results that the climate talks have yielded in the first days and will present their expectations for the coming week.

They will also present some of the main impacts that climate change is generating in the region and will evaluate the various aspects of the ongoing negotiations such as climate finance and carbon markets, fossil fuel phase out, the just transition and gender equity.

Join us as Latin American members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice address critical dynamics of the negotiations at COP29.

When: Saturday 16th November | 10:30am

Where: Press Conference – Natavan, Area D / WATCH LIVE

Who:

• Paloma Jofré, Earth in Brackets [Earth]
• Juan Carlos Alarcón, Plataforma Boliviana Frente al Cambio Climático 
• Gina Cortés, Women and Gender Constituency
• Osver Polo, Climate Action Network Latin America
• Eduardo Giesen, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

Julian, DCJ, +306941437285, [email protected]

DCJ PRESS RELEASE: BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 15 NOV 24 – ‘The 2024 Civil Society Equity Review: Fair shares, finance, transformation’ report launched by Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice challenges the poisonous consequences of obfuscation, delay and inaction by Global-North governments on climate negotiations highlighting that ‘the key thread running through this history that these negotiations cannot ignore – as the negotiations grind on, so do the emissions.’ In its 10th year of publication, almost 350 organisations from across the world have endorsed the analyses, findings and recommendations of the report.  

The report presents a fair share assessment of NDC’s mitigation targets followed by a review of climate finance requirements and their sources. The authors propose that breaking the power of the fossil-fuel industry, while an absolutely necessary component of any possible climate strategy, is not enough and there is need for broader systemic changes if we are to stabilise the climate and address the polycrisis that big polluters have pushed our worlds into. 

“The Global North’s negotiators are refusing to engage with numbers of this scale, and by doing so are playing a very dangerous game. In this refusal, they imagine themselves realists, but they are in fact refusing to engage with numbers that have real empirical bases, and by so doing are endangering the UNFCCC regime and, indeed, the entire multilateral system, not to mention any remaining possibility of a stable climate and all that depends on it. True realism lies in the recognition that we actually have the money to save ourselves, and that the reallocation and redistribution of that money is now an existential necessity.” – 2024 Civil Society Equity Review. 

Contact Us

Julian, DCJ, +306941437285, [email protected]

DCJ PRESS RELEASE:  

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 15 NOV 24 – ‘The 2024 Civil Society Equity Review: Fair shares, finance, transformation’ report launched by Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice challenges the poisonous consequences of obfuscation, delay and inaction by Global-North governments on climate negotiations highlighting that ‘the key thread running through this history that these negotiations cannot ignore – as the negotiations grind on, so do the emissions.’ In its 10th year of publication, almost 350 organisations from across the world have endorsed the analyses, findings and recommendations of the report.  

The report presents a fair share assessment of NDC’s mitigation targets followed by a review of climate finance requirements and their sources. The authors propose that breaking the power of the fossil-fuel industry, while an absolutely necessary component of any possible climate strategy, is not enough and there is need for broader systemic changes if we are to stabilise the climate and address the polycrisis that big polluters have pushed our worlds into. 

“The Global North’s negotiators are refusing to engage with numbers of this scale, and by doing so are playing a very dangerous game. In this refusal, they imagine themselves realists, but they are in fact refusing to engage with numbers that have real empirical bases, and by so doing are endangering the UNFCCC regime and, indeed, the entire multilateral system, not to mention any remaining possibility of a stable climate and all that depends on it. True realism lies in the recognition that we actually have the money to save ourselves, and that the reallocation and redistribution of that money is now an existential necessity.” – 2024 Civil Society Equity Review. 

The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) PRESS RELEASE:  

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 15 NOV 24 – As we get closer to wrapping up the first week at COP29, governments from 200 countries are gathered to forge new agreements for climate finance as well as to advance on last year’s decision to transition away from fossil fuels for a just and equitable solution aimed at limiting warming to 1.5C. Yet, the Global North countries are once again sewing distrust during climate talks as civil society groups from the region are calling them to account for reneging on their legal responsibilities in the UNFCCC. 

With President Biden’s term entering the final days, there are several policy choices that can be made to leave a legacy of making the United States the first and fastest to phase out fossil fuels. The rich countries, led by the US, can also deliver an ambitious New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) matching the demands from the Global South countries for the urgent delivery of finance and technology.

“The White House has just three days left to pressure Ex-Im to agree to end fossil fuel support from export credit agencies at the OECD negotiations starting on Monday. This would shift $40 billion a year of funding from fossil fuel projects to renewables. It would be a Trump-proof plan to shift this money, this funding of fossil fuels. So it would really solidify the climate legacy of the Biden administration. So really, really pressuring the White House to take this action before it’s too late. And the second thing I would say is the most urgent before the Biden administration leaves office is rejecting all pending liquefied natural gas and fossil fuel permits.”

Jamie Minden, Zero Hour

“The global community would love the US to continue to participate in global affairs. We also have to recognize that this is not the 1950s or 1960s anymore. We’re in a different world where there are multiple polarities. There’s the rise of BRICS, the BRICS government, BRICS group. And so there’s a lot more flexibility that is approachable for many developing countries. And so we’re not as panicked as 10, 15 years ago. Of course they’re not fully fledged and ready to go, but it does give us the possibility for finding new sources of funds for our development issues and for pushing for greater reform of the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade System. And these are all part of the climate system. The IPCC, which is the authoritative scientific body for this convention, for the first time in its 30 years said that colonialism is a driver. of climate change and so we want to get rid of colonialism and imperialism in the global monetary and climate system. We see that occurring also in this space so we will deal with whatever we have to deal with because that’s how the world flows.”

Mariama Williams, Global Afro-Descendant Climate Justice Collaborative

“The North needs to do its fair share for the United States. That means four times the current Biden pledge of 50 percent to be 200 percent. That means 80 percent domestic emissions, 120 percent of international support, finance and technology. We can’t take up so much historical emission space in the atmosphere with our pollution that we have to help other countries mitigate. We’ve taken their space. We have to pay for it. You see these five trillion dollars pay up lanyards going around. That’s just a down payment on the climate debt as it’s called. So yeah, that’s how we get a breakthrough here in Baku.”

Victor Menotti, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ)

Julian, DCJ, +306941437285, [email protected]

Chanting for Change at COP29: 

WHAT: Civil society organizations at COP29 will unite in a powerful, synchronized protest demanding that the Global North finally pay up its climate debt to the Global South with $5 trillion in real climate finance. Activists are calling for public finance that is predictable, non-debt-creating, new and additional. Two groups, occupying two different locations, will chant in perfect synchrony as speakers address COP29 visitors, making their voices heard. Their rhythm and resolve will echo through the Blue Zone, carrying a message of climate justice for all.

WHEN: Friday, November 15, 2024, 10:30am Baku time (UTC+4)

WHERE: Action Location 2 and Action Location 4, Zone B, COP29 Blue Zone

WHO: The following civil society groups at COP29 will be taking part:

1. Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice – action location 4
2. Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development – action location 4
3. Organizations from Trade Union Non-Governmental Organizations (TUNGO) – action location 4
4. Climate Action Network International – action location 2
5. Organizations from the Women and Gender Constituency – action location 2
6. Organizations from Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPO) – action location 2

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Isabel Rodrigo | Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development | +63 926 734 5712 | [email protected]

Julian Reingold | Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice | +306941437285 | [email protected]

Attila Kulcsár | Climate Action Network International | +44 7472 124872 | [email protected]

PRESS RELEASE: 

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 13 NOV 24 – The opening day of COP29 saw the undemocratic gavelling through of carbon markets, once again enshrining the interests of Big Polluters over people. Carbon markets are not climate finance; they are a gift to the fossil fuel industry to continue polluting while leaving the door wide open for rampant proliferation of dangerous and unscientific false solutions such as geoengineering, ‘offsetting’ and carbon capture. 

Rich countries and big polluting industries continue to funnel money in to wars, genocide and “fixes” that will allow them to keep their extractive economic systems going without delivering on the urgent climate finance for the Global South countries. These schemes only perpetuate neocolonial patterns of extractivism, with Global South and Indigenous communities first and foremost impacted.  

Members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice put the spotlight on the polluters’ attempt to derail climate action. 

“Full operationalisation of carbon markets was approved on the first day of COP29, sending a disappointing message to the world, with lack of democratic process enabling parties to discuss. Indigenous Peoples and communities in the South will not be the ones celebrating this event – it will be the Big Polluters and rich countries, the same ones who spend billions in genocide and false solutions instead of the climate finance needed for a Just Transition and Loss and Damage in the Global South. Carbon markets are not climate finance – this is a lie, this is a false solution. This will not support the real solutions from communities in the South, the real proven cost effective community centred solutions are being increasingly swept aside in favour of these business driven schemes. 

COP16 in Cali took place a few weeks ago – we have pushed for the confluence of biodiversity and climate agendas for years, but the way it is now happening is only in favour of big polluters. We are seeing the same false solutions, at the profit of industries and at the expense of communities. Only the last 2 days of COP16 were given to the discussions of finance – the GN continues to evade responsibility for their climate debt.”

Tatiana Rodríguez Maldonado,  CENSAT Agua Viva / Friends of the Earth Colombia

“We work for the inherent and collective rights of IP and the dignity of IP throughout the world. The unprecedented bypass of procedure in this COP29 demonstrates a desperate attempt to rush more carbon markets, offsets, removals that have resulted in IP rights violation, land grabs, and human impacts. Climate change cannot be changed from a system that facilitates growth and the profit of corporations. These false solutions do not cut carbon emissions at source, they will continue to profit the world’s largest polluters whilst continuing to sidetrack the much needed emission reductions. We don’t want to see this as the continuation of colonisation towards a termination agenda of IP rights. Mother Earth is not a commodity, she is not for sale.”

Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network

“We must call out these FS wherever they show up. One of them is CCS, there is no evidence that CCS can work, yet the rush for financing these technologies continues. These inequitable solutions like CCS and geoengineering exclude the leadership of young people especially those on the frontlines of climate change, facing the worst impacts. We must not allow genuine measures like climate finance to be co-opted by these schemes. There will not be a magical technological solution that means we can continue business as usual.”

Dylan Hamilton, Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth

“I often get asked – how do you spot false solutions? There are so many benchmarks. Here is one simple example: for the last decades carbon markets have been pushed and rolled out, has there been any real and lasting emission reductions? No? Then why do we gavel them through on the first day of COP? There is a very simple way to spot false solutions, and that is to trace any scheme or proposal to its source. Spoiler alert, if those that are pushing these schemes are the same actors that have been fueling climate change whilst knowing for half a century of the harm it would cause, then these so-called solutions are not solutions. These BigPolluters are only about one thing – protecting their own profit. This is why they think nothing of continuing to fuel a genocide, or violating Indigenous Peoples rights. 

Yet it doesn’t have to be this way – there are real, proven, cost effective solutions that respect communities rights and the world we live in. We must look beyond these halls, reject these dangerous distractions, and finally and urgently embrace real solutions.”

Rachel Rose Jackson, Corporate Accountability, member of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

Contact Us

Julian, DCJ, +306941437285, [email protected]

PRESS RELEASE:

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 12 NOV 24 – As the genocide continues to unfold in Gaza, leaders around the world are arriving in Baku for the World Leader’s Summit on day two of COP29. Widely dubbed as the “Finance COP”, climate justice leaders from the Global South are demanding a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) of U$5 trillion, with “quality” finance provided by grants from public funds, not loans from private investors. 

Decades of inaction and broken promises have not only compounded today’s climate impacts but have also deepened the extreme inequalities and injustices endured by communities, economies, and ecosystems. Yet Global North governments are about to increase their spending on weapons of war while ignoring how climate impacts are intensifying insecurity and displacement driving conflict. 

“The Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change: we have been recently hit by a typhoon, the situation keeps getting worse year after year and people’s lives are being lost.

For the last  two decades, almost since Bali 2007, climate finance was identified as a key element within the negotiations, since without it we cannot achieve climate action and just transition. During the 2009 summit in Copenhagen, the offer by the US was 100 billion, such a pittance. 15 years have gone by, and all we get is more delays. Year after year, we hear the same argument: “there’s not enough public money”, but there’s more than enough that cannot be mobilized due to the lack of political will. Using public money means making the private sector involved with climate action, hence expanding the contributor base. We have been paying for our own climate action for a long time: 85% of what we spend comes from our own pockets. The Global North owes us at least 5 trillion per year. Even if they disburse quickly, there are very little funds. We need to put decision-making at a global level.”

Lidy Nacpil, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development

“This Finance COP is not on track to deliver what the Global South needs. Carbon Markets stand with Article 6 and they will be presented as climate finance, but that is not climate finance. What is finance in terms of quantity and quality? We need to figure out how to get our Global North govs to pay up”.

Victor Menotti, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

“They’re destroying our future, and climate finance is turning victims into debtors. Providing charity doesn’t exonerate them from historical responsibility as geopolitical powers. The Loss and Damage fund is not built to protect human rights, but to foster profit. The climate finance mechanisms have to be built from the ground.”

Adrian Martinez, La Ruta Del Clima 

“After decades of broken promises, COP29 must mark a turning point for rich countries to meet their legal and moral obligation to pay up to address climate impacts and ensure a fair fossil fuel phase out. There is no shortage of public money to do this, what is lacking is political courage. Rich countries can raise well over $5 trillion every year by ending fossil fuel handouts, making big polluters pay, taxing the super rich, and changing unfair global financial rules that exacerbate Global South debt and don’t see the money go where it’s most needed. Pursuing these measures will benefit all of us. We are tired of excuses. In Canada, there is always more public money for the tar sands and billionaire tax breaks, but never enough for what communities need.” 

Bronwen Tucker, Oil Change International 

Contact Us

Julian, DCJ, +306941437285, [email protected]