Category Archives: Press Releases

Quote sheet for SB62 Outcome. 


Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice
(DCJ) 

KEY RESOURCES 1. Op-ed on Germany’s role in blocking climate action (English, German)  2. DCJ Finance Brief authored by Victor Menotti 3. New Research on Carbon Offsets by Corporate Accountability 4. Four countries responsible for nearly 70% of projected CO2 pollution from new oil and gas – Oil Change international 5. Civil Society Letter to UNFCCC Secretariat on censorship of Palestine Solidarity. 7. List of demands from Palestinian COP30 Coalition 7. World’s largest expansion of fossil fuels on the Gulf Coast of the USA, more than all other countries combined. 8. Establishing a UNFCCC Accountability Framework to protect against undue influence of polluting interests

CONTACT For media enquiries: Esthappen S, Communications Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (Whatsapp: +91 9820918910, Email: [email protected])

QUOTE SHEET Covering climate finance, adaptation, l&d, JT and other UNFCCC linked agendas with links to genocide in Palestine, wars waged by league of colonisers on global south and inequities in the climate regime and finance architecture.

Format: Name, organisation: Quote.  

  1. Meena Raman, Third World Network:
    The biggest disagreement at Bonn was over the failure of the Global North to address or even listen to the concerns of the Global South. Right at the start, developing countries wanted to discuss how to treat provision of finance from developed countries (Art 9.1 of the Paris Agreement) with the G77 and China wanting a discussion on the agenda but developing countries blocked even a conversation. Whenever developing countries get into the provision of means of implementation (MOI) and finance, developed countries always push back by involving the private sector and muddy the mandate by introducing mobilization. On Global Goals on Adaptation, a key agenda for the Global South, which is an effort to see whether the peoples of the world and countries will be able to adapt through developing indicators starting 2023 eg. On water, health, food, ecosystems… developing countries want to have indicators on means of implementation. But developed countries have opposed this, they want indicators on eg. Official Development Assistance (ODA) as part of adaptation that is not new and additional finance. Developed countries have also refused to talk about finance for formulation and implementation of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). The Global South wants finance for adaptation, but the Global North takes the Do It Yourself (DIY) approach whenever it comes to implementing climate action in developing countries and their mandatory obligation to provide finance to the South. On Carbon Border Adjustment Measures (CBAM) or unilateral measures which the EU is pushing and Canada, UK are also thinking about introducing, they don’t want to make space for any meaningful discussion which allows for the ventilation of Global South concerns and understanding what impacts these policies have on climate action in the Global South. On the Technology Implementation Program (TIP), they don’t want to talk about intellectual property rights as a barrier to technology transfer and affordable access. Finally, on the UAE Dialogue (Paragraph 97 of the GST Outcome), the big fight has been about the scope. Para 97 falls under the MOI section so developing countries understand it as part of finance discussion, but the Global North is again not aligned. I say it takes two-to-tango but the Global North has left the Global South alone on the dance floor of negotiations at Bonn.  
  2. Lidy Nacpil, Asian People’s Movement for Debt and Development:
    Even as global temperatures reach record-breaking heights, Global North governments continue to be the biggest blockers of climate justice. Following the outrageous outcome of COP29, the Global North continued to dodge their climate finance obligations at SB62–most egregiously blocking a discussion of Article 9.1–while ramping up military spending to 5% of their GDPs. By refusing to honor their climate commitments and preventing progress in these negotiations, the Global North is jeopardizing our world, risking our lives, and killing the Paris Agreement. In spite of these obstructions, which do not bode well for Belém, we look forward to waging our fights at COP30. This world is ours, and we must fight to reclaim it from the polluters, profiteers, and perpetrators of injustice who have brought it to the brink of chaos.
  3. Rachitaa Gupta, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice:
    We are the communities on the frontlines of a crisis we did not create—a crisis driven by greed, war, and colonialism. At these climate talks all we saw was the world’s richest governments pour trillions into war machines, fund genocide in Palestine, and protect corporate profit over human life while failing to deliver on their historical responsibility through real public finance. Choosing instead to privatize our lands, forests and water through carbon markets and offsets while sabotaging any meaningful just transition. We condemn the UNFCCC Secretariat’s censorship of civil society for standing in solidarity with Palestine—and we will not be silenced. Climate justice cannot exist in a world where bombs continue to rain on Gaza and corporate power continues to write climate policy. Fight for climate justice is the fight for liberation, everywhere. And at COP30 we will show it is people’s power and not the rich that will shape the future.
  4. Alison Doig, Recourse:
    At the Bonn talks, the private sector has been making a bid to capture the little public climate finance available. We heard a lot about capital markets, green bonds, public-private blending, and multilateral development banks’ role in de-risking, but not nearly enough about the needs of climate-vulnerable communities, women, youth and nature. Ahead of COP30 in Belem, the Brazilian Presidency should re-assert that climate finance must be for grants supporting a just transition to a climate-safe world, not for lining bankers’ pockets.”
  5. Amiera Sawas, Head of Research & Policy, Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative:
    As the Northern hemisphere suffers deadly heatwaves, UN climate talks remain frozen in an out-of-touch process. War and military spending escalated outside, while inside there was no discussion—and no finance. Civil society fought to bring negotiations into the real world, but geopolitics and the fossil fuel lobby kept derailing progress. Even successes, like the draft text for the ‘Just Transition Work Programme’ informed by workers and Indigenous Peoples, were nearly paralyzed by fossil fuel interests at the end. We are already at risk of breaching the 1.5 temperature limit, there’s no time for paralysis. There’s a real risk that the UN climate talks fail to address the crisis’s biggest drivers: coal, oil, and gas. We cannot afford any more failure, we must urgently do better. And we will – whether inside or outside the UN. Brazil is talking big but its actions speak louder than words and its recent approval of new oil extraction in the Amazon is the worst possible signal.
  6. Rachel Rose Jackson, Director of Climate Research & Policy, Corporate Accountability:
    These talks have become completely divorced from the reality of the climate crisis. While trillions of dollars are being poured into nuclear war by the very same governments that are responsible for climate change—and while the very same corporations that knowingly fueled the climate crisis are getting even richer off of these wars—not a penny is offered to the countries and communities already facing life or death from the climate crisis. While countries around the world cave to authoritarianism and the far right, these talks pander to this agenda, rather than resist it. Bonn should have filled in the potholes on the rocky road to Belém. Instead, the road to Belém is now paved with landmines, and the work ahead of us is harder than it has ever been. The signposts on the road to COP30 are clearly marked. End the ability of Big Polluters to write the rules of climate action. Global North governments must do their fair share of climate action and pay their climate debt. End fossil fuels justly and urgently. Reject dangerous distractions and fast-track to Real Zero. Center those on the frontlines—Indigenous Peoples, communities of color, those in the Global South—not Big Polluters. Will world governments course correct immediately, or will they push us off a cliff.
  7. Romain Ioualalen, Global Policy lead at Oil Change International:
    Bonn saw the Global North further retreat from its responsibilities to provide public finance for climate action, instead promoting fabricated narratives on private finance filling the gap – despite evidence the market-led approach is not delivering. On top of blocking finance, rich countries failed their homework on fossil fuels with four Global North countries responsible for 70% of projected oil and gas expansion, which made calls from developed parties to center the fossil fuel phaseout in the negotiations continue to ring hollow and hypocritical. However, an outcome on just transition in Belém is within reach and could provide momentum for centering justice in the transition.
  8. Victor Menotti, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice:
    Bonn’s SB62 took the world backwards from even the Baku Debacle, putting COP30 host Brazil in a sticky situation for sweltering Belem…or Rio? Although Trump has pulled out of the Paris Agreement once again, his pressuring NATO members to spend 5% of GDP on military expansion has sucked all the oxygen out of the otherwise balmy air in Bonn. Developed countries operate a three-prong offensive to counter developing country demands for climate justice: 1) to stop any significant discussion on providing finance per legal commitments under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, as Berlin’s budget due next month means their record borrowing for mainly US defense contractors leaves little to nothing for cutting emissions and adapting to climate impacts in the Global South; 2) to attack Global South countries for their lack of “ambition” in reducing emissions — and pressuring them to do more — despite failing to offer sufficient finance and zero flexibility on WTO patent rules that prevent technology transfer; 3) to keep financing their own fossil fuels frenzy, as Europe and Asia increase investment in LNG export facilities on the US Gulf South, one of four developed countries (along with Canada, Norway and Australia) that make up 70% of planned fossil fuel expansion by 2030.Geopolitics may make the most headlines today, but the Global North’s conduct in international climate talks only expedites the pre-eminence of changing geophysics.
  9. Coraina de la Plaza, Coordinator, Hands Off Mother Earth Alliance:
    We will continue to resist geoengineering inside and outside the UN space, and reminding governments that our planet is not a laboratory but a shared HOME that we all must protect through proven and just sustainable solutions and not by experimenting with risky and unproven geoengineering schemes.
  10. Seranya Solanki, Alliance of Non Governmental Radical Youth:
    Despite the opposition from developed countries and attempts to kill the just transition work programme, we were able to achieve a text in SB62 that would create the space and momentum for the UNFCCC to deliver concrete actions on Just Transition in Belem cop30 for affected workers and communities – that recognises that people-centric, bottom-up, whole-of-society approaches are required to achieve just transitions. Unilateral trade measures have a space to be discussed here on how trade measures in general affect or restrict just transition at the national level especially for countries in the global south – already burdened with high debt burdens and the impacts of climate change. We cannot sacrifice ambition in the mechanism in order to secure any old unjust deal on just transition where rights, justice and equity are ignored. It has taken decades to have a just transition on the international table in the climate negotiations. We are concerned at how parties, despite providing rhetoric on the need for inclusivity and participation of rights holders, have not concretised these principles through operative decisions, which is why we are pushing for a COP30 decision text on calling on countries to establish national institutions for peoples’ participation – where we can guarantee that rights holders are involved in the planning and implementation of just transition measures and policies at the national and local levels. We remain vigilant against the antics of parties who either want to delete all references to fossil fuels or weaken any language on means of implementation. There can be no global Just Transition without an equitable and just phaseout of fossil fuels with developed countries taking immediate action and providing the necessary means of implementation to developing countries with the least historical responsibility for climate change but are most vulnerable to its impacts.
  11. David Williams, Head of International Climate Justice Program, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung:
    After years of refusing to pay up for climate finance, the EU has this week shown at the NATO conference in The Hague that the money in fact had been available all along. With the frequency and intensity of droughts, heatwaves, floods, and other climate change impacts increasing across the world, those who have caused the crisis are persisting in their abdication of responsibility. Climate finance is not charity, it is an obligation enshrined in international law under the Paris Agreement. With the US exiting various international treaties, the EU cannot hide any more, having to position itself clearly on where it stands in terms of upholding international law. This is an opportunity to rebuild trust and solidarity with the Global South in times of geopolitical turmoil. Whether the EU will seize this opportunity is another question. The early warning signs are deeply concerning.

Global North takes Bonn climate talks backward when we need big advances before Belém (Links to key docs from SB62) 

MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release

With the US absent at 62nd session of the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Bodies (SBs) in Bonn, the EU has now become the biggest blocker of climate justice before COP30 in Belem. Not only have we seen officials from Brussels block an agenda item to discuss their failure to deliver on their commitments for climate finance, but NATO countries have just today approved to spend 5% of their GDP on weapons for war.

It takes two-to-tango but the European Union (EU), Umbrella Group and Environmental Integrity Group (EIG) have left the Global South hanging on the dancefloor of negotiations. By blocking critical proposals from the developing countries and refusing to honor the fundamental commitments under the United Nations Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement, the developed countries are jeopardising  the world’s chances of dealing with the looming climate collapse. Not crises, not catastrophe⸺a collapse.   

Instead of rising to the moment, developed countries are blocking advancements on the Just Transition Work Programme and peddling dangerous distractions— carbon markets, offsets, techno fixes, and other false solutions— that serve polluters, not people. 

Join the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) and its members in a press conference on the ‘Outcomes from Bonn’ calling out the blockers of a safe future for the world. 

WHEN 26th June 2025, 10:30 am (GMT+2) Watch live

WHERE Nairobi 4, Main building, Inside the World Conference Center, Bonn, Germany 

WHO 

  • Meena Raman, Third World Network
  • Seranya Solanki, Alliance of Non Governmental Radical Youth
  • Dylan Hamilton, Alliance of Non Governmental Radical Youth
  • Victor Menotti, DCJ US Coordinator 
  • Moderated by Rachitaa Gupta, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

CONTACT Esthappen S, Communications Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (Whatsapp: +91 9820918910, Email: [email protected])

KEY RESOURCES 1. Op-ed on Germany’s role in blocking climate action (English, German)  2. DCJ Finance Brief authored by VIctor Menotti 3. New Research on Carbon Offsets by Corporate Accountability 4. Four countries responsible for nearly 70% of projected CO2 pollution from new oil and gas – Oil Change international 5. CIvil Society Letter to UNFCCC Secretariat on censorship on Palestine Solidarity. 6. Quote sheet on Bonn outcomes. 7. List of demands from Palestinian COP30 Coalition 8. World’s largest expansion of fossil fuels on the Gulf Coast of the USA, more than all other countries combined.  

DCJ Press brief: Key issues to watch out for at the June Climate Meetings (SB62)

Report on climate and events like COP but leaving out the Bonn negotiations? 
Journalists and climate communicators have much to gain from the June Climate Meetings: Set the narrative: Early bird gets the most traction. Bonn is a chance to introduce new narratives and issues the world will focus on. Be ahead in the game. Build relationships: Everyone is too busy during the COP. Build your key relationships for the year with experts, activists, scientists and movement leaders. Investigative pieces: Bonn is a great moment to start working on a long form piece. There are no rushed timelines, experts have time for longer interviews, and you get the time to work on an in-depth report and release it in time for COP. 
Not able to make it to Germany, no worries! We have set up a Media hub for you to receive updates everyday. Click on this link. For more information on any issues or in-depth interviews with experts and movement leaders, write to [email protected] or Whatsapp +91 9820918910. 

Bonn Press Brief

The 62nd meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB62) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) taking place in Bonn, Germany, from June 16th-June 26th, 2025. will be the first time governments gather after a deeply disappointing failure to deliver new climate finance commitments at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

Almost one-quarter of the Parties to the Paris Agreement either rejected or registered reservations about the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) decision before Azerbaijan’s COP29 President unabashedly bulldozed through its adoption, stage-managed by UNFCCC’s Executive Secretary. Along with Article 6 carbon markets standards which were adopted by a highly unconventional process that avoided any customary formal approval by Parties, Baku’s two top finance deliverables remain dubious, containing no mandates for any meaningful actions after Belem’s COP30. Combining non-commitments under Article 2.1c to align all financial flows with the 1.5C temperature goal, only the delivery of non-negotiated reports are required at COP30, leaving a rough road for climate finance with no certain future beyond Belem.

Global North governments have historically used these meetings to promote deceptive finance, false solutions and neo-colonial schemes. These policies and frameworks deepen the inequalities and delay the urgent system change we need to prevent climate collapse. Bonn’s climate conference also begins a new chapter of geopolitical changes where US President Trump’s global trade war accelerates economic deglobalization amid intensifying resource competition while ongoing genocidal wars are recasting government priorities, resulting in repositioning negotiators’ expectations. Add in Trump’s second exit from the Paris Agreement and our world is left wandering further off-track from 1.5C without participation of the nation with the most historical responsibility to reduce emissions and respective capabilities to provide finance and technology.

With the exit of US, this is a crucial moment for Global South governments and movements to hold the leaders of the richest, industrialised nations accountable and stop their schemes to derail climate action, distort the agenda of Just Transition and adaptation, and escape from their historical and legal obligations under the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement.

At a time when the climate crisis is reaching catastrophic levels, with the Global South being least responsible but most affected, the negotiations in Bonn will determine whether COP30 in Belém becomes a moment of reckoning or turns out to be another co-opt by Global North governments and their corporates to orchestrate their Great Escape from historical responsibility.

Key policy documents

(Click to open)Third World Network: Curtain Raiser on SB 62 DCJ Finance brief

Key moments

Every day: DCJ Daily Press Conference on Global South perspectives at 10.00 am in Nairobi press conference room
16th June: Mobilisation on Palestine Solidarity on opening day outside the venue followed by press conference by Palestinian groups at 10am at the Nairobi press conference room 
17th June: ‘Defuel the Genocide: Global Energy Embargo on Israel Now’ press conference at 10am at the Nairobi press conference room
18th June: Kick Big Polluters Out mobilisation at 8am outside the venue followed by press conference at 10am at the Nairobi press conference room
18th June: Civil society-cross-constituency led just transition day with various activities
19th June: DCJ opening press conference on Global North’s blocking climate action and efforts to use climate negotiations to perpetuate their colonial agenda 
24th June: Side Event on Peoples Summit, a global convening of peoples’ movements during COP30 in Brazil
25th June: Side Event on Real Solutions: A system transformation approach to equitable and just transition

Key research from members 

Global Green New Deal: Just, equitable and ecological transition in the face of collapse – War on Want.
Top Global North Countries Responsible for nearly 70% of projected new oil and gas expansion to 2035 – Oil Change International. Making – FInancial flows consistent with climate-resilient development: Role of International financial institutions and standard settlers – Recourse

Key policy focus

  1. Solidarity with Palestinian resistance 
  1. Defuel the Genocide: Global Energy Embargo on Israel Now.

Press conference demanding that the COP30 host government, Brazil, end all crude oil and refined products exports to Israel, demonstrating its seriousness towards addressing the genocide and climate change. The speakers will also address the governments of the USA, Colombia, Brazil, South Africa, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Gabon, to demand an end to the transfer of coal, crude oil and petroleum to Israel, and pressuring energy corporations that are most implicated in supplying Israel during the genocide, particularly Glencore, Drummond, SOCAR, BP and

Chevron. Additionally, also call on Egypt, the EU, and other countries to end gas purchases from Israel and stop companies from profiteering from Israel’s settler-colonial occupation, apartheid, and genocide.

Press conference recording. 

Resources for journalists 

  1. End the Siege, End the Genocide: No Climate Justice Under Occupation

A peaceful protest intended to show the deep outrage of the climate movement at the ongoing genocide in Palestine. As Israel continues its brutal campaign of bombing, massacres and starvation against an innocent civilian population, many of the actors and states that are directly responsible for these crimes walk the halls of the climate negotiations. The protest is to remind them of the deep interlinkages between the intersecting crises of climate, capitalism, colonialism, militarism, violence and genocide. And that they cannot separate climate justice and the cause of Palestinian liberation. The protest will be followed by a press conference in the June Climate Meetings (SB 62) press conference room.   

WHEN Protest timings: June 16th, 8:00 AM. Press conference timings: June 16th, 10 AM. 

WHERE Protest venue: World Conference Center Entrance (Metro stop: Heussallee/Museumsmeile). Press conference venue: Nairobi 4, Main building. 

Press release

Resources for journalists on the protest and press conference. 

Recording of press conference.  

  1. Discussions on Just Transition Mechanism

The climate justice movement believes that this is a make-or-break year for just transition in the UNFCCC. One more year without substantial and actionable decisions on just transition will render the Just Transition Work Program (JTWP) into a permanent talk shop not worth renewing after it expires in 2026 as per article 3 of the COP28 JTWP Decision. Furthermore, the JTWP should not be seen as another platform to push for prescriptive top-down, mitigation-centric approaches or an enabling environment to attract investment and profit opportunities for multinational corporations and financial institutions, especially from the North.

Either the JTWP fulfils its promise of delivering concrete outcomes for developed countries more vulnerable to the climate crisis and especially real people suffering both intensifying climate change impacts and unjust transitions, or it becomes another failed workstream further obstructing a sufficient international response to the climate crisis.

Key issues 

  • JTWP should focus on operationalisation of Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capability (CBDR-RC) on all elements (a broader scope – not mitigation and energy centric and not only labour-focused) but enable just transition pathways for the full implementation of the goals of the Paris Agreement.
  • JTWP should not be seen as another platform to push for prescriptive top-down mitigation-centric approaches or creating enabling environments to attract investments for the global north private sector actors; instead, it should consider the needs of the vulnerable groups and prioritise community led solutions (that are co-created by and benefit workers in both the formal and informal sector, communities, small and medium enterprises, as well as developing countries). 
  • A JT must include agriculture as 4 billion people, who are already disproportionately experiencing the effects of climate change, depend on the sector. We need a JT towards equitable, humane and agroecological food systems that will support both adaptation and mitigation goals.
  • Just Transition cannot and must not be reduced to a scheme designed to uphold existing inequities and to appease markets and investors. This is a betrayal of the millions of workers, farmers, Indigenous Peoples, and communities whose survival depends on a radical and comprehensive transformation of existing systems. 

… 

  1. Adaptation 

This year is very significant for adaptation related items. There are five agenda items under adaptation: (i) GGA, (ii) National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), (iii) the Nairobi work programme, (iv) review of the Adaptation Committee and (v) guidance relating to Adaptation Communications.

At COP 29 in Baku, by decision 3/CMA.6,  there were some gains made with a substantive outcome under the GGA, in particular, to have the GGA as a “standing agenda item”, with the adoption of the ‘Baku Adaptation Roadmap’ to advance the GGA work under the ‘UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience’; and the inclusion of “means of implementation” in the UAE-Belem work programme on the development of indicators, for measuring progress achieved towards the GGA’s seven thematic and four dimensional targets. These were key demands by developing countries. (The GGA thematic targets cover water, food and agriculture, health, ecosystems and biodiversity, infrastructure and human settlements, poverty eradication and livelihoods and protection of cultural heritage, while the dimensional targets are (i) impact, vulnerability and risk assessment, (ii) planning, (iii) implementation and (iv) monitoring, evaluation and learning. )

However, huge gaps remained on the rest of the adaptation agenda items, especially on the very important issue of NAPs, with only a procedural decision to continue further work at SB 62. The NAPs agenda has seen a history of stalled negotiations due to fundamental divergences between developing and developed countries over anchoring means of implementation in the decision, consistently blocked by developed countries led by the US. 

  1. Anchoring Article 9.1 in the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3 T and rejection of attempts to transfer responsibility of climate finance delivery from rich governments to the private sector and multilateral institutions

The Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T was established at COP29 as a year-long process to look at how the $1.3 trillion goal agreed at COP29 within the NCQG process should be reached. It will produce a report summarising the outcomes by COP30. It is a key demand of Global South countries and movements that Article 9.1 of the UNFCCC be anchored in this process to reinforce the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC), a core concept of the UNFCCC. Additionally, after the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) debacle in Baku last year, the Global North is set to orchestrate a co-opt of the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3 Trillion by pushing for transferring responsibility of climate finance delivery from rich governments to the private sector and multilateral institutions (eg. World Bank) and further undermine the UNFCCC. This must be resisted at all costs. The Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3 Trillion is not a treasure hunt for the private sector. 

Key demands 

  • Climate finance outcomes of Baku to Belém Roadmap to $1.3 Trillion in line with climate justice
  • Urgent delivery of climate finance obligations in the trillions from Global North – past and present
  • Clear implementation and timeline on the tripling of climate finance flows to UNFCCC climate funds
  • Scaled up commitments and delivery of pledges to Fund for Responding to Loss & Damage (FrLD) and Adaptation fund 
  • Adequate financing for just and equitable transition out of fossil fuels and into renewable energy
  • Finance climate-resilient food systems and ensure the right to food and food sovereignty. 

Key Climate Finance figures

The Global South demands: 

  • Climate Finance: $5 Trillion in public grants. 
  • Adaptation Finance: $2 Trillion for energy transformation and $1 Trillion for food systems transformation. 
  • Loss and Damage: $1 Trillion for Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage. 

  1. Promoting false solutions under the cover of the Global Stocktake (GST)

From carbon capture and utilisation and storage (CCUS) to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and low-carbon hydrogen production, the Global North is pushing a set of false solutions under the cover of the Global Stocktake (GST) outcome from COP28. These technofixes are not solutions—they are lifelines for fossil fuel expansion and tools for delaying real solutions.

Key demands 

  • Carbon markets are not, and should not be considered, climate finance;
  • Climate finance should not be spent on false solutions, including CCS, CDR etc;
  • We need to close the false solutions/abatement loopholes in any reiteration of the GST outcome.
  • Investment in real solutions that are grounded in people’s sovereignty and ecological justice, not colonial logics and market mechanisms.

…  

  1. Global  South debt crisis and unjust debt architecture addressed within the Sharm el-Sheikh Dialogue on Article 2.1c

Public finance is urgently needed to address the intensifying climate crisis due to the Global North’s historical and continuing occupation of the world’s commons and failure to execute ambitious climate action and deliver on climate finance obligations. Yet, the Global North continues to silence the clamor for the cancellation of public, illegitimate debts that Global South are being forced to repay.

Key demands 

  • Climate finance must be grant-based, public and adequate so countries are not forced into debt
  • To align all financial flows with the climate emergency, we must address the Global South debt crisis. This means debt cancellation for all countries, across all creditors, free from economic conditions. We also need urgent reform to the debt architecture via a UN framework convention on sovereign debt, including a multilateral debt workout mechanism. 
  • No to false finance solutions that are inadequate (like climate resilient debt clauses), or that can exacerbate the current situation (e.g. debt swaps, more climate finance as loans, green and blue bonds, and MDBs playing a bigger role in climate finance delivery)

  1. Negotiations and updates on the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), Global Goals on Adaptation and Just Transition Work Program for  food systems transformation

Key demands 

  • Ensure climate action and food systems transformation are properly addressed in more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) in 2025 starting with the JT package to include agriculture and a recognition of the need to urgently transition away from industrial agricultural production towards equitable, humane and agroecological agricultural food system as an effective adaptation and mitigation measure to equitably reduce deforestation and tackle emission to meet the 1.5°C climate target.
  • Climate financing for smallholders and an equitable just transition towards humane, sustainable, and agroecological agricultural practices and agroecology
    1. Demand sufficient and adequate provision of climate finance from the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Loss and Damage Finance (LDF), and Adaptation Fund (AF) for climate action on agriculture & fisheries and agroecology.  

2. Redirect finance and perverse subsidies from false solutions in big ag and big livestock to real solutions in agriculture, including agroecology and agroforestry, local consumption and production, gender justice in the food systems and support to small holders.  

  1. GST outcome on Fast, Fair, Funded, Forever Phase Out from Fossil Fuel. 

The GST outcome (COP28) promotes problematic technologies like ‘abatement and removal technologies such as carbon capture and utilisation and storage, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors, and low-carbon hydrogen production’ – that risk extending fossil fuel use and enabling further expansion. 

Key demands

  • Fast, funded, fair, forever phase out. 
  • #DontGasAsia #DontGasAfrica 
  • If calls for fossil fuel phase out need to refer to the GST outcome (from COP28) then they should lift up the specific FF/energy elements of the GST rather than calls for reiteration of para 28 or ‘full GST implementation’ (as these explicitly encourage false solutions). 
  1. Technology Implementation Program (TIP) 

Countries will decide on the way forward for implementing the TIP. Technology is a key pillar of means of implementation support that developed countries have to provide to developing countries under the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement. We stress that the TIP must be implemented in line with the principles of CBDR-RC and equity.  

Key demands:

  • Technology transfer from developed to developing countries must occur. 
  • Sustainable and adequate access to financial resources is key in addressing technology needs of developing countries. Finance must be provided to implement technology needs and priorities identified by developing countries in their Technology Needs and Assessment, Technology Action Plans, Biennial Transparency Reports, National Communications, and Long term strategies.
  • Barriers posed by the international intellectual property rights regime must be addressed so that developing countries. 

End the Siege, End the Genocide: No Climate Justice Under Occupation

For Immediate Release

Media advisory

WHEN Protest timings: June 16th, 8:00 AM (GMT+2)

Press conference timings: June 16th, 10 AM (GMT+2) 

WHERE Protest venue: World Conference Center Entrance (Metro stop: Heussallee/Museumsmeile). Press conference venue: Nairobi 4, Main building. conference in Nairobi room inside the World Conference Center

**Photo and interview opportunity**

CONTACT

  1. Esthappen S, Communications Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (Whatsapp: +91 9820918910, Email: [email protected])

WHAT: A peaceful protest where local movements, Palestinian activists, international  social and climate justice groups and constituencies from around the world unite to express deep outrage about the ongoing genocide in Palestine. As Israel continues its brutal campaign of bombing, massacres and starvation against an innocent civilian population, many of the actors and states that are directly enabling crimes are currently walking the halls of the UN climate negotiations with no accountability. People from around the world are joining forces to remind them of the deep interlinkages between the intersecting crises of climate, capitalism, colonialism, militarism, violence and genocide. And that they cannot separate climate justice and the cause of Palestinian liberation. The protest will be followed by a press conference in the June Climate Meetings (SB 62) Nairobi press conference room.   

WHO Protest: Civil society groups (from across Germany and the world) and members of UNFCCC rights-based constituencies. Press conference: Mohammed Usrof (Palestine Institute for Climate Strategy), Fatma Khafagy (Women and Gender Constituency), Amiera Sawas (Climate Action Network), Hajar Al-Beltaji (ANGRY), Ana Sánchez (Global Energy Embargo for Palestine), Moderated by Rachitaa Gupta (Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice).    

VISUALS Big crowds of people from around the world with everyone wearing RED clothes and KEFFIYEHS holding banners and placards with messages of solidarity and expressing rage at the complicity of governments attending the climate negotiations with a “business as usual” mindset Coordinated movements and sloganeering    

SPOKESPEOPLE Representatives from Palestinian civil society groups and climate and social justice activists from around the world including local civil society organisations across Germany. 

RESOURCES 1. List of demands from Palestinian COP30 Coalition. 2. Photo/video library. 3. Press release on the protest and press conference. 4. Quote sheet.  5. Recording of press conference.  

False Solutions and deceptive victories on the rise: Carbon markets are not climate finance!

MEDIA ADVISORY: Nov 13th, 2024

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

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.  

Join us as members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice spotlight the polluters’ attempt to derail climate action. 


When: Wednesday 13th November | 12:30pm-1:00pm (Baku)

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

Who:

  • Tatiana Rodríguez Maldonado,  CENSAT Agua Viva / Friends of the Earth Colombia
  • Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environment Network
  • Dylan Hamilton, Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth
  • Rachel Rose Jackson, Corporate Accountability

Contact Us

Julian, DCJ, +306941437285, [email protected]

Money for war but not for climate action in Baku

MEDIA ADVISORY

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

As the genocide continues to unfold in Gaza, leaders around the world are arriving in Baku for the World Leaders’ Summit on day two of COP29 to discuss the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. Widely dubbed as the “Finance COP”, climate justice movement from the Global South has raised a demand of $5 trillion per year, with “quality” finance provided by grants from public funds, not loans from private investors. 

Decades of inaction and broken promises by the rich countries, while shifting burden and blame on developing countries have not only compounded today’s climate impacts but have also deepened the extreme inequalities and injustices endured by communities, economies, and ecosystems, especially in the Global South. Yet Global North governments keep increasing their spending on weapons of war while ignoring climate impacts are intensifying insecurity and displacement, driving conflict. 

Join us as members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice point to trillions of dollars being blown on military spending and fossil fuel subsidies, but is nowhere to be seen in Baku.

When: Tuesday, 12 November | 10:30am (Baku) 

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

Who:

Contact Us Julian, DCJ, +306941437285, [email protected]

Climate justice groups condemn COP29’s carbon markets decision setting the tone for corporate profits to prevail people’s interests


PRESS RELEASE

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 11 NOV 24 – As the global community gathers for the start of COP29, climate justice groups deplore the gaveling through of harmful carbon markets on the first day of the conference. This is not only an undemocratic process that threatens the credibility of this conference, it sets the tone for this COP to put Big Polluters’ profits above people’s rights.

The failure of voluntary carbon markets have shown that carbon markets, offsets, and removals do not work. Instead, they provide a smokescreen for big polluters to keep on emitting at the expense of people and nature. Time and again, these neocolonial schemes have resulted in land grabs, Indigenous Peoples rights and human rights violations, and the undermining of food sovereignty. 

Fully operationalizing carbon markets on the first day of COP29 sends an appalling message to the world for a COP that is set to see the delivery of urgently needed climate finance: Big Polluters and Global North governments may celebrate this as a success, and many will argue that carbon markets can provide the finance needed for a just energy transition, adaptation, and loss and damage in the global South. 

But carbon markets only fill the pockets of Big Polluters, they cannot – and will not – deliver the climate finance needed and owed to developing countries. The gavelling through of this decision on the first day of COP29 sets a dangerous precedent. The documents from the Supervisory Body must go through the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) for all parties to negotiate on. The rushing through of this decision is undemocratic and undermines the whole process.

Real, proven, community-centered and cost-effective solutions to justly address the climate crisis are increasingly being swept aside in favor of these industry-basked, risky, expensive, and harm-inducing false solutions. Climate justice begins with ending financing for and promotion of false solutions, instead, this COP must deliver the urgently needed climate finance owed to the global South. Bulldozing through Article 6.4 on the first day of the COP without any discussions and opportunity to negotiate by the Parties undermines the CMA, the COP and subverts the entire UNFCCC COP process. 

“Bulldozing through the Carbon Market methodology and text on the first day of the COP without any discussions and opportunity to negotiate by the Parties undermines the CMA, the COP and subverts the entire UNFCCC COP process. The arrival of the carbon market through the backdoor is a bad beginning for this COP, the global south, the Indigenous Peoples, forest and the front line communities. A global mobilization against the carbon markets is the need of the hour now.”

Souparna Lahiri, Senior Climate and Biodiversity Policy Advisor, Global Forest Coalition

“Carbon markets put Indigenous Peoples’ lives at risk. For over 20 years, these fraudulent mechanisms have allowed fossil fuel industries to continue with impunity. At this COP 29, the corporate capture has superseded any semblance of UN democracy with a move from the COP Presidency to go rogue and push through Article 6 carbon market methodology and removals texts without following party-driven procedure. IEN strongly opposes geoengineering technologies in the activities on removals text, which still has not produced a list of what removals technologies will even be included in A6.4 as an offset. We will continue to voice our opposition against Article 6 carbon markets.

Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. 

“The gavelling through of carbon markets on the first day of COP29 is unacceptable and undermines the credibility of the whole process. Further, it is opening the floodgates for a global carbon market that will have devastating impacts on communities in the Global South, on Indigenous Peoples, and on small peasant farmers first and foremost. Carbon markets are not climate finance, and we cannot accept these neocolonial schemes to be propped as a success of COP29 in lieu of paying the climate debt owed to the Global South.” 

Lise Masson, Friends of the Earth International.

“Carbon markets are not climate finance. They are not the meaningful Real Zero action we desperately need while the world reaches record-breaking temperatures. They are a get-out-of-jail-free card for the world’s Big Polluters and Global North governments. And they condemn people and the planet. For this COP to claim victory, it must reject these false solutions that have been found to be essentially junk time and time again.  It just delivers the Global North’s climate debt and fair share of climate action. And it must defund genocide and finally kick Big Polluters out.” 

Rachel Rose Jackson, Director of Climate Research and Policy, Corporate Accountability.

“This is a bad process and a worse outcome. By trying to ram through loose standards for dangerous carbon crediting mechanisms behind closed doors, the Supervisory Board is handing Big Oil a gift and setting course for climate disaster. Under these sham guidelines, speculative so-called ‘carbon removal’ technologies and ‘carbon capture’ schemes led by oil and gas companies could be counted as carbon offsets – even if they increase climate pollution. Up to 79% of current ‘carbon capture’ operating capacity is just used to produce more fossil fuels, and these guidelines open the door for even more public money for polluting industries. Governments have already spent over USD 25 billion of public money on carbon capture and are planning to spend up to USD 240 billion more, but currently operating carbon capture projects have captured almost no emissions. This dodgy deal shows the Supervisory Board is more interested in looking like they are acting on climate change than actually acting on climate change – UN states should reject it immediately.” 

Myriam Douo, Oil Change International.

“The approval of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement represents a violation of human rights and the original rights of Indigenous peoples. Turning environmental protection and biodiversity into a commodity ignores the sacred value that these beings represent for Indigenous communities. They want to convince us that they can save the planet by selling our forests and the life that lives in them, but this is just another business tactic that only benefits big polluters. Instead of protecting, this policy puts our natural resources at risk and offends the principles of respect and harmony with nature. An approach that truly considers the genuine preservation and dignity of traditional peoples is urgently needed.The real solution for the climate is in the hands of the Indigenous peoples, who have been protecting the earth for millennia with their knowledge and their struggle.” Cacique Ninawa Huni Kui, Federation of Huni Kui People of the State of Acre Coordinator – Amazon, Brazil

“It is a very bad signal to open this finance COP by legitimizing carbon markets as a solution to climate change. They’re not – they will increase inequalities, infringe on human rights, and hinder real climate action. In adopting Article 6, the COP presidency is setting the tone for the remainder of the climate talks and confusing ‘climate finance’ with ‘markets’. COP29 is and should remain a finance COP, not a “markets” COP. Countries affected by climate change desperately need real money. The real win for this COP will be in securing 1 trillion a year in grants, not bonds, nor fake offset mechanisms that are a thinly veiled excuse for the world’s biggest polluters to pretend they’re paying their share. Dangerous distractions masquerading as emissions reductions will not suffice. We are here in Baku to demand a new, real climate finance goal, and we won’t accept schemes that only serve to pad the pockets of climate culprits.” 

Ilan Zugman, 350.org Latin America and Caribbean Director says:

“Carbon markets are not a solution to the climate crisis, and by pushing them through at this COP Indigenous People and those in the Global South are being further condemned by the Global North to suffer catastrophic consequences. At best, it is an insult to the legitimacy of the COP processes, and at worst it is a gift to the fossil fuel industry to continue to pollute unimpeded. Carbon markets are not climate finance, with this agreement in particular riddled with loopholes and false solutions that enable big polluters. This decision is putting the entire aim of the Paris Agreement at risk.” Dylan Hamilton, Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth (ANGRY).

“The Africa Make Big Polluters Coalition urgently demands that COP29 unequivocally reject false solutions like carbon markets. These markets are not merely a deceptive substitute for genuine climate finance; they allow polluters to commodify our planet’s future while continuing to pollute our environment. As we gather to confront the climate crisis, we must remember: you can’t buy air from one part of the world to another, and that is precisely what carbon markets represent—another false solution threatening the very existence of our planet.This deception comes at an unbearable cost to thousands of frontline and grassroots communities who have lost their land, livelihoods, families, and lives due to these harmful carbon market projects. We must stand united and demand real, impactful solutions that prioritize the health of our planet and its people. Governments at COP29 must reject carbon markets and commit to meaningful climate action without delay. Big polluters must be held accountable for their undeniable contribution to this climate crisis—the time for action is now!”
Akinbode Oluwafemi, Executive Director , Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa

“Apart from undermining established procedures, a big source of frustration for us is the fact that false ‘solutions’ like removals are still on the table. History tells us that these mechanisms distract from real and lasting emission cuts and have adverse impacts on the rights and livelihoods of communities worldwide. They drive land dispossession, undermine food sovereignty, erode democratic control over resources, privatise global commons, exploit labour, and intensify the most destructive elements of the capitalist system.

We have been very categorical: any mechanism premised on allowing polluters to continue business as usual, to justify fossil fuel use, or to persist in colonising and plundering the global South is not a solution.”

Jax Bongon, IBON International

“For more than two decades of operation, carbon markets have proven to be a completely useless mechanism for reducing emissions, a source of shady business that has only served large emitters to evade their responsibility and deepen the climate crisis by promoting projects that generate impacts and violate the rights of communities.”

Eduardo Giesen, Regional Coordinator DCJ Latin America and the Caribbean. 

“Today, States allowed this rogue move from the Supervisory Body to prevail in the quest to start COP29 with a “win.” But this is hardly a win for people or planet.  Approving this without discussion or debate on this approach, sets a dangerous precedent for the entire negotiation process. This is very concerning from a procedural standpoint: it bypasses States’ ability to even discuss , much less revise the standards before they go into effect. States’ oversight is all the more critical as the Supervisory Body’s efforts to get this done has resulted in risky rules that will lead to human rights violations and environmental harm.  While States won’t be able to undo this move, they can still partially correct the wrong by giving strong guidance to the Supervisory Body that ensures further rules are adopted in line with science, human rights, and international law.”
Erika Lennon, Senior Attorney, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)  

“As the last decades have shown, carbon markets are not only a false solution to the climate crisis but also perpetuate the extractive colonial model of development and human rights violations. The text on removals as it is now, opens the floodgates to very harmful activities like geoengineering which will only worsen the climate crisis and divert attention from real solutions. Today, COP29 has had a very bad start and sets an appalling precedent from a procedural point of view, but above all, it has taken yet another step on the road to climate disaster by backing false solutions and the interest of a few to the detriment of the planet and peoples.”
Coraina de la Plaza, Global Coordinator, Hands Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance

“This is not a success for COP 29, this is a climate and development disaster. Carbon markets are pollution permits allowing wealthy nations and companies to emit CO2 at will, funding neocolonial projects that exclude people and do little for the climate.”

Alison Doig, Recourse

Contact Us

Julian, DCJ, +306941437285, [email protected]

Uncertainty Clouds Urgent Breakthrough Needed in Baku

Media Advisory #COP29

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

It has been over a year since the apartheid regime of Israel, fully supported and funded by other colonial states, unleashed its latest genocidal attacks in Gaza. Against this backdrop, the governments are gathering in Baku for the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Conference Of Parties 29 (COP29)

Originally dubbed the “Finance COP”, COP29 seems set to become a “False Solutions COP” as political turmoil and economic uncertainty unsettle government delegations driving desperately towards a new climate deal. At COP29 in Baku, the Global North governments are arriving without clear authority or even commitment to make deals due to recent election reversals and collapsed ruling coalitions, yet all  countries are mandated to agree on a new goal that delivers urgently needed climate finance to the Global South countries.  

Eager to get any deal done, the COP29’s Presidency is pushing a dangerous and undemocratic agreement on carbon markets that would present as “climate finance” and would provide the ‘get out of jail free card’ for polluters  to continue with their emissions further, pushing the planet on a path to catastrophe. Join us as members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice preview the political dynamics driving climate diplomats to play with fire in a world already warming beyond scientists’ worst nightmares.

When: Monday, 11 November | 10:30am (Baku)

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

Who:

  • Meena Raman, Third World Network
  • Claire Miranda, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development
  • Jax Bongon, IBON International
  • Asad Rehman, War on Want

Contact Us Julian, DCJ, +306941437285, [email protected]

COP29: Repression epidemic regarding climate activists and human rights defenders

November 11 2024, 1130 AZT / 0730 UTC+4

Baku, Azerbaijan – The world is in the throes of unprecedented repression regarding climate activists, human rights defenders, journalists, academics and others who express opposing views to their government, according to a new report, Climate Talks and the Chilling Effect: Repression on the Rise, released on the opening day of the latest round of UN climate negotiations, taking place in Azerbaijan. The problem is widespread, and three leading civil society networks – Climate Action Network, Publish What You Pay and Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice – assert this as an epidemic impeding crucial climate action and violating human rights laws across the world. Without these voices of civil society, the fight for climate justice cannot succeed, jeopardising the integrity of climate summits themselves. 

The report reveals how repression and barriers, like visa restrictions and hotel price gouging, have significantly worsened at the most recent UN climate negotiations from Katowice to Baku, as well as most recently in Kenya, Germany and the UK. Without urgent action from governments and the UN, COP30 in Brazil could fall victim too, the organisations warn.

Tasneem Essop, Executive Director, Climate Action Network, said: “Without a robust defence of human rights for all who challenge injustice – climate defenders, journalists, and civil society alike – the foundations of climate justice crumble, jeopardising the integrity of COP29 and all future climate summits. Repression doesn’t just silence individuals; it weakens our collective power to secure a sustainable, just future. From the peaceful protestors in Kenya and Azerbaijan to indigenous leaders in Latin America, those on the frontlines are risking everything for society and the planet. COP29 must be more than a summit of promises. Governments must stand up to end the persecution of climate defenders now. Because without them, we do not have climate action – we have empty words.”

Over 1,500 climate and human rights defenders have been murdered since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, and there appears to be no let up as the latest death toll stands at 2,100, with Latin America having the highest number of recorded killings worldwide. 

Surveillance, intimidation, draconian laws and police brutality are on the rise, while Gina Romero, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, has called on governments to “take seriously the hostile narratives that are fast spreading worldwide, including in historic democracies, to vilify and stigmatise people exercising their fundamental freedoms.”

Azerbaijan, the leading fossil fuel supplier to Israel, plays COP29 host against a backdrop of documented human rights violations by the country’s government led by Ilham Aliyev. In 2024, Azerbaijan has witnessed its most severe repression yet, with a sharp rise in political prisoners, targeting of academics, and the harshest media restrictions in its history as a member of the Council of Europe. 

In Germany, in April 2024, police cracked down on peaceful pro-Palestinian protestors, with numerous incidents of excessive force and arbitrary detentions reported during demonstrations across major cities like Berlin, while dozens of civil society representatives and delegates from Africa and Asia experienced trouble getting visas to attend the annual mid-year UN climate talks that take place in Bonn.

Asad Rehman, Executive Director of War on Want, member of Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ), said: “Death and destruction from climate violence and genocide in Gaza is being actively fuelled by the actions of rich countries such as the USA, UK and EU. They are willing to burn down the rules-based system, trash international law and no longer even pretend that the lives of black and brown people matter. When people of conscience stand up to protect our planet and expose the complicity of Western governments, its banks and corporations that are profiting from repression and fuelling climate catastrophe, they are being met with repression, authoritarianism, and criminalization. We stand at a crossroads with the very future of humanity at stake, facing a life or death struggle for humanity: on the one side the right of everyone to live with dignity or a world of walls and fences and sacrificed people.”

Several peaceful and unarmed protesters, many of whom were youth, were killed and injured in Kenya by police during #RejectFinanceBill2024 marches in June 2024. While in the UK, there are currently 41 political prisoners, among which are campaigners who received what is thought to be the longest ever sentences for non-violent protest.

Dr. Ketakandriana Rafitoson, Executive Director of Publish What You Pay, said: “Escalating repression of activists is smothering the voices that matter most in the urgent shift to a cleaner and fairer energy future. As fossil fuel dependency fades, this suppression is not only unjust—it is dangerously short-sighted. A just and equitable energy transition requires an open civic space and the active participation of those on the frontlines – like Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu in Azerbaijan, whose insights and resilience are crucial to achieving a people-centred agenda for the planet.”

To address the repression epidemic, Climate Action Network, Publish What You Pay and Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice demand the following:

  • All governments, in particular, Azerbaijan, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, the European Union – notably Germany, and the UK, must end their crackdown on civil society and journalists, and release all those arbitrarily detained and bring perpetrators to swift justice. 
  • States and the international community, including the United Nations through all its bodies, must take seriously the hostile narratives that are fast spreading worldwide, including in Western democracies, to vilify and stigmatise people exercising their fundamental freedoms.
  • Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change must recognise the legitimate work of people, groups and organisations that defend the environment and human rights, contributing to climate justice. 
  • All host countries of UNFCCC-related meetings and events, including Azerbaijan, Brazil, and Germany, respectively the hosts of COP29, COP30, and of the sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies, should guarantee open civic space before, during, and after the events and communicate around the steps taken to do so.
  • All Parties must combat reprisals and acts of intimidation against Indigenous Peoples, defenders or climate activists for their engagement with the UNFCCC by publicly denouncing all cases of reprisals, and establishing an accessible focal point for reprisals, with a mandate to collect information, to share it with the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights and facilitate redress. 

Please find the detailed Press Note below:

Climate Action Network (CAN) is the world’s largest climate network made up of more than 2000 civil society organisations in over 130 countries, together fighting the climate crisis. Since its inception in the 1980s, CAN has grown into a strong, member-driven network with a membership spanning all six continents in over 130 countries.

Publish What You Pay is a global network with over 1000 of civil society organisations in more than 50 countries. Founded in 2002, PWYP advocates   for an energy transition that leaves no one behind. PWYP listens to and elevates the voices and needs of people living in oil, gas, and mining dependent countries. 

Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) is a network of over 200 climate and human rights organisations working at international, regional and local level on issues of climate justice and just transition. Formed in 2012, DCJ campaigns on energy transformation and food, land, and water, as well as establishing itself as the convener of climate justice groups in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where DCJ makes up one half of the Environmental NGO Constituency alongside Climate Action Network.

Contacts:

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Attending COP29?

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Rough Road to COP29: Rich Countries Pushing Global South Off the Tracks

13 June, 2023

Bonn, Germany

2023 was the hottest year on record with global temperatures close to 1.5 degrees. As the 60th Subsidiary Bodies meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: SBSTA and SBI come to a close, the global community faces stark realities about the ongoing climate crisis and the persistent inaction of developed countries. Recent UNFCCC reports reveal that rich nations, historically responsible for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions, have only met a quarter of the emission cuts urged by scientists. These same countries are pushing developing nations for ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) while putting on a concerted effort to not commit or deliver on their own climate finance obligations urgently needed by the developing countries.

Adding to the injustice, rich countries continue to advocate for false solutions like nature-based solutions, geoengineering, carbon capture and storage, and carbon markets. These tactics allow them and their corporations to evade genuine emission reductions and delay the phase-out of fossil fuels, perpetuating the exploitation of the Global South communities at the frontline of this crisis. Rich countries need to step up and pay up for their responsibility by delivering on an ambitious New Common Quantified Goal that ensures new, additional, predictable and non-debt creating grant based public finance that goes towards real solutions and not towards dangerous distractions. The Global South is owed reparations in trillions and not billions and we need them to go towards solutions developed by peoples who are at the frontlines and suffer the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis.

As we head towards COP29, it is imperative to hold these nations accountable and demand real, equitable climate action.

Quotes and Reactions from DCJ Members

Meena Raman, Third World Network

“If the developed world is serious about ambition in mitigation, they must in their forthcoming communication of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) indicate that they will phase out from the use of fossil fuels urgently and will provide the scale of finance needed for developing countries to enable their just and equitable energy transition. The rich world must also indicate the financial resources they will provide for the new collective quantified goal on finance which has to be agreed to in Baku by the end of this year, to enable developing countries to address their mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage needs. Thus far, developed countries have refused to indicate any quantum of finance. They have money for bombs and war but have no money for paying up their climate debt. They must Step Up, Pay Up and meet their obligations under the Paris Agreement. They have the money but not the political will and this must change, if we are serious about enabling a liveable planet for all. “

Mariana Pinzón, CENSAT Agua Viva/Friends of the Earth Colombia

“One more round of climate negotiations ends and, once again, profound decisions are postponed for a new cycle. The discussions do not respond to the urgency of a crisis that is growing exponentially, but to the rhythm of large fossil fuel corporations, linked in turn to the world financial system, and to the wealth of the countries of the Global North. Those most affected, the communities of the Global South, are not heard. The recognition of an ecological debt owed by the Global North to the Global South does not appear in the discussions, let alone the obligation to reduce their GHG emissions to real zero not “net” zero. Neo-extractivist and debt-linked finance promise to maintain the status quo. Meanwhile, more people are being displaced by the climate crisis as right-wing governments gain space and promise to put up their walls.”

ASSEM Ekue, Les Amis de la Terre-Togo

“The false climate solutions we’re hearing about at the Bonn climate talks, such as carbon offsetting, carbon trading schemes and geo-engineering, are nothing more than technological or commercial schemes promoted by fossil fuel companies and their political allies. Their consequences include deforestation, land grabbing and violations of the rights of local communities in Africa. They are undoubtedly a danger to communities and ecosystems.”

Eduardo Giesen, DCJ Regional Coordinator, Latin America and the Caribbean 

“Once again in Bonn, climate negotiations continue to move away from the systemic change that requires solving the climate crisis with justice, collaboration, peace and care for nature. On the contrary, the logic of arrogance, war, commodification and corporate power, expressed in north-south relations and the imposition of false solutions within the framework of negotiations, continue to prevail.

For organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is a new frustration that reinforces our effort to focus on producing systemic change from our own territories and communities.”

Dr Tamra Gilbertson, Indigenous Environmental Network

“Negotiators at the SBSTA 60 continued geopolitical colonial practices that uphold power regimes in the global North putting Indigenous Peoples, women and local communities’ lives at risk. With the UN claiming lack of funds, close to a third of the budget is set aside to build and continue carbon markets in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and to continue the clean development mechanism running in a limbo status. The UNFCCC processes undermine efforts to stop the serious threat of climate change and its underpinning processes, which will certainly be apparent in Baku in November. We do not have time to continue down the path of colonial-development fossil fuel power regimes heightened by the UN; it is time to end this violence.”

Asad Rehman, Executive Director, War on Want:

“Transition is now inevitable, the question is what kind of transition? The answer from rich countries in Bonn is that the goal is an unjust and inequitable transition condemning the majority of the world to increased climate violence, keeping them trapped in unequal societies. Rich countries need to stop financing bombs and bullets and instead invest in the life-saving systems needed by those on the frontlines.

Global North countries appear determined to bully the Global South while billions around the world desperately need concrete international action, including sufficient additional non-debt creating finance and technology transfers. This must be enabled by securing trade justice, implementing a fairer global taxation system, and redirecting damaging subsidies.”

Souparna Lahiri, Global Forest Coalition

“With 6 years to go for 2030 and what looks like a pretty ambitious but scientifically deduced benchmark of 1.5, the UNFCCC has lost the plot. We are facing a climate chaos and not a climate crisis anymore! Where the markets dictate, the dirty polluters preach and the rich west wants to come out clean of its historical responsibility of ravaging our planet,  our mother earth. We have had enough of these false promises and false solutions. It’s time to reclaim our land, our forests, and justice for Indigenous Peoples, women and local communities who are victims of colonialism, capitalism and climate colonialism. That’s our pathway to climate justice, real solutions and real zero.”

Sara Shaw, Friends of the Earth International 

“Developing countries need trillions in new public finance for adaptation, loss and damage and for a just transition away from fossil fuels. But developed countries are not even offering crumbs from the table and are blocking all progress. They want developing countries to accept loans which will further fuel debt, and are pushing already discredited carbon market finance schemes which causes grave harm in the Global South. This is a disaster.”

Rachel Rose Jackson, Corporate Accountability

“The Bonn climate talks produced wanting and watered down outcomes totally out of touch with reality.  Millions of lives are already being lost and impacted as a result of the climate crisis, yet urgency and fairness is totally lacking in this process. What is not lacking is the chokehold the fossil fuel industry and other Big Polluters have over this process, and there is no shortage of bullying by Global North governments evading their fair share. Until we end the ability of Big Polluters to write the rules of climate action, climate talks will continue to condemn rather than save lives.”

Rachitaa Gupta, Global Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

“We saw deepening distrust at the climate talks in Bonn as rich countries continued to block progress and refused to step up and own up to their historical responsibilities for the ongoing climate crisis. We call out the misplaced priorities of the rich countries as they mobilise more money for the ongoing genocide in Palestine than for climate action.These same actors are perpetuating both the climate crisis and the systemic violence happening around the world.

As the Global South continues to reels from the climate crisis induced devastation, it is time for rich countries to reckon with their history and pay up the climate debt owed to the Global South. We need reparations in trillions not billions and we need them now to go towards real solutions – those developed by peoples who are at the frontlines and suffer the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis”

Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins, War on Want on behalf of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice Just Transition Working Group

“We leave Bonn with little concrete progress on the Just Transition Work Programme. Yet we need rapid, just and equitable transitions essential to transforming our economies and societies in the face of climate breakdown and rampant global inequalities. Rich countries’ shenanigans included refusing to honour the original decision which stipulated that ‘international cooperation’ would enable just transitions (3/CMA.5). They would prefer the JTWP to be a talking shop, and refuse to support practical measures such as finance or technology transfer. We will continue to build grassroots power in our communities to fight for real change, and push for more tangible outcomes at COP29.”

Laurie van der Burg, Oil Change International:

“While lives are being lost in unbearable heat waves in Sudan, last year’s breakthrough agreement to transition away from fossil fuels was barely mentioned in these negotiations. The rich countries most responsible for this crisis must pay up for a fair fossil fuel phase-out and climate damages, without worsening unjust debts. We know they have more than enough money. It’s just going to the wrong things. 

“G7 leaders gathering in Italy today must face their responsibility. Instead of siding with fossil fuel interests, they need to deliver a fair fossil fuel phase-out, end fossil fuel handouts, and put a strong climate finance offer on the table. This is essential to build a fair and renewable future for all.”

Victor Menotti, Interim US Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

“DCJ sees a ROUGH road to Baku given the little progress and deepening distrust here in Bonn. BURYING data from Annex 1 reports showing that the richest nations cut only one-fifth of the emissions scientists urged does NOT reverse the deteriorating spirit of cooperation. Nor does publicly declaring success while actually delivering only $51B of the $100B promised, as their reports reveal. Biennial Transparency reports (BTRs) BEFORE Baku – as well as coming clean on why such poor performance – are paramount.

We DO see a HOPEFUL way ahead, but only if rich countries step up to their responsibilities by drafting NDCs that are EQUITABLY aligned with 1.5C. That means the biggest historical polluters must not do only the global AVERAGE but indeed much more…For example, by making PERMANENT the pause on new LNG export permits to end the world’s largest expansion of fossil fuels. Ending LNG‘s expansion would convince other countries that aligning with 1.5C is truly the North Star of policymaking for the biggest historical polluters.”

Harjeet Singh, Global Engagement Director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative

“Climate finance at international talks has morphed into a battleground, a glaring testament to years of neglect and deception by developed nations. These countries have not only skirted their historical responsibilities but have also consistently deployed delay tactics, shifting burdens onto the shoulders of developing countries.

“We are on the brink of a catastrophic failure of climate talks, harming those least responsible for the crisis. It is time for wealthy nations to confront their obligations head-on, to integrate substantial climate finance commitments into their national budgets, and to impose punitive taxes on fossil fuel corporations and the super-rich — those who have profited most from the exploitation of our planet. 

“As we witness devastating impacts affecting people and nature, our patience has run thin. We need action to raise trillions of dollars, not excuses, to finance the urgent climate solutions needed to safeguard our future and restore justice to the communities bearing the brunt of climate change.”

Teresa Anderson, Global lead on climate justice, ActionAid International: 

“Across the board, negotiation tracks nearly ran off the rails with rich countries blocking the finance needed to make climate action happen. COP29 negotiations in Baku on the new climate finance goal will be a fork in the road for Planet Earth. Developing countries have been carrying the costs of the climate crisis, and their patience is now stretched beyond bearing. Right now, it’s the people who have done almost nothing to cause the climate crisis who are paying for it with their lost livelihoods, their hunger, their disappearing islands, and their lives.

“There’s no getting around the fact that if we want enough climate action to ensure a safe future for everyone, we’re going to have to find a way of covering the costs. The climate bill will be in multiple trillions of dollars, but the good news is that tax justice can be a game-changer for climate action. New ActionAid research shows that developed countries can raise USD 2 trillion for climate action by raising their tax-to-GDP ratios by four percentage points, with a range of progressive tax measures that address tax avoidance, and target the wealthiest corporations and individuals.”

Quotes in other languages

[Portuguese]

Dr Tamra Gilbertson, Indigenous Environmental Network

“Os negociadores no SBSTA 60 continuaram as práticas coloniais geopolíticas que sustentam regimes de poder no Norte global, colocando povos indígenas, mulheres e vidas de comunidades locais em risco. Com a ONU alegando falta de fundos, quase um terço do orçamento é reservado para construir e continuar os mercados de carbono no Artigo 6 do Acordo de Paris e para continuar o mecanismo de desenvolvimento limpo em execução em um status de limbo. Os processos da UNFCCC prejudicam os esforços para deter a séria ameaça das mudanças climáticas e seus processos de sustentação, que certamente serão aparentes em Baku em novembro. Não temos tempo para continuar no caminho dos regimes colonial de poder do combustíveis fósseis pela ONU; é hora de acabar com essa violência.”

[Español]

Dr Tamra Gilbertson, Indigenous Environmental Network

“Los negociadores del SBSTA 60 continuaron con las prácticas coloniales geopolíticas que sostienen los regímenes de poder en el Norte global, poniendo en riesgo la vida de los pueblos indígenas, las mujeres y las comunidades locales. Mientras la ONU alega falta de fondos, cerca de un tercio del presupuesto se reserva para construir y mantener los mercados de carbono en el Artículo 6 del Acuerdo de París y para continuar con el mecanismo de desarrollo limpio funcionando en un estado de limbo. Los procesos de la CMNUCC socavan los esfuerzos para detener la grave amenaza del cambio climático y sus procesos subyacentes, lo que sin duda será evidente en Bakú en noviembre. No tenemos tiempo para continuar por el camino de los regímenes de desarrollo colonial basados ​​en combustibles fósiles y de acentuados por la ONU; es hora de poner fin a esta violencia.”

Mariana Pinzón, CENSAT Agua Viva/Friends of the Earth Colombia

“Termina una ronda más de negociaciones sobre el clima y, una vez más, las decisiones profundas se posponen para un nuevo ciclo. Las discusiones no responden a la urgencia de una crisis que crece exponencialmente, sino al ritmo de las grandes corporaciones de combustibles fósiles, vinculadas a su vez al sistema financiero mundial, y a la riqueza de los países del Norte Global. Los más afectados, las comunidades del Sur Global, no son escuchados. El reconocimiento de una deuda ecológica del Norte Global con el Sur Global no aparece en los debates, y mucho menos la obligación de reducir sus emisiones de GEI a cero real y no a cero “neto”. El neoextractivismo y las finanzas vinculadas a la deuda prometen mantener el statu quo. Mientras tanto, más personas se ven desplazadas por la crisis climática a medida que los gobiernos de derechas ganan espacio y levantan sus muros.”

Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice is a network of over 200 networks and organisations working globally, regionally, and locally on climate justice. Collectively we represent millions of climate activists on the ground.Our members are available for comments and interviews in different languages. Contact: Neha Gupta, [email protected]; Signal/Whatsapp: +91 9810 078 055