The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) 

Stop selling us out! Governments have a last chance in the second week of COP29 to stop carbon markets – which will bulldoze forests, grab lands and contribute to climate breakdown. Carbon markets give new life to fossil fuels and expand emissions from big polluters. Countries in the Global South, and in particular vulnerable and racialized communities, will pay the price and bear the consequences of increasing devastating climate impacts. 

The approval of carbon markets is a desperate and destructive move because there is no real public and adequate finance on the table for the Global South. Moreover, communities living with offset projects become dependent on volatile prices and project developers: this impacts the right to say no and demand implementation of their rights.

Carbon markets are not climate finance. They line the pockets of banks project developers, auditors and standard-setting bodies, only causing conflict and dispossession in local communitie. The carbon credit  industry is riddled with conflict of interests and fraud. 

The approval of carbon markets would be a signal of the moral and financial bankruptcy of the climate talks at the moment. We need real public, grant based finance for real and just solutions – community management of forests, food sovereignty and upholding the rights of peoples who practice them. 

When: Wednesday 20th November | 09:30am

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

Who:

Yusuf Baluch, Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth

Agus Dwi Hastutik Walhi, Global Forest Coalition  

Linda Gonzalez, CENSAT AGUA VIVA – Friends of the Earth Colombia

Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network

The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice 

(DCJ) PRESS RELEASE:

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 19 NOV 24 – Activists from across the Global South called for an urgent action on food systems for climate justice in the face of COP29 failing to deliver much urgent climate finance for just transition and transformation of food systems including building climate-resilient food systems. 

Vince Cinches from ⁠World Animal Protection opened the action stating, ‘Industrial agriculture is the leading driver of animal cruelty, environmental destruction, and climate chaos, exploiting people and jeopardising our shared future. We stand united against a system that prioritises profit over workers, animals, communities, and the planet. It drives the climate crisis, erodes biodiversity, and inflicts unimaginable suffering on billions of animals. At COP 29, we call for bold action to transform food systems—placing animal welfare at the centre, reducing emissions, and advancing equitable, sustainable solutions that prioritise people and the planet over corporate greed. We cannot meet climate targets without a Just Transition in food systems. World leaders must commit to ending factory farming and building equitable, humane, and sustainable food systems that protect animal welfare, empower communities, and ensure food justice for all’.

The action comes at a time when food systems around the globe are facing negative impacts from higher temperatures, drought, variable rainfall, invasive pests, and extreme weather events, which are expected to worsen as climate change progresses. Meanwhile, the global food system is a significant contributor to climate change, responsible for a third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and over 15% of annual fossil fuel use. The UNEP’s 2022 Emissions Gap Report highlights that stabilising climate change requires significant cuts in food system emissions, and the IPCC warns that even if fossil fuel emissions stopped immediately, food-related emissions alone could prevent reaching the 1.5ºC and 2ºC targets.

Chanting ‘Our right to food is not for sale’, activists decried how little world governments are doing to prevent climate impacts from food production. Rachel Sherrington from Desmog highlighted the responsibility on big agriculture and polluters, ‘My reporting shows that the big lobby has a sustained and significant presence at COPs, and is using summits to promote solutions that will prolong the status quo’ followed by Leody Velayo from Scientist Partnership for Development (Masipag) who declared, ‘​​We farmers are the solution to the climate and food crises, with our farmer-led agroecology and indigenous seeds. But how can we fulfil this role when policies, programs, and even spaces like COP29 are co opted by large corporations—those who destroy our environment, monopolise our seeds, and dictate how we farm? Empower the farmer, and you empower the real solution.’

The action emphasised the need for climate finance to enable a radical shift is essential—from carbon-intensive, corporate-driven agriculture to humane, just, sustainable, and climate-resilient agroecological systems. Such systems should focus on producing adequate, nutritious, and accessible food for all, with an emphasis on meeting communities’ staple needs for domestic consumption.  The activists joined the call for Global North governments to Pay Up for their historical role in destroying food systems, and to enable the just transition of food systems.

Prayash Adhikari, Digo Bikas Institute/Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, concluded the action by urging for actioning real solutions that promote ground up community leadership and food sovereignty. ‘I come from the land of mountains, where we used to live in harmony with nature. Now we are at the forefront of the climate crisis. This is not justice, why should our communities who have not even contributed to and have been protecting and conserving nature have to pay the burden of climate catastrophes. The food system after the green revolution promoted by big agribusinesses is one of the main drivers of the climate crisis we are facing; not the circular peasants based agroecology food system that our community was practising.’

Images: Here

CONTACTS:

Pang Delgra | Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development | [email protected] | +639178310513

Elodie Guillon | World Animal Protection | [email protected] | +33678125161 

Andrea Echeverri | Global Forest Coalition | [email protected] | +57 311 6171939

Esthappen | Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

[email protected] | +919820918910

DCJ PRESS RELEASE:  

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 19 NOV 24 – Global South Trade Unions presented a COP29 statement that calls for $5 trillion a year of climate finance and public pathways to energy transition. Link to the joint statement here.  

Global South Trade Unions echo the calls of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and its regional bodies from Africa, Asia Pacific, and the Americas; Global Union Federations (GUFs); and other trade union bodies for COP29 to deliver levels of climate finance that are commensurate with, first, the unprecedented scale of the threat posed by climate change and, second, the historic responsibilities of the Global North that are recognised under the UNFCCC.  

As workers, we support a response to the climate crisis that promotes global justice and respects and protects workers’ rights as outlined in the Just Transition Work Program (JTWP). We urge all Parties to develop and implement effective and actionable steps to ensure a just and equitable transition in the Global South.

“We’re seeing an energy expansion with record use of fossil fuels growing alongside renewable forms of energy. So we spent several years critiquing that assessment and saying one of the main reasons why this was happening was because an over expectation of investment by the private sector is not showing up in terms of its investment capabilities. For every $5 invested in the so-called green economy, only $1 comes to the South, and it’s usually in the form of concessional loans, which add more debt to the countries of the South.”

Sean Sweeney, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy

“I come from the Philippines, a country that has just been visited by six storms in four weeks, at least 233 lives, 50,034 houses, 11.2 billion in infrastructure and 5.9 billion in agriculture have been swept and blown away by the storms. And with enterprises stopping operations, leaving devastated workers and their families behind without work, there are no wages. With their livelihoods gone, they would have no means to survive. The Cop 29 negotiations have been billed as the ‘Finance COP’. Everyone expects that through the new collective quantified goals, the Global South, which includes countries like the Philippines, would have a steady source of funds to recuperate from disasters and provide social protection and eventual reemployment. But no, the negotiations have stalled, and the Global North has refused to commit $5 trillion to the Global South.”

Julius Cainglet, Federation of Free Workers, International Trade Union Confederation-Asia Pacific

“We urgently need to define a public pathway to, energy transition, where the public, where, where, where countries can define how they want this transition to happen, the new forms of, financial, architecture that we see today, which is the space is in no form servicing or providing, they need a transition that we need for our, our countries, that forms of of, financing that are coming in the forms of loans, are already compounding or are compounding the existing, debt that we, that our countries are faced with, and therefore we are calling on countries to refrain from loans and provide any forms of financial assistance through grants.”

Rhoda Boateng, International Trade Union Confederation Africa

“The trade unions of the Global South defend public energy service as a fundamental human right for sustainable development and social justice. A public energy system guarantees access to affordable and clean energy, controls prices, promotes transparency, drives the energy transition, and strengthens national sovereignty. The case of Mexico, which reversed the privatization of the energy sector, is an inspiring example for the Global South. We urge the signatory parties to the Paris Agreement to defend energy as a public good and strengthen public energy services to ensure fair, sustainable energy at the service of human development.”

Sol Klas, Public Services International-Latin America

“The demands of the Global South are not requests — they are urgent, non-negotiable truths. True climate finance must be public, debt-free, and rooted in justice. We’ve had enough of empty promises at UN Climate Summits which leave workers and communities paying the price of climate breakdown while the crisis deepens. We stand in solidarity with Global South unions raising their voice for a public pathway approach to a just transition.”

Leon Sealey-Huggins, War on Want

Contacts:

Esthappen S | Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice | [email protected]

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

Isabel Rodrigo | Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development | [email protected]

WHEN: Tuesday, November 19, 9:30 am Baku time (GMT+4)

WHERE: Press Conference Room Natavan, Area D, Blue Zone [WATCH LIVE]

WHAT: Global South Trade Unions will hold a press conference to deliver a COP29 statement that calls for $5 trillion a year of climate finance and public pathways to energy transition. Link to the joint statement here.  

Global South Trade Unions echo the calls of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and its regional bodies from Africa, Asia Pacific, and the Americas; Global Union Federations (GUFs); and other trade union bodies for COP29 to deliver levels of climate finance that are commensurate with, first, the unprecedented scale of the threat posed by climate change and, second, the historic responsibilities of the Global North that are recognised under the UNFCCC.  

As workers, we support a response to the climate crisis that promotes global justice and respects and protects workers’ rights as outlined in the Just Transition Work Program (JTWP). We urge all Parties to develop and implement effective and actionable steps to ensure a just and equitable transition in the Global South.

WHO: Global South Trade Unions in COP29 in coordination with Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) and the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ)

Speakers:

1. Sean Sweeney, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy
2. Julius Cainglet, Federation of Free Workers, International Trade Union Confederation-Asia Pacific
3. Rhoda Boateng, International Trade Union Confederation Africa
4. Sol Klas, Public Services International-Latin America

Moderator: Leon Sealey-Huggins, War on Want

Contacts:

Esthappen S | Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice | [email protected]

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

Isabel Rodrigo | Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development | [email protected]

MEDIA ADVISORY

Expectations from Baku Finance COP 

2024 may have been marked by devastating wildfires, floods, hurricanes, heatwaves and preventable climate and geopolitical disasters, but that has had no bearing upon COP in Baku as Global North governments continue to underplay the threat from extreme weather and climate change related events and have turned up at this ‘Finance COP’ without any public Climate Finance to offer. The fate of the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance hangs in the balance, as the Baku climate talks enter the final stage of negotiations.

While developing countries are calling for at least USD1.3 trillion per year, from the floor of USD 100 billion, whether there is political will from the remaining developed countries to provide a significant quantum in public resources will be known at midnight when we receive the NCQG text. With Arab Group, the African Group (AGN) and the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) along with the G77 and China calling for more balanced text that includes key propositions on resilience building, adaptation concerns and Global justice while the Northern governments try to pull off ‘A Great Escape’ from historic and collective financial responsibility, it is unclear how the negotiations can get past the current impasse. 

The developed world, through the 3 decades of COP negotiations, has tried to run further and further away on taking responsibility for destroying the Global South’s land, resources and the climate. With each COP, they create pull back further and further from climate finance obfuscating the core principles enshrined in the Paris Agreement on collective but differentiated responsibility and their legal obligation to provide resources (not entrenched in Global North profit making), particularly, finance for a Just and Equitable transition and adaptation including loss and damage. 

Join Diego Pacheco (Plurinational State of Bolivia), Ambassador Mohamed Nasr (Egypt), Prof. Fadhel Kaboub (Power Shift Africa) and Meena Raman from the Third World Network as they deep dive into the state of play after one week and expectations from the Baki Finance COP.  

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When: November 19th, Tuesday | 18:30-21:00 hs (Baku)

Where: Side Event 1 

Speakers:

• Diego Pacheco (Plurinational State of Bolivia)
•  Ambassador Mohamed Nasr (Egypt)
• Prof. Fadhel Kaboub (Power Shift Africa) 
• Moderated by Meena Raman (Third World Network)

Contact Us 

DCJ: Esthappen, +919820918910, [email protected] 

Julian, +306941437285, [email protected]

The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice 

PRESS RELEASE:

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 18 NOV, 24 – 2024 may have been marked by devastating wildfires, floods, hurricanes, heatwaves and preventable climate and geopolitical disasters, but that has had no bearing upon COP 29 in Baku as G7 governments continue to underplay the threat from extreme weather and climate change related events and have turned up at this ‘Finance COP’ without money or a mandate due to electoral losses and collapsing coalitions. Needing to posture for political points back home, the US and EU are once again accusing developing countries of blocking progress, while attempting to divide G77+China unity as they stand strong for a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG).  Our warming world needs a big breakthrough in Baku but it seems set for a breakdown.

The fate of the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance hangs in the balance, as the Baku climate talks enter the second and final week of negotiations, scheduled to end Friday, Nov 22nd. While developing countries are calling for at least USD1.3 trillion per year, from the floor of USD 100 billion, whether there is political will from the remaining developed countries to provide a significant quantum in public resources remains to be seen. With Arab Group, the African Group (AGN) and the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) along with the G77 and China calling for more balanced text that includes key propositions on resilience building, adaptation concerns and Global justice while the Northern governments try to pull off ‘A Great Escape’ from historic and collective financial responsibility, it is unclear how the negotiations can get past the current impasse. 

The 2015 Paris Agreement’s Article 9 says developed countries SHALL provide finance and technology to developing countries, yet by all honest accounts they have failed to deliver the $100 billion per year promised in Paris. NCQG aims to agree on a new number — a quantum or financial figure — for how much money developing countries can plan on developed countries’ providing in order to reduce their emissions and adapt to increasing impacts from climate change. G7 cannot keep harping about ambition without the show of commitment. Call out the real wreckers, at COP and back at home. 

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

It is the same old story of the North running away from its responsibilities and trying to divide the South rather than repairing the trust that has been destroyed in this COP space. They are here without power and without money and without mandates so they are trying to shift the narrative and manufacture consent that it is the Global-South blocs that are blocking progress. Its something they love to tell folks back at home when in reality they have come here with zero commitment to preventing a climate collapse and making any progress on crucial negotiations that impact the future of the world. We know they have the money. It’s in their military budgets, their fossil fuel subsidies to big polluters, their tax breaks for billionaires. So the money is out their but its a crisis of political will on preventing a total climate collapse’

Mariama Williams, Global Afro-Descendant Climate Justice Collaborative

“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.”

Lidy Nacpil, The Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development

We have two messages, it’s ‘Pay Up!’ for the Global North and ‘Stand Up’ to the Global South. Northern governments cannot wash their hands of historic and collective responsibility towards contributing to the NCQG. And we recognise their tactics of putting no public money on the offer as a way to get the Global South to accept Carbon Markets, which we know are devastating for our countries, communities and ecosystems, as a funding source for Climate Finance. We also want to remind negotiators that they have a responsibility to people back at home to  stand up for our rights and get Global-North to pay up the debt that is owed to us ’. 

Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth International 

The gaveling through of Article 6.4 is a desperate and a very dangerous last ditch attempt by developed countries to get some finance on the table in the absence of any kind of real commitment for grant based quality financing which is what is needed to move forward on NDCs and achieve emission reduction. It is very clear from 30 years of evidence and the mountain of reports released in the last several years including media exposes and investigations that the global carbon markets, both voluntary and compliance, are fraudulent. The vast majority of credits produced are actually based on frauds. Carbon markets do not reduce carbon emissions, they only displace them from one place to the other allowing big polluters and countries to continue polluting. They are a form of carbon colonialism allowing them to force the global south, within that the most marginalised communities including indigenous, communities, peasants and forest dependent communities, to bear the burden of Global North emissions.