To Address One, We Must Address the Other
November 8-9, 2021
Every day at COP26 has a “theme” for talks and events, even as article-specific negotiations continue in back rooms.
Today is “Gender, Science and Innovation” day; yesterday was “Adaptation, Loss and Damage” day. What is Loss and Damage? Over-simply, funding from rich, high-emitting nations to most affected, lowest-emitting nations who are getting hit hardest and must prepare the fastest. Even more over-simply: you cause damage, you pay what’s owed. As you can imagine, “what is owed?” is contentious.
Unfortunately, it was hard for me to get much of a sense of that conversation from the Blue Zone. This matches what we heard from many activists on the streets, commentators online, and our fellow observers who attended Week 1: you would know more of what’s going on by the internet than by being in the Blue Zone (official COP grounds).
Back to Loss and Damage: I’ve gotten a much better sense of what’s at stake in Loss and Damages from the stories of actual people than from official events (most of which are hard to find or to which access is barred to civil society observers—to continue a running theme of COP26 so far).
One of those people is Marinel Sumook Ubaldo. Marinel is from the Philippines and started climate advocacy as a young teen after Super-Typhoon Haiyan devastated her country, killing at least 6,300 in the Philippines alone (including some of her family members) and costing the country about $2.2 billion. In response, Marinel organized the first youth climate strikes in the Philippines. She went on to address the UN during COP21 in Paris. And it just so happens, she was here in Glasgow with the same cohort of observers as me (she was in the first week, I’m in the second). So I got to chat with her at our all-group dinner on Saturday evening.
Marinel and many other activists from small island nations and least developed countries make loss and damage conversations human and personal. The impacts of climate change—such as hurricanes, which we know are intensified and accelerated by climate change—are landing on frontline communities now. These communities and countries have the least amount of money to respond to disasters and make the adaptations needed to better withstand the climate impacts that certainly lie ahead. (In fact, a report released yesterday by Christian Aid estimates that climate change could cause a 64% loss to developing countries’ GDPs.)
At the same time, some countries (like the U.S., whose historic debt to the people of the Philippines goes beyond climate) have contributed the most to historic emissions, gotten very wealthy along the way, and resist being financially accountable.
There are other barriers to loss and damage progress. Again yesterday, news broke that the fossil fuel industry’s presence at COP26, though not by official invitation, is sizable. Analysis by Global Witness shows that delegates with industry ties number higher than the delegations of any other country’s delegations: more than eight most affected countries combined (Bahamas, Bangladesh, Haiti, Mozambique, Myanmar, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, and yes, the Philippines).
When one type of party at the table is owed something and facing real possibilities of cultural devastation, and another type of party is already getting sued in international courts for loss and damages...the latter being in the negotiating room has to affect the outcome. (It also helps explain why so many good-sounding things are being said on stage and yet how underwhelming countries’ actual commitments are.) And it is maddening.
Back to Marinel. Marinel stood up in the restaurant the other night and addressed our cohort (most of which is from high-emitting global north countries) on the eve of the eight year anniversary of Super-Typhoon Haiyan. She gave her fellow climate advocates a message to take back to our people:
“Anything you do for the climate and the environment,” she said “you are doing for those of us in frontline communities, like us in the Philippines.”
There we have it.
For Marinel and other activists who are in Glasgow—whether in the Blue Zone or outside—and many, many others who couldn’t afford to come to COP26, make it through travel restrictions, or attain a badge, climate loss and climate damage are not abstractions. In Marinel’s case, she has lost family members. Her home economy has struggled with disaster-related costs, which affects her and her fellows citizens’ quality of life. And Marinel and her generation living in the Philippines are forced to contend with the mental, emotional, and practical consequences of foreseeing disasters in their islands’ future.
In spite of these enormous challenges, Marinel and lots of her fellow young activists are not yielding to despair but persisting in impressive ways.
Moving on to today’s official theme, Gender (and Science and Innovation) Day:
It’s not coincidental that Marinel and so many others who are leading the global climate movement are young women (like Vanessa Nakate, who spoke at both Friday’s and Saturday’s marches).
Women and girls are, and will be, more affected by climate change and also have powerful abilities to resist it and recreate the world.
In a plenary session today, Sabra Noordeen, Special Envoy to Climate Change for Maldives, put it this way: “Those who will suffer the most are those who already suffer the most. And women and girls bear the brunt of the burdens.”
Tying this to the overall stated goal of COP26, she said “We have to limit emissions by 50% by 2030 to keep alive the chance of 1.5°C overall warming. And we have 98 months to do it.”
This task requires all the skill and care we can muster as a species, so excluding women from leading roles is nonsensical. Other plenary speakers emphasized not only the effects of climate injustice on women (80% of those displaced by climate change are women), but also the practical loss to progress by excluding them from the official policy negotiations tables. For example, when women are in leadership, policies change in more ecologically friendly directions. And young women and girls are uniquely effective as climate messengers. Gender equality is in fact necessary to successfully address the climate crisis (this podcast episode does a great job explaining further).
But a lot of the women leading change are not at COP26, or at least, not in the negotiating rooms.
Here’s one takeaway from the past two days’ talks: we have to attend to root causes if we are to not exacerbate injustice in our attempts to address the climate crisis. Meaningful and lasting climate solutions must include climate justice, and climate justice must include gender justice.
There are three days left to COP26. I haven’t used this post to recap its latest news, but tomorrow morning’s news will have a much clearer stock take than I can piece together tonight. But I can say that come morning, COP26 will still be in need of breakthroughs.
A few more highlights from these last two days:
The Blue Zone registration and security process (and the Blue Zone in general) is onerous, slow, and overwhelming. But I did have a brief exchange in line with a man from The Gambia (the one country who is meeting goals to keep warming to 1.5C) who is involved in the Loss and Damage negotiations.
A few of my fellow observers and I were able to sneak into a meeting of Indigenous knowledge holders, the first time this kind of meeting has happened at a COP. This isn’t to say Indigenous leaders have the platform at COP26 that they deserve. But this was an interesting session to hear. A few of the overarching themes these Indigenous knowledge holders had to share with the UN states: our link to nature is a grounding principle; Indigenous people play a significant role in safeguarding the earth’s biodiversity; Indigenous people the world over are on the very front lines of the climate and biodiversity crises; and there was a clear call for the UNFCCC to change processes to better include and reflect indigenous knowledge.
As we waited to get in the room, we saw Obama arrive for his address.
Last evening was an ecumenical service at the stunning Glasgow Cathedral called “The Time Is Now: Christian Aid & Friends.” A cast of talented people shared reflections, prayers, and music on the theme of climate justice. There was a talk on (and then performance of!) Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? as an early climate justice song. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams gave the main homily. In his matchless voice, Williams asserted: “Violence, abuse, and enslavement of one another, and violence, abuse, and enslavement of the earth go together. To address one, we must address the other.”