Climate justice requires a vibrant civil society and respect for civil rights and political freedoms — a principle that is explicitly reaffirmed in the Paris Agreement. There can be no sustainable development without the ability for individuals and organizations to speak up and exercise their right to freedom of expression, protest, and association.
While we may be spending the next two weeks in Sharm El-Sheik, a resort town designed for entertainment, we are not oblivious to the repression and threats that our brothers and sisters face every day in Egypt and around the world. Climate action requires that we call on world leaders to take measures to ensure our right to clean air, food, health, a healthy environment, and to life. We recognize that it is our responsibility to speak up and relay the political demands of those who could not be here. And, to demand freedom for all those behind bars for their political opinions. As one of our brothers currently in detention wrote: “unlike me, you have not yet been defeated.” We will not censor ourselves in exchange for the privilege to be here. We stand in solidarity with those deprived of liberty.
For the credibility of this process, it is imperative that heads of States and governments participating in the COP also speak up on these issues and formally recognize the close inherent relationship between human rights and climate justice.
The credibility of the conference and its participants require that delegates do not censor themselves for the sake of textual progress in COP outcomes. When life hangs by a thread, silence is no longer an option.
Nobody’s free until everybody’s free. #FreeAlaa #FreeThemAll