November 2021
Today is Loss and Damage day. It is a day of grief for all of us. We are reminded of the painful, unjust and unequally distributed losses and damages we all face, but in particular the most vulnerable countries and peoples. This is a matter of Climate Justice. It is a matter of Human Rights. We are extremely outraged that the issue of Human Rights and Indigenous Rights continue to be attacked in this COP. The outrageous deletion of the references to these in the Glasgow Work Program on ACE is shocking. It must be redressed. As civil society, we have been locked out of this COP. It has proven to be the most exclusionary COP ever. If we were in the rooms we would not have allowed the deletion of Human Rights and Indigenous Rights and the pressure on Finance for Loss & Damage would be felt.
We want to remind you that success or failure on loss and damage finance will be the litmus test for this COP. We need to leave Glasgow with an explicit decision that results in delivering Loss and Damage finance. The complete absence of support for Loss & Damage has a direct impact on the millions of people already suffering the impacts of climate change.
Today we ask, where are the leaders? Those who step up for civil society participation, for human rights? Where are those countries that will stand up to call for a truly accessible, transparent COP? Our participation has been constrained to a point where we remain absent from the different spaces where we traditionally do our work. Many of these restrictions cannot only be blamed on COVID and we see this as an escalation of restrictions that directly impacts our rights to be in this space. Will the UK presidency work with you to ensure that the voices of civil society and indigenous peoples are heard in the negotiations? Why aren’t we being consulted on the critical negotiations on the cover decision?
You call us observers. We are implementers of the Paris Agreement. We are in 130 countries, we represent voices, stories and aspirations of people fighting the climate crisis with their lives, people you continuously shut the door to. We will rise and we will see who in this room will join us, so far you keep disappointing us. Will you step up this week?
People power, climate justice.