ECO reminds rich governments that climate finance is a matter of justice, and of paying the historical debt that they owe the Global South for centuries of extraction, colonialism, and climate injustice. Rich countries must listen to demands of the Global South and pay up! It’s NOT climate finance if it creates more debt for countries who are not responsible for this crisis. ECO recognises the current reality, where, instead of getting reparations, Global South countries are the ones paying illegitimate debts to their colonizers who caused the crises they’re in.
As part of the (super annoying technical terminology forthcoming) New Collective Quantified Goal (aka NCQG) process, for the first time, parties get to discuss the quality of finance! ECO believes the new goal should place climate justice at the center of the new goal, and go far beyond the unfulfilled promise of US$100B, while being based on real needs of communities most affected in the South.
ECO celebrates the progressive proposals coming from global south countries and our feminist decolonial heart was beating fast when these LAC regional leaders were brave enough speak the truth to the system. As such, ECO wants to shout-out & uplift the messages of some of our faves:
Prime Minister Mia Mottley (Barbados): Besides challenging the massive debt that comes with funding or strongly suggesting a need to reform multilateral development banks (ECO is rolling eyes at the World Bank and IMF), she went to the heart of power saying: “How do companies make $200 bn in profits in the last 3 months and not expect to contribute at least 10 cents in every dollar of profit to a loss and damage fund?” … That’s a knockout.
President Gustavo Petro (Colombia): The new Colombian president questioned the premises of the entire financial logic of the UNFCCC, saying that the market is what produced the climate crisis, therefore, it will never be its remedy! He called out private and multilateral banks to stop financing hydrocarbons, and proposed the IMF initiate a program to exchange debt for investment in adaptation & mitigation in all developing countries. To close, Petro always reminds the world of the need to divest from militaries, war and harm: “Peace negotiations must begin; war takes away vital time (and money!) humanity has to avoid its extinction”
We have a new wave of LAC leaders ready to challenge power and build a decolonial feminist world that divests from harm and extraction, and invests in human rights, care and justice. These leaders remind us of our dreams of a global economic transformation that expands beyond the UNFCCC, to tackle the entire economic and financial architecture aiming at sustainability of care and life in the planet, mainstreaming a just framing to degrow the rich and wealthy, to dismantle the logic of profit and to recover environmental integrity. ECO looks forward to see support from the rest of the world to these visionary proposals coming from LAC!