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Statement Presented at Square of Statements

Towards a Global Social Movement for Climate Justice

The 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded in Dubai on December 13, 2023, exposing critical shortcomings and highlighting the dominance of corporate interests. Despite pledges, key nations failed to commit to actionable emissions reductions, hindered by divisive politics. Financial aid to vulnerable countries remained insufficient, exacerbating climate injustice and underscoring the urgent need for stronger global cooperation.

There are fears that future COPs may only pay lip service to sustainability while closed-door deals favour business interests, accessible only to corporate lobbyists. Moreover, the discussions on climate change has for long been very elite discussions among governments, academia, corporates and international actors. It lacks the participation of local and marginalised communities who are at the forefront of the climate crisis. To counter this, there's a call for increased pressure from vulnerable communities through social movements, organizations, and governments to ensure that profits do not override people and the planet's well-being.

Sustainable futures and climate action plans need frameworks of environmental governance built on the participation of those most affected and impacted. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasizes the vital role of community-led climate action in enhancing resilience, fostering adaptation, and reducing emissions. Community involvement improves policy effectiveness, decision-making, and social equity, leveraging local knowledge and resources for context-specific solutions.

We need more pressure from vulnerable communities through their social movements, their alliances and their governments to counter both the interests of the powerful nations of the global north and the pressures of multinational corporate interests that depend on over extractive, over polluting and over exploiting industrial processes. We need progressive and popular pressure to ensure that profits do not triumph over people and the planet. For this, globally social movements are giving a call for the following:

• Ensuring the just flow of finances and technology from the global north to the global south so that communities at the cusp of the climate crisis are able to adapt to the changing global and local ecology.
• Ensuring that the voice of local and marginalised communities are represented and heard in the discussions on climate change and policies to tackle the crisis are built on the indigenous knowledge and wisdom of these communities based on and connected to scientific fundamentals.
• Recognising the role played by local and marginalised communities in mitigating climate change efforts through their custodianship of natural resources and ecological commons and ensuring their right to access them are forever respected.
• Creation and implementation of frameworks to compensate the economic and non-economic loss and damages suffered by working people across the world due to all forms extreme weather events and slow-onset ecological changes due the burgeoning climate crisis.

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