Coping with COP26:No Human is limited, unless you are a World Leader?

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP26) has started. For two weeks, world leaders, governments, the scientific community, business, civil societies, and activists are gathering in Glasgow, Scotland to shape, negotiate, and decide on the fate of planet earth and lives of billions of people living therein.

This COP is particularly critical to keep the ‘Paris Agreement’ promise alive. Scientific facts analyzed and communicated in the 2021 IPCC report, tell us one thing – this is our last chance to make the real difference. The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres noted:

The 2021 IPCC report is nothing less than a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable.

The first two days of COP26 will host world leaders. More than 100 leaders are expected to attend and deliver their speeches. This means, at least climate change is on the agenda of most of the world leaders even during this global health pandemic. But the question is, are they prepared to serve the people and save the planet? Or they will get stuck in the politics and whitewashed false solutions?

The world leaders’ summit will set the tone and level of ambition for the negotiators and technical teams who will be shaping or making decisions for the next two weeks. Therefore, we can’t afford to have empty rhetoric and clever twisting of words and jargons without tangible commitments towards resolving this climate crisis we are in right now.

Feminist, women, youth, indigenous people, activists, civil societies, scientific communities, and millions of citizens across the world have spoken, with the loudest voice ever, they need and demand climate justice. They need to see REAL solutions, implemented NOW, in the SCALE that fits the challenge and backed with science. With urgency, they need governments to FINANCE these solutions with public funding, not just market solutions.

It is imperative to center intersectionality if climate justice is to be attained. Those at the periphery of power, who happen to have contributed the least to climate change, are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. World leaders cannot continue to ignore the real needs, often matters of life and death, just because they want to embrace politics and rhetoric, which, in the long run, won’t serve them or us.

As leaders gather in Glasgow, they need to be reminded that the world is watching, and COP26 is not just about them. It is about humanity and planet earth. We know, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, humanity was reminded about the fragility of our existence and, in contrast, the power of collective action.

Climate change is a crisis, an emergence that needs to be treated as such. We cannot continue with a business-as-usual mentality while extreme weather events are destroying lives and livelihoods, temperature rise continue to make life on the planet unbearable, species are going instincts, and dreams and aspirations of young people are shattered. Poverty, hunger, gender-based violence and all forms of injustices are on the rise and dignity of the most vulnerable is ripped off as the climate change continues unabated.

At the heart of the climate crisis is a patriarchal colonialist and capitalist economic model. Climate justice therefore means, walking away from this unequal, exploitative, extractive, unsustainable, and unjust economic model. Thus, feminists want to see systemic change by creating:

1. An economy that shifts from the disproportionate emphasis on being a productive economy into a feminist decolonial new green economy

2. An economy that puts the primacy of human rights and well-being of the planet over the primacy of growth and GDP

3. An economy that promotes an equitable and just global trade order

4. An economy that redistributes wealth and resources

5. An economy that promotes debt justice and new structure of sovereign debt

6. A global economic governance architecture that is democratic

World leaders need to understand that guesswork, tiny ‘pilot’ projects, and putting small patches on broken systems won’t solve the climate crisis. In the coming two days, world leaders will have a platform to show true leadership. As countries recover and rebuild their economies from the coronavirus pandemic, they have an opportunity to overhaul and build a feminist decolonial green new economy. In particular, in this COP, world leaders are expected to:

• Fulfill commitment to human rights in the Paris Agreement & keep 1.5 alive

• Deliver on Finance and Prioritize Loss & Damage

• Ensure Human Rights & Ecosystem Integrity in Article 6

• Advance the Gender Action Plan

• Reject false solutions & invest in gender-just climate action

• Facilitate gender-just transitions to a regenerative economy

• Invest in resilient, gender-transformative, climate justice education

• Promote health, including sexual and reproductive health and rights

• Ensure rights to water and sanitation in all climate action

• Protect the ocean, cryosphere, coastal ecosystems, and local communities

• Ensure collective women’s land rights

The list of what needs to be done is long. So is the enormity of climate crisis. This is not the time to pick and choose what leaders like to do, but rather doing what need to be done. NOW.

When Eliud Kipchoge’s took on the challenge to run below two hours, he did so believing that, “No human is limited”. In this #COP26, world leaders will either reaffirm, that indeed no human is limited or they will become an exception, that world leaders, with all the power, resources, and intelligence vested in them, are limited.  Every speech, every word will be documented and judged.

World leaders, the world is expecting nothing less than action, NOW.