As COP27 and the G20 Summit begin to wind down, the updates so far are filled with news of scant outcomes and lack of agreement on key issues. World leaders and decision-makers assembled at these two important spaces to respond to the escalating global crises have a huge responsibility to deliver meaningful and tangible outcomes to save lives at this most critical time.
Today, November 16, we are waging actions across Asia and at COP27 to add our voices and demands to the global clamor for climate and economic justice! We reiterate the following demands:
Reparations for climate debt! Deliver adequate, non-debt creating climate finance and a Loss and Damage Fund
Climate change is intensifying and its impacts are exacerbating poverty and inequality in the Global South. Loss and damage from intense flooding and chronic droughts are compounding the threats of rising prices of fuel, food, and health care. We call on the governments of rich, industrialized countries, their elites and giant corporations who bear the greatest responsibility for the climate crisis: pay your climate debt owed to people and communities who contributed the least, if at all, to the problem, but bear its biggest impacts.
The urgent and full delivery of climate finance obligations is part of reparations for a huge and increasing climate debt that governments, elites and corporations of rich, industrialized countries owe to the Global South. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a legally binding agreement that is the basis of the climate summit, specifies that developed country governments must
provide new, additional and adequate climate finance to developing countries on the basis that developed countries have contributed the most to the problem of climate change. This climate finance is to be used for adaptation, building resilience, and GHG reduction measures in developing countries, which includes the transition to renewable energy away from fossil fuels. It is not aid nor
assistance, but part of reparations for the harm caused.
Download the full statement here