Ecofeminist and feminist actors at the COP: Eight conversations about challenges, strategies, and alliances regarding the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Article by Laura Heckmann, as an abstract to her Master’s Thesis.
How do ecofeminist and feminist actors push for change at the COP? This question arose from my general quest for strategies for change and resilience in the world we live in, that is undoubtedly cruel and challenging for those calling for system change. Taking the recent COP29 as a point of departure, I spoke with eight activists, scholars, and advocates for feminism, ecological and economic justice about the challenges of navigating and pushing for progressive changes in a space such as the COP. The subsequent research piece reflects on my conversations with them in order to show the diversity in strategies in navigating this space. I hope that these reflections can offer insights to others that want to learn from more experienced ecofeminists and feminists on how to push for change whilst creating empowering alliances with others. In the end, the COP is just one example of the capitalist, colonial and patriarchal spaces that we encounter every day, thus we might take these insights as an inspiration to take the question a step further by asking: How can we work towards change anywhere in an (eco)feminist manner?
The following paragraphs do not do justice to the impressive individuals that I had the chance of interviewing, but it will give a first insight into the diverse (eco)feminist agendas, strategies, solidarity and perspectives of eight people that have engaged in these interconnected struggles for the past decades.
From the 11 of November 2024, the city of Baku in Azerbaijan hosted the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference. On a yearly basis, the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) brings together almost every country to debate commitments and strategies to tackle the climate crisis. However, CSOs and many climate-vulnerable nations criticize annually that the solutions proposed by the COP do not reflect the needs of climate vulnerable countries and citizens and neither the urgency of the climate and related crises. Also, last year, at COP29, the inability and unwillingness of enriched Global North countries to take sufficient action and acknowledge their responsibility was striking, and ultimately failed to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable nations in facing the climate crisis and ignoring the gendered impact of the latter. What was promised to be the “Finance COP” (ODG COP29), turned into a “Betrayal in Baku”.
Next to other issues, COP29 had as major goal to reach an agreement on climate finance, including the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). After two weeks of debates, countries agreed on a new climate finance target of $300 billion annually by 2035. However, not only the quantity is devastatingly low in comparison to the (minimum of) $5 to $6.9 trillion which climate vulnerable countries are estimated to need between now and 2030, also the quality of funding is vaguely expressed and mostly based on debt-issuing loans by private finance and multilateral development banks (MDBs) through which enriched countries evaded their responsibility to pay up. The final decision on the NCQG does in no way reflect the needs of the climate vulnerable countries and thus is rejected by different countries (amongst which Cuba, India, Bolivia, and Nigeria) and the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.
Apart from the disappointing outcomes with regard to climate finance, COP29 was contextualised in the geopolitical context of the ongoing genocide in Palestine, the war in Ukraine, and the recent election of Donald Trump whose potential withdrawal from the UNFCCC pushed countries into accepting whatever deal before Trump’s inauguration. Lastly, the host of the COP, Azerbaijan, made progressive climate finance decisions more difficult as its national economy depends largely on the extraction and export of hydrocarbons like oil and natural gas (ODG COP29). At least 1773 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to COP29, a number that outscores “all the delegates from the 10 most climate vulnerable nations combined (1033)” (Kick Big Polluters Out 2024). A positive outcome next to the mentioned shortcomings was the successful 10-year prolongation of the Lima Work Programme on Gender. The implementation of next steps will be at stake at COP30, and without sufficient climate finance, effective gender-transformative climate action will remain challenging to implement. Next to the disappointing outcomes, the possibilities for civil society participation to protest and denounce the wrong-doings of the COP were severely restricted and silenced at COP29.
Given this challenging context, how do ecofeminist and feminist actors experience the space of the COP, and how do they push for the (eco)feminist agenda? To answer this question, I spoke with:
- Anna Pérez Català, Senior Research Fellow at IDDRI
- Bruna Cañada Roca, former financial justice researcher at the Debt Observatory in Globalization (ODG)
- Clàudia Custodio Martínez, energy and climate researcher at the Debt Observatory in Globalization (ODG)
- Shamim Wasii Nyanda, member of Debt for Climate Global and lead of Debt for Climate Tanzania chapter
- Shereen Talaat, founder and director of MENA Fem Movement For Economic, Development And Ecological Justice
- Sofía Fernández, member of Friday for Future Spain and Ecologistas en Acción
- And two anonymous sources
Looking Forward to COP30 and Beyond
COP30 in Brazil is seen as a crucial moment, as it coincides with key global milestones such as being half-way to the 2030 Agenda and the jubilee year calling for debt cancellation. Preparing for COP30, feminist and ecofeminist actors continue to fight for systemic transformation, engaging in the COP as just one space in the broader struggle for a just, (eco)feminist and sustainable world.
This article highlights that while COP is a highly challenging space, the collective work of feminist and ecofeminist activists is vital in holding people in power accountable, reclaiming space and pushing for systemic change that addresses the urgency of the climate crises as well as systemic injustices.