In addition to the 120 Heads of State who attended the UN Climate Summit in September, 38 civil society representatives were selected by their peers to provide a people’s perspective of climate change, its impacts and the urgent need to take drastic global action.
Amongst those selected to attend were women representing grassroots communities most affected by climate change. Communities where the science isn’t debated but survival is. Communities who can’t imagine the levels of consumption that exist around the world but now have to imagine that their limited access to resources will evaporate.
Alina Saba, a Limbu Indigenous, young woman working with some of the most remote mountainous communities in Nepal was selected to speak on the “Voices from the frontlines panel.” Alina was working in a Mugal community and had to walk for two days just to reach a town with communications capacity when she was selected. Agnes Kinaka, a single mother of four children from the Cateret Islands in Papua New Guinea, whose Islands are rapidly becoming uninhabitable, attended together with Bianca Hakena, a feminist participatory action researcher from Bougainville working with Agnes and other women in the community who are relocating to Bougainville. In this article they reflect on their experience of attending the UN Climate Summit, held on 23 September.
Both of us were shocked when we arrived in New York by the inequality of the world. Days earlier we had been in communities that live without power, without access to health services and often live on less than one dollar per day. We felt that we had arrived on a different planet. But the problem is we live on the same planet, a planet that is deeply inequitable. A planet where the actions of people living far beyond their needs is making the lives of women in our communities unlivable.
Alina Saba – When I was speaking at the UN Climate Summit I felt proud, nervous and, most of all, fearful. Of course I was fearful about speaking in such an important event. I had never done anything even remotely similar. I was fearful that I might not say the right thing, that I might stumble over my words and might not live up to the expectations of the civil society movements supporting me. But most of all I was fearful that governments wouldn’t listen. I was fearful that governments listen only to the power and money of corporations who urge them to continue on the path of increased consumption, production and emissions. I was fearful that our Indigenous communities are destined to lose their lands to landslides, that our crops will continually fail, that women will continually feel forced to migrate as domestic workers. And I was fearful that this planet will not be habitable by the end of this century.
So I put my nerves aside and did my best to provide a picture of what climate change looks like to Indigenous women living in the most remote regions of Nepal. There are few countries with as much to lose from climate change as Nepal. Nepal was recently rankedas the fourth most climate “vulnerable” country globally. Melting glaciers are already creating glacier lakes that will cause devastating floods. Erratic, often heavy rains have already caused many landslides. Melting snow and changing weather are making some of our traditional herbs scarce and crops fail. I tried to paint the picture of what is currently happening, of the isolation of the women and their inability to have a voice in climate policies. And I tried to explain the truly terrifying prospect of what will happen to our communities if countries don’t immediately act to stop emissions and create a new world order.
At the end of the panel some of my fears were realized. Very few wealthy countries attended the panel. President of Boliva Evo Morales co-chaired and opened our panel. As the only Indigenous President in the world, I felt privileged to speak to him prior to the panel. His opening reflected many of our realities and the need to address climate change as a social justice issue. Agnes was happy to see the panel included the Prime Minister of Tuvalu who spoke strongly about the risks to Island nations. But of the high emitting countries, only France spoke from the floor and it appeared that others instead attended private sector events.
We wanted to tell countries that climate change is, essentially, a social justice issue. Those who have caused the least harm to this planet, indeed those who have nurtured and cared for our environment are the very same people being punished for the excessive consumption and pollution of the obscenely rich. It is the Mugal women from the remote mountainous region of Nepal that I have been working with who live without power, without phones and now more frequently without crops, and who walk two days just to get to markets, or seek medical attention or services, who are now threatened with the most devastating long and short term climate losses.
They have not benefited from “development,” their human rights have never featured in global plans. They were expected to wait until the fruits of globalization “trickled down” to them but instead all that trickled down to them is the toxic waste of globalization – climate disasters.
Agnes Kinaka – Like Alina, I came to the UN Climate Summit with many fears as well as hope. I had never left the Islands before. I had never been to our capital city Port Moresby, been on a plane and every step I took brought me face to face with something new and strange. I was fearful when I was taken into immigration for three hours and questioned about my trip and about climate change. I was fearful when I crossed the street, when I went in an elevator, when I went on a train, but I am far more fearful that my children will have no future, that their matrilineal birthright – their Island – is no longer habitable and they will have nowhere to live, no garden space to grow their food, no way to fish.
I found it difficult to understand life in New York. I asked people where the food came from. They told me shops. But I couldn’t see anywhere that food was growing so I asked again and found out that the food came in on planes, like I did. I could see so many expensive things but no wealth to make those expensive things – no trees, no resources, no mines.
I had never spoken in front of foreigners before. I was nervous. But when I saw Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner from the Marshall Islands address all the governments and mention my island and when I saw Alina and the other women speak on the panel, I felt empowered. I felt that it is women like us who really should be speaking up. I was able to speak to UN representatives, to other civil society groups and even to media, and after the UN Climate Summit I spoke at the People’s General Assembly. There I told a room of more than 100 people about our disappearing Islands, our lives and the demands of women in my community.
Attending the UN Climate Summit gave us both opportunities to let the world know about our communities through the Summit, through the various meetings and events we attended, including the Women Leaders’ Forum with the Mary Robinson Foundation and also through media coverage. Neither of us had ever done media work and now the concerns and demands of our communities have been published globally, in our regions and in our community. Even though both of us felt fear and some disappointment, we came away with hope. Climate change forces us to reconsider the global, inequitable system we have created. Maybe climate change can force us to actually consider a new, more equitable and locally driven, sustainable world. If wealthy countries honour their existing commitments to take responsibility for their historical debt to the world’s poor and compensate for their pollution and halt their emissions, we could finally deliver on the promises made 66 years ago through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We both wondered whether people in rich countries are concerned about the impact of their lives on women in the Global South. Initially we walked through the streets of New York and felt shocked and saddened by the levels of inequality. But when we marched on the streets of New York, when we listened to other civil society and even some governments at the Climate Summit, and when we got such a good response to our visit, we felt hopeful. We went home with the knowledge that there are millions of people mobilizing to demand climate justice. Our future now relies on a complete shift in climate, in economies, but also in power. From the streets of New York to the streets of Kathmandu, the villages of our mountains and the Islands of the Pacific people are ready for a new, just and sustainable world. They are ready for development justice.
Alina and Agnes were nominated and supported by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) to attend the UN Climate Summit and to build the voice and influence of women in their communities and respective organizations: the Mugal Women’s Uplift Institute, Nepal and Leithana Women’s Development Agency, PNG.
