September 23, 2021
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Less than five weeks left until the “in-person” 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. APWLD with its 266 grassroots feminist and women’s rights organisations and individual members from 30 countries in Asia and the Pacific join hands with other peoples’ and social justice organisations, networks and allies calling the UK COP Presidency for the postponement of the exclusive and discriminatory COP and urging the member countries to create a safe and inclusive COP26 for the peoples.
We are dismayed particularly by the strong pushback from the COP Presidency to the possibility of conducting COP26 in a ‘hybrid’ model. The UK Presidency has clearly failed to address the concerns from the civil society organisations and feminists’ movements in Asia and the Pacific particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to worsen the economic and health crises in the region.
We are deeply concerned as the exclusion of the possibility of a hybrid model of COP26 will not only exclude peoples’ movements but also member countries from developing countries, LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS who have long fought for concrete actions on climate finance, loss and damage based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capacities (CBDRRC).
The hybrid model of COP26 itself is far from a genuine modality of multilateralism given the digital divide and different forms of inequities. Yet, it can at least signal a minimum level of efforts to democratise and make the COP26 inclusive to those who cannot attend the Conference in person for various structural reasons.
The conditions proposed by the UK COP Presidency will further eliminate the voices of rural and indigenous women and other historically oppressed groups from the global south. For many years, even before the C-19 crisis, grassroots women have been struggling to secure space and resources to participate in the Conference.
The COVID-19 crisis has worsened with the rising vaccine capitalism and inequity orchestrated by many developed country governments, including the UK government. Despite over 5.5 billion vaccine doses administered globally, countries in Asia and the Pacific such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Burma/Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan are struggling with less than 10 percent of vaccinated populations while Papua New Guinea is at a shocking rate of 0.3 percent vaccinated people among its total population.
Ignoring the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine inequity, the UK government has made a conscious decision to be discriminatory and close down the door for a meaningful and inclusive COP. This discriminatory policy of in-person COP26 and exclusion of the hybrid model will further prevent the participation of grassroots women in the global south including in Asia and the Pacific.
The member countries, particularly the COP26 Presidency, are accountable to ensure that a safe space and resources are efficiently allocated to facilitate the voices from the most impacted groups at the global climate negotiations.
Climate justice can be realised only when the world can bring justice to the women, particularly rural and indigenous women who are disproportionately impacted by yet in the forefront of the battleground against climate crises. Stories, evidence and solutions from the grassroots women are critically needed at the climate negotiation table.
A country driven process as promoted by the UN must ensure the inclusion of voices from the communities most impacted by climate crisis and emergency. Therefore, COP26 without the participation of grassroots, rural and indigenous women from the global south especially during a pandemic is unacceptable. It is a clear push for deepening inequality between the poor and the rich, among and within countries. It is a clear direction to foster false climate solutions exacerbating the situation of women on the ground.
COP26 must not continue until and unless the member countries are able to ensure the inclusion, safe and meaningful participation and leadership of rural and indigenous women and other most impacted groups from Asia and the Pacific region either through a hybrid model or an in-person Conference.
While we urge for the postponement of an exclusive and discriminatory COP26, we call member countries in Asia and the Pacific to take urgent actions and realise peoples-centered climate ambitions to prevent the worsening catastrophe in the region. The demand is not an excuse or a reduction to governments’ accountability to solve climate crises, to pursue a feminist fossil fuel free future and realise just and equitable transition for women in Asia and the Pacific.
