The Failed COP21 Agreement: Still a Stepping Stone for the Climate Justice Movement

Last December, the words climate change resounded in the streets of Paris as COP21, the UN’s twentieth-first intergovernmental “conference of the parties” was taking place. After two decades of fruitless and rigged negotiations, our governments promised once more to agree on parameters to decrease rising global temperature. Contrary to the warm praise doled out by the mainstream media and government representatives, and due to the post COP diplomatic amnesia we need to emphasize that the Paris agreement is a failure for equity and justice, and it does not deliver meaningful climate action.

The Paris agreement is more of an ornamental text than a policy-focused protocol and does nothing to address the causes of global warming: uncontrolled industrial growth and fossil fuel extraction.

The Paris agreement is more of an ornamental text than a policy-focused protocol and does nothing to address the causes of global warming: uncontrolled industrial growth and fossil fuel extraction. These activities will be facilitated by the rush of regional trade like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, to drive us far beyond the 1.5C temperature rise scenario by the end of 2100 as agreed in Paris. The Paris agreement is not even legally binding, which still leaves developed countries with open doors to keep polluting, and any case, the 1.5C is already too high of a temperature increase for coastal and vulnerable communities to survive.

The science is clear: global warming is caused by anthropogenic emissions and it has misconfigured the natural processes of plants and animals on this planet, altering ecological patterns to the point where adaptability to these new conditions is highly difficult, if not improbable. The extremely fast pace of global temperature rise—Earth is now almost 1C hotter than a century ago—threatens the survival of societies and ecosystems with harsher weather conditions, unusual cycles of flooding and drought, and more intense heat waves.

These impacts are already felt worldwide—firstly, by the vulnerable frontline and land-based communities of indigenous groups, farmers, and women in the Global South—those whose ways of life are interwoven with their farms, forests, coastal areas and savannas, and whose activities and livelihoods have played but a small role in generating emissions. These are the communities who produce over half of the world’s food. The loss of their lands and livelihoods to sea level rise, drought and unprecedented plagues and diseases, threaten food supply worldwide.

The social movements and grassroots organizations from around the world that converged in Paris at the COP21 expected the poor outcome of the official climate negotiations; after all, climate policies of most governments are hostage to the capitalist paradigm of growth and the global corporations dependent on fossil-fuels for profit. For the climate justice movement, COP21 was never going to embrace the climate justice position to “keep the oil in the ground.” Rather, Paris was a strategic point to reunite, build strength as a movement, and plan ways to confront climate change as a driver of social inequity and the main challenge to human life as we know it.

COP21 was never going to embrace the climate justice position to “keep the oil in the ground.”

Paris was a profound moment of convergence for the different movements fighting for social and environmental justice. Two weeks of continuous protests, mobilizations, statements and congregations built into the December 12th powerful demonstrations in the streets of Paris: the largest civil society convergence at the climate talks, led by indigenous frontline communities, which reflected our capacity to come together under common demands without giving up a focus on particular struggles. As many expressed that day, and in the words of Lidy Nacpil from the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice,

“We are all forced to resist, we must continue to act and disobey. We as people, as movements, are not strong enough yet to dismantle the power of the corporations. One of the urgent things we need to do is to build up our so we change the system.”

“Climate justice (…) acts as a platform for the empowerment of perpetually marginalized populations, and in so doing, brings together “the 99 percent” and highlights both the needs and the solutions of the people.”

As people’s movements, we should acknowledge our progress. Today, we are actively linking the root causes of the injustices suffered by our different communities: colonization, patriarchy, and racism—all systems of oppression that reinforce each other in the interests capitalism. And as Kari Malkki well puts it,

“Climate justice (…) acts as a platform for the empowerment of perpetually marginalized populations, and in so doing, brings together “the 99 percent” and highlights both the needs and the solutions of the people.”

Our understanding—and our alliances—are growing deeper and stronger as the social and environmental crises unleashed by global warming are exacerbated by an unfettered, neoliberal capitalism. The true value of the Paris climate talks is that it showed us how urgently we need to look at the capitalist structures which deny us environmental and social justice. The failed Paris climate talks gave us an opportunity to share strategies, gauge our strength and plan coordinated national mobilizations.

The failed Paris climate talks gave us an opportunity to share strategies, gauge our strength and plan coordinated national mobilizations.

As our movements become sharper at analyzing the structural causes of climate change, we also face new challenges. We must hold our governments accountable for the little they promised at COP21, and learn from others who know how to engage through litigation. Multilateral politics are biased to benefit those already in power, and we must interact with these diplomatic spaces in ways that add rather than subtract from our common efforts. We must find ways to live with difference and to work together despite distinct focuses by forging common understandings. We must cultivate the practice of pluralism.

COP21 gave us a chance to reformulate questions still pertinent to the environmental justice movements and social coalitions: How can we come together around climate work and integrate it within our own struggles? How can the premise of climate justice enhance the multiple quests for justice? How can some find empowerment in others actions, allowing the movement to grow? We are taking the first steps by recognizing the political pluralism within the heterogeneous movement for justice. The environmental movement’s axis is shifting leadership, opening up the space for people of color, frontline and indigenous communities to reclaim leadership. We must, as a movement, eliminate all kind of prejudice to these forms of leadership and alliance building, making sure plurality and diversity fortify us all in the struggle to stop global warming.

Sharon Lungo, Rocket Society ED

Maria Alejandra Escalante, Climate Justice Activist

Leila Salazar, Amazon Watch Director

Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN