[Niya Tapo]
The World Climate Conference, COP28, took place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December, 2023. It marks the world’s 28th leadership gathering to confront global warming since the first conference of parties in 1995.
As a healthy & environment friendly youth (HEY) campaign Asia ambassador from the UNICEF, I was nominated to represent HEY at the COP28. I attended the COP28 in the second week. I was very excited and I was looking forward to the first global stocktaking of the implementation of the Paris Agreement, which was concluding at COP28. The most highlighted topic for COP28 was the focus on loss and damage fund to provide financial assistance to nations most and impacted by the effects of climate change.
As a young indigenous woman, I believe in the power of the indigenous community, which only makes 5 per cent of the world’s population but protects more than 20 per cent of the planet’s land and 80 per cent of its biodiversity. Everyday there were hundreds of side events and meetings and more than 70,000 delegates were expected to be attending COP28. I also got an opportunity to be a speaker for a session on the ‘Influence of climate change on public health’.
In this session, we discussed insights and narratives from HEY ambassadors on climate change impact on their communities around the world. In the history of the COP, it was first time ever to put human health at the centre for climate action and at COP28, 125 countries endorsed the Declaration on Climate and Health.
As a member of the UNFCCC YOUNGO Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE), which encourages people to take action in climate crisis, I actively participated and followed the events. I also got an opportunity to attend some high-level discussions on negotiation.
After attending all those sessions and meetings, I felt that the language and expressions that define dominant narratives around the climate crisis are mostly western-centric and out of touch with lived realities of marginalised group in the global south. For instance, there is a narrative at present that climate change will impact future generation and young people throughout their lifetime.
However, the viewpoint fails to acknowledge the immediate impact it has on marginalised communities at the crossroads of gender, caste and class, whose lives are already being impacted.
COP28 did not deliver for low and middle income countries, nor did it secure the assurance that countries with the greatest historical responsibility for climate change would take full responsibility.
‘Adaptation’ was the surprise failure of COP28. The agreement on the global goal for adaptation and finance fell far short of the mark. The host for COP28 was agreed as Azerbaijan, making that three COPs in a row in contexts where civic space and human rights are restricted. It’s time for us to question who gets to shape the current climate narratives. I was concerned like many other youths from small island developing states, indigenous community and marginalised community from global south and developing countries that we were trying so hard to reach an agreement to pay for the loss and damages; but no mechanism has been put in place to stop the damage from taking place in the first place. For indigenous people like us, the impact of climate change is determined not with big scientific terms. For us, it is very simple, yet it has very harsh and direct impact on us. We have to understand that climate change refers to more than the increase in temperature, because Earth is a system where everything is connected. It includes intense droughts, water scarcity which impact food production and human health and overall effect by physical, biological and ecological disruption. It’s high time we focussed on indigenous sciences, which include knowledge of ecosystems that indigenous people have.
At present I am also a global youth ambassador for education, and have been focusing my work on climate education. I believe that education gives people the knowledge and tools they need to adapt to the impact of climate change and the risk it poses to livelihood and wellbeing. Education can also be a powerful driver for more sustainable development, including a transition to greener societies. At present, I will be working on the ‘International climate fellowship with our kids cimate’ to build a new movement with potential to strengthen inter-generational climate, organising within indigenous communities.
The negotiations in the COP made it amply clear that the rich and developed countries follow climate policies as ‘colonialism in green’. The removal of equity and human right principles from the final outcome text indicates that vulnerable communities in developing countries need to actively build strategies to save themselves.
However, at COP28, I also witnessed the active participation of youths. I believe that we need to include more and more youths in our policies and action plans and must empower them to initiate changes that will last for generations. (The writer, who hails from Roing, was a UNFCCC COP28 delegate who participated as a HEY Asia ambassador with HEY campaign and a UNICEF-sponsored global youth ambassador. A former volunteer of Bamboosa Library, Tezu, Niya Tapo is at present engaged in the international climate fellowship with our kids climate. Email: taponeeya@gmail.com)
