This COP29 has a disturbingly high number of greedy fossil fuel lobbyists with deep pockets stuffed with ill gotten profits. Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev claims there is no science to justify rapid fossil fuels phase out. Carbon trading, increasingly touted as the “solution” to the climate crisis, is forcing communities off their lands and out of their forests so companies can put a price on nature’s ability to absorb the carbon that warms the climate. Global temperatures are hurtling towards 3.1°C by the end of the century, a catastrophic scenario for Africa, which is heating faster than other continents, despite being responsible for only 3% of historical carbon emissions!
Governments and corporations are grabbing community lands to harvest ‘green’ minerals, gas and green hydrogen. All of this to make new energy, which is shipped off to meet the rising demand for ‘clean energy’ in the global North and some countries in the global South while Africa and its peoples live with the pollution, hardship and public debt.
African women are saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! No more business as usual!
Over 120 women activists and community leaders from 12 countries across West & Central Africa have come together through the platform of the Women’s Climate Assembly to speak out!
They are calling for climate and energy justice. They call on their governments to stop selling their vast natural wealth to the highest bidder. They demand climate reparations to keep the oil, gas and coal underground, to recover after the climate disasters they face, and to build real alternatives to the current destructive development model. They call for polluters to get out or pay the debt due to them as they suffer the costs of extractive industries and the growing climate crisis.
African women and communities are sick and tired of the COPs’ dodging of responsibilities and empty promises. Their voices must be heard and they should set the agenda.
Read African Women Speak Out! Climate Justice for Africa Now!
