All voices need to be heard to build up a momentum for just transition
by Burkhard Paetzold
PEC Representative at COP 26
November
3rd was my travel day, and I arrived at night warmly welcomed by Fred Milligan,
my host for the next few days. Both of us attended an evening webinar
organized and moderated by Religions for Peace and the Interfaith Rainforest
Initiative. I was struck by three elements of that webinar:
1. The
dark side of European and North American history with indigenous people was
described by Bishop Marc Andrus of the Episcopal Church in San Francisco
when he elaborated on the Doctrine of Discovery and the intersectionality
of racism and the exploitation of nature. He reflected on a pilgrimage to
Auschwitz during COP24 Katowice and his insight that it was so important that
survivors of Auschwitz have fought for keeping the memories alive.
2. Bishop
Mark McDonald, an indigenous Episcopal bishop from Canada, talked about
the lives of indigenous peoples that are so “intimate with planet. Woven
together that they can't be separated.” That means „solidarity and community
with humanity“ and “solidarity with the rest of the creation“ are intertwined.
3. There
can't be climate justice if there is no justice to indigenous
peoples. Mari Valjakka, a Sami pastor from the
Evangelical Lutheran church in Finland, used the word „Green colonialism“.
This phrase resonates with me, when I think of our economic system which after
having created the mess with fossil fuels now is only changing the technology,
but using old patterns of externalizing negative impacts of the “green”
technologies: from exploiting minerals for electrical car batteries to, in her
case, putting wind turbines on Sami land.
Finally,
today November 4th, was my first full day in Glasgow. Fred’s and my morning
routine before leaving his home seem to be: have a cup of coffee, cook some
oatmeal, do our Covid self test (we have to provide this to the authorities
online), and sit down for the LWF -ACT Alliance virtual coordination
meeting. On this first day, Fred also helped me to find my
way. My first impression: extremely crowded! But it was so good to see
real people after all these zoom meetings I have attended.
Together
we joined the plenary session of the IPCC where they discussed the latest
findings in their August report – and it was an eye-opener. „Human
influence on the climate is unequivocal“, “changes are widespread, rapid and
intensifying”… and they are “unprecedented“ across thousands of years (in case
of the ocean acidification even millions of years). And after all they are
„already affecting every region of the earth“ and “making extreme climate
events more frequent and severe“. Some of these changes are already
„irreversible“ but can be „slowed by limiting warming“ Reducing greenhouse gas
emission would “reduce the frequency, duration and regions where heat extremes
reach critical thresholds for health and agriculture“.
A
delegate from India questioned the „low likelihood high impact events“. He
didn't want them to be mentioned because the report sounds too
„pessimistic“ like a “doomsday scenario“. But the response from the IPCC
panel was, we can't rule them out, because “even if the probability of occurrence
is low the impacts on society and ecosystems could be high“.
I want to
be clear. It seems widely accepted among the participants that we must
listen to science, that voices for radical change are increasingly more
powerful, and at the same time as the Act Alliance wrote in a recent press release we need
all peoples voices heard.
„All
around the world, people, communities, churches, and civil society are raising
their voices calling for ambition, for action, for an end to weak
commitments.“ Act Alliance is also criticizing because not all
voices are heard. „Women. Youth. Indigenous people. People
from vulnerable communities. They all need to be in the room, at the table,
and part of the conversation.“ The faith community is pressing hard to invite
them at least into meetings of digital formats.
Today the
November 4th faith community leaders Henrik Grape of the WCC and Valeriane
Bernard invited us to an in-person coordination meeting and after mostly
virtual meetings a large number of different faith traditions dealing with
climate justice showed up. It was an impressive and inspiring group,and it was
good to be together in a room after all. Fred and I learned about the
„Interfaith Talanoa Dialogue“ A meeting of that dialogue we had both missed has
been recorded here.
After the
meeting I got to talk to old and new friends, Peter Pavlovic from Brussels,
Eco-Congregation Scotland, Quakers, Muslim climate activists and many
others.
In the
exhibition area, you find both a lot of „down to earth“ commitment, but also a
lot of green-washing. On a large computer screen, Russia had an advertisement
for “clean energy“ of the state owned nuclear power plant company. On the other
hand, I found it fascinating to visit the pavilion of Indonesia and listen to
presentations of how they deal with issues of just and transparent transition
away from fossil fuels towards renewables.
Like I
saw with the rapid adoption of cell phones in Eastern Europe to skip over the
old rotten landline grid immediately they might just skip the fossil fuels area
right away for renewables.
The idea
of overcoming the coal age seems common sense to me and countries are making
strong or weak pledges as to when they will end their coal mining and use.
In a
plenary the Powering Past Coal Alliance showed how
they’ve gained more and more support from countries like Estonia, Ukraine,
Uruguay, the Netherlands and others, as well as from divesting companies like
HSBC or ABP (one of the biggest pension funds) or even from coal mining regions
like Walbrzich in Poland. These entities are looking for a fast but just
transition towards green jobs. Their encouraging growth shows me there is
momentum and others should be wise to join quickly.
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