Preventing Climate Emergency will Require Everyone's Voice & Perspective
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Preventing Climate Emergency will Require Everyone's Voice & Perspective
NEWSLETTER, October 2022—W7 Session in Berlin; Talanoa Dialogue video; Austria has climate income; Nigeria volunteers lobby; COP27 workshops, policy note, events & the People's Pavilion.
Disruption of Earth’s climate system by human behavior poses an ever more clear and present danger to the viability of ecosystems, biodiversity, and food security, as well as human economies, societies, and nation states. The COP27 UN Climate Change negotiations in Egypt must address converging crises and build in structural incentives to make a livable future possible. Participation, civics, and inclusion are critical to making climate progress move at the speed required.
CCI brings climate, equity & rights to W7 Strategies and Implementation Sessions
CCI Program Director Cathy Orlando attended the W7 Strategies and Implementation Sessions, which took place in Berlin, Germany, October 12-14, in conjunction with the G7 Equality Ministers Meetings. Cathy is a W7 Advisor and joined 60 other women leaders from 25 countries, representing tens of millions of women stakeholders.
The W7 Advisors gathered in Berlin provided critical insight about specific areas of policy and action that can build on three major breakthroughs included in the German G7 communiqué:
There is now a G7 Gender Gaps Dashboard. The Dashboard includes key indicators across a range of policy areas that are relevant to the progression of gender equality. It will be updated annually by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
For the first time ever LGBTQI+ rights were to be found in a G7 Communique.
Explicit carbon pricing and carbon border adjustment mechanisms were highlighted in the G7 Climate Club document.
Women stakeholders gather to call for action to secure a livable climate future
Women and girls experience the greatest impacts of climate change and they also have been systematically excluded from many decision-making opportunities, resources, institutions, and spaces to support their own growth and leadership. Studies show that gender equality—for example, a greater proportion of women in national government —is strongly associated with more robust environmentalism on a national level.
On September 27, 2022, women from around the world gathered for a Talanoa Dialogue. Talanoa is a traditional word used in Fiji and across the Pacific to reflect a process of inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue. The discussion was a confidential sharing of insights, values, experiences, and perspectives. Some women agreed to share their voices. Thank you to all of the women who joined, to lend their voices to the hard work of solving this great global challenge.
Austria launches its climate income system—Klimabonus
While much of the world struggles to deal with a crisis in energy prices, disrupted supply chains, and related cost of living increases, Austria has taken a pro-active approach to decarbonization and energy independence. The Klimabonus program puts a price on climate-damaging pollution and returns revenues to individuals and families.
In just the first month of operation:
7,414,021 people in Austria have received deposits in their bank accounts;
1,269,835 vouchers have been sent;
3.987 billion euros have been disbursed so far.
From 2023, the Klimabonus will vary based on the region you live in — as originally intended. The amount will then depend on how good the infrastructure and public transport connections are at your place of residence. One thing is certain: Those who opt for climate-friendly behaviour will now have more of the Klimabonus in their pockets.
CCI Nigeria builds political will for Climate Justice
On October 27, members of the Lafia chapter of Citizens’ Climate in Nigeria, with support from national coordinators, gathered to build political will for climate justice in Nasarawa State. Local volunteers were first trained on effective organization of policy-focused climate conversations, by David Michael Terungwa, CCI’s African Regional Coordinator.
Participants were trained on five levers of political will. The lobbying of state-level officials focused on the need to respond to and prevent recurrence of severe flooding that recently destroyed properties and infrastructure and displaced many people. 35 volunteers took part, and 5 trees were presented to the House of Assembly.
COP27 News
Climate Diplomacy Workshops
The Pre-COP27 round of Climate Diplomacy Workshops, co-convened by CCI and The Fletcher School at Tufts University closes on Tuesday, November 1, just days before the United Nations Climate Change conference opens in Sharm el-Sheikh. Over six sessions, hundreds of attendees—including diplomats, advocates, scholars, and stakeholders—learned about the process, what is at stake, the complicated challenges of global crisis response, creating fiscal space, the formal COP27 agendas.
People’s Pavilion
The 2022 People’s Pavilion offers a digital platform for stakeholders to engage with events at and around the COP27, from wherever they are.
The digital platform facilitates access to curated events across select thematic areas, connects observers, advocates, and other stakeholders, and provides a platform to amplify voices from the frontlines that face limitations to joining intergovernmental negotiations. The aim is to serve as a blueprint for mainstreaming Action for Climate Empowerment—civic participation, information, and capacity-building—at the UNFCCC level, expanding the civic space by bridging the negotiations with life lived in diverse communities around the world.
CCI Agenda focuses on clear actions to make climate resilience mainstream
We focus our policy agenda for COP27 on five broad areas of action:
Civics, across all climate imperatives, including work on Action for Climate Empowerment, the ECOS Community, our Engage4Climate Toolkit , and The People’s Pavilion ;
Incentives, including pollution pricing, climate income , non-market approaches , and other cooperative decarbonization and resilience measures;
Finance, including catalytic, early action, and mainstream financial interventions, across the public, private, and multilateral sectors—valuing a participatory Capital to Communities approach and the inherently multiscale, multistakeholder benefits of successful adaptation and resilience;
Food, including food security measures driven by climate-smart production and informed by data systems aligned with valuing climate resilient, nature-positive, and sustainable development outcomes;
Nature, from summit to seabed – treating mountain glaciers, polar ice caps, watersheds, and the integrity of biodiverse natural systems on land and throughout the ocean, as human security must-haves.
Food System Climate Solutions: COP27 side event
Global food systems make up a third of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as being a key driver of nature loss. This formal COP27 side event highlights ways the public and private sector can address these risks, including true cost accounting, sustainable food pledges and pricing, and Good Food Finance interventions.
Citizens’ Climate is supporting this event, as part of our emphasis on the importance of climate-smart food systems.
COP27 events calendar
CCI is hosting a user-friendly overview calendar of key events and reports leading up to the COP27, taking place at the COP27, and in follow-up.
More good news
CCL Canada hosted its largest ever online event - All Together Now
CCL Canada’s polite online letter campaign closes November 1
IMF, Barbados Reach Deal for First-Ever Loan Under Climate Trust
New Zealand to Tax Agriculture Emissions at the Farm in World First
U.N.-backed investors set fresh targets in sustainable food shift