The 27th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) is happening from the 6th to the 18th of November 2022 in Sharm El-Sheikh. This year’s summit will bring together governments, civil society organisations, and others to accelerate much-needed global action to confront the climate crisis. Join AMwA at COP27 this year with partners and ecofeminists to discuss how to reduce global carbon emissions to tackle the ever-growing climate crisis.
The COP27 summit will attempt to build on the Glasgow Climate Pact agreed upon at COP26 and pave the way for future ambition to tackle the climate crisis effectively. Currently, the Egyptian host is pushing to prioritise climate finance as industrialised countries are failing to pay their fair share towards the $100 billion goal, with the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on the horizon. For AMwA, this serves as an essential platform to visibilize the work and achievements of locally-led climate initiatives and amplify the voices of African women and gender-expansive persons.
At this year’s event, we would like to highlight the following:
- The Ecofeminist Directory: developed by AMwA, the directory is an entry point to easily locate and draw on the work of African women and gender-expansive persons working in the area of climate and environmental justice to build a robust field of feminist climate and environmental justice actors across the continent.
- Through the African Women’s Leadership Institute (AWLI) under the Voices for Climate Action Programme (VCA), we are building a critical mass of feminist leaders from marginalised groups equipped with the tools to challenge and transform power relations for just climate action.
- While women and people from the Global South, especially in Africa, will bear the biggest brunt of climate change, little is said about why that is. However, the continued absence of these voices in policy and otherwise discussions about climate action further reinforces existing barriers to guaranteeing that climate change solutions are contextual and applicable. AMwA, under the VCA programme, developed the policy brief on Why the Climate Crisis is a Feminist Issue
- Ahead of COP27 negotiations, African girls’ and women’s activists gathered from all five regions of the continent to launch a set of collective demands that must be addressed.
In line with that, AMwA’s key messages for COP27 are:
Climate justice: The greatest burden of the climate crisis falls on those already impoverished and marginalised (such as indigenous peoples, the rural and urban poor, women, and youth). It exacerbates existing inequalities dictated by class, ethnicity, gender, age and community.
Local climate solutions: Local communities have taken countless inventive steps to mitigate climate change and adapt to its consequences – steps that could also foster a transition to inclusive and just societies. Locally led climate solutions have higher social, economic and environmental returns; the results are more equitable and benefit marginalised groups; the approaches are more holistic, connecting climate solutions to other socio-economic developments; and they embed local knowledge in their measures.
Inclusive policymaking: for effective climate policy, civil society, governments and development partners need to get serious about shifting power to local communities and ensure they are given opportunities to impact their and our future directly. They should be the ones to influence local, regional and international policies and practices. VCA has endorsed the LLA principles, and so should other stakeholders.
Climate finance: Local climate solutions are shortchanged by climate finance. Funders have to move beyond the rhetoric of “scale” and take steps to create mechanisms for local actors to gain access to global funds.
Feminist approach: the gendered impacts of the climate crisis require feminist approaches that focus on amplifying women’s and gender-expansive persons’ voices and strengthening individual and collective capacities for the advancement of climate justice.
AMwA at COP27
Here is a list of events AMwA will be co-hosting and participating in both physically and virtually!
New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) and local climate finance
9 November, 12:00- 13:00, Hall A, Green Zone
Event Code: 9A1213
Organizers: VCA: SSN, AMwA, Hivos
This side event explores the opportunities for shared strategies for mobilizing finance for local climate action – also with regards to the new collective and quantified goal (NCQG). It is based on the VCA alliance submission on New collective quantified goals to CM.4 which is anchored on the call for the ad hoc program to consider including a quantitative subgoal of the NCQG on finance for local climate solutions. In addition, concrete targets should be set for climate finance to reach the local level to finance local climate solutions driven by local communities, including priority rights holders like youth, indigenous peoples, migrants, women, etc. Join the event here. Passcode: 722432
27 VOICES OF CLIMATE ACTION AT COP27
DATE: November 10, 2022, | TIME: 14:30-15:30 | PLACE: Panda Hub
VCA addresses issues of social injustices which are deeply embedded and will be further aggravated by the climate crisis. VCA’s 27@27 will showcase short videos featuring the program’s local partners and youth groups from various grassroots communities in the Global South who are engaged in climate action.
View the panda hub event schedule
link: https://bit.ly/3DARu3s
Linking local to global – Sharing experiences on gender and climate finance in Sub-Saharan Africa
FEMNET, AMwA, ALIN, PACJA
14th November 2022
04:00 PM Cairo Time/ Hall A
To join virtually: use the link
Standing in our Power: African Women and Girls Gender Day Celebration
WGC, AMwA, Oxfam, FEMNET, Women Environment Program, Women for A Change
14th November (Gender day)
1900 – 2030 Cairo Time
African Union Pavilion
