By Margareta Koltai 

At COP27 world leaders are gathered, most of them in dark suits and ties, to negotiate commitments and expected climate actions. Despite the ambitions written on paper and the hours spent in serious discussions, the conclusions are often not enough for those suffering on the frontline of the climate emergency. Leaders from the most politically powerful countries often work to water down agreements and prioritise individual rather than collective interests.  

Under the same roof, most often on the margins, youth, women, people representing vulnerable communities, Indigenous peoples and representatives of island nations are telling stories of the lived realities of climate and gender injustice and calling for action.  

Their stories are similar to the one shared below by Sostina Takare, coordinator of the ACT Zimbabwe Forum. 

Gender discrimination contributes to climate vulnerability 

Sostina met a young girl who survived Tropical Cyclone Idai, which devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi in 2019. The girl’s mother and young siblings all died in the flash flood following the hurricane. She and her father were the only survivors. The girl, her mother and younger siblings had been caught by surprise when the hurricane first hit their home.  

She went looking for her father who had gone out for the evening to meet friends at a bar. The rest of her family waited at home for them to return. Meanwhile the storm got worse, and when the flood arrived, did not have time to escape. However the men in the bar and the oldest daughter were all able to find a safe place. They had been warned of the worsening storm and the risk of floods.  

In a condensed way, the tragic loss experienced by this young girl is a clear illustration of how gender discrimination contributes to vulnerability. According to UNDP the risk of dying in a natural disaster is 14 times higher if you are a women or girl than if you are a man. Those hardest hit by climate injustice are often youth, women, and people representing vulnerable communities.  

African women and girls’ collective demands 

African women and girls launched their collective demands before COP27 because of situations like the tragic story described above. They know that if the family’s’ mother had the power to make decisions, she would not have stayed at home waiting for her husband to return. With greater decision-making power and access to information, she could have saved her own and her childrens’ lives by seeking shelter in time.

The African women who are making COP27 demands do not ask to be saved by others. They ask for equal voice and influence. They request that women and youth, those who are hardest hit by the impacts of a changing climate, have a place at the decision-making tables. Only 34% of COP26 committee members were women. At the G7 Summit in 2021 only one woman was among the decision makers. According to UN Women more than 150 countries still have laws that discriminate against women. 

Women and girls want to be part of the core discussions. They want to contribute to solutions for equitable energy transition, climate finance, land rights, compensation for loss and damage, and just technology with intersectionality and interlinkages across all climate and development work streams.  

Just gender relations 

As people of faith just gender relations are essential for the transforming renewal of church and society. We are called to build just communities for all. This is why Act Alliance supports the UNFCCC’s Enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender. At COP27 we really want to see nice words translated from hope into action!  

ACT Alliance COP27 Gender Advocacy Positions  

• Mainstream gender-responsive and transformative climate finance, disaster risk measures, and adaptation and mitigation actions into policies, programming and practice.   
• Increase international climate financing to address loss and damage and adaptation, provided as grants, not loans.  
• Translate the Enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender (adopted at COP25) into direct action and fund implementation of the 5-year Gender Action Plan (2020-2025).   

• Support implementation of gender-related decisions and mandates in the Convention, with clear, agreed goals, targets, and budgeting, which is monitored and transparently reported.  
• Climate finance must be new and additional, not taking funds from other important development and human rights work   
  

 Margareta Koltai is the Policy Adviser for Climate Justice at Act Church of Sweden.  She is at COP27 this week.

By Rajan Thapa

COP27’s theme is “Together for Implementation.” Since the first COP 30 years ago, vulnerable populations and countries have fought valiantly to adapt to the effects of climate change, yet their voices are still not heard. Vulnerability to climate change has added another degree of stress to countries such as mine. Vulnerable communities in Nepal have been using local knowledge and practices to adapt to changing economic, ecological, and social dynamics caused by a changing climate. Unfortunately, such local practices have had very limited attention.  

At COP26, global leaders and funders announced the mobilisation of more than USD 450 million to implement locally led approaches to building climate resilience. But there is limited information on how much has been mobilised so far and what the activities are on the ground. To better understand the knowledge of local people on climate change and adaptation, study was launched in Nepal.  The result is “Locally Led Adaptation; A Call for Local Action,” available at COP27.  

The study found that most local communities were familiar with the term “climate change” and had experienced its impacts. They included drought; extreme and unpredictable rainfall; landslides; flooding; inundations; increasing temperatures; shorter winter periods; the continued reduction of agricultural productivity; and siltation. Respondents shared examples of the impacts on their lives, such as drought resulting in a walk of 1.5 to 2 hours to fetch drinking water. As well, the impact on agriculture and threats to their socio-cultural traditions were documented.  

The study also identified some very interesting local adaptation practices. Communities in Dailekh have built solar water-lifting schemes to supply drinking and irrigation water. They built plastic ponds in fields to collect rainwater, which allows them to irrigate during the dry season. They were found to practice drip irrigation for off-season vegetable farming and were sowing hybrid seeds and restoring forests to allow water to be replenished.  

In Bardiya, Rajapur, collective efforts were quite visible. Communities cleaned the irrigation canal just before the monsoon and constructed bio-check dams to prevent flooding. The Badghars, locally recognised community leaders, were hugely influential in mobilising the community to operate an early warning system during emergencies. They also developed plans, including for adaptation.  

Communities in Kanchanpur have introduced various nature-based solutions. These include ecosystem-based adaptations such as restoring ponds and forests; planting alternative cash crops, such as lemons, bananas and medicinal herbs; and managing community forests. Yet local initiatives such as these, with the potential to be integrated into local adaptation strategies and programmes, have received very little attention from local government.  

Local communities and their institutions, which include forest user groups, women’s groups, youth groups, Indigenous groups, and the Badghar, must be included by local government in addressing climate change vulnerabilities. However, this was not the case in the study area. Building their capacity to improve and share their local knowledge will improve their ability to meet the challenges of building resilience. 

Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) and its core principles are meant to assist communities in developing and implementing solutions by enabling, fostering, and using their enormous potential for innovation. Nepalese communities are, in fact, developing locally driven solutions for local adaptation plans. These are meant to assist communities in adapting to the effects of climate change. The challenge of the decade remains how to support and finance initiatives promoting climate resilience. 

LLA and its significance has gained attention on a global scale. I hope that at this COP over the next few days governmental and non-governmental organisations will recognise and find ways to adequately support locally led adaptation. Going forward, I hope donor organisations and development partners will increase their funding through easily accessible mechanisms. 

The report can be downloaded here.

Rajan Thapa is the Climate Action Advisor with DanChurchAid in Nepal. DanChurchAid is an ACT Alliance member. 

By Dr. Marianna Leite

Today is Friday the 11th of November and we are reaching the end of the first week of COP27.  By now, most people are overwhelmed with news about the Summit taking place in Sharm El-Sheikh but also rather curious about what is happening and what will ultimately be its outcome. Based on my experience as one of the co-coordinators of the ACT Alliance delegation to COP27, I’d like to give a flavour of what it’s like to be a participant and what lies ahead of us. 

Checking in and checking out 

ACT has a diverse, gender-equal and regionally balance delegation for COP27. We are part of a wider ecumenical delegation which we co-lead jointly with the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation. We have an ’insider’ and ’ousider’ track of delegates that help us strategise internally from the venue and online from elsewhere. This means that we have quite strong cohort of people that share the same values and drive for climate justice. 

Everyday we meet to look at the official agenda according to themes/expertise as well as the side events, actions and related activities. We divide the responsibilities amongst ourselves and then report back on the main achievements and points of tension at the end of the day.  

Dividing and Conquering 

Instead of following the same events and activities, we try to ‘divide and conquer’. We connect with the different like-minded groups and support those that are part of negotiations.  

This does not come without challenges. The Wi-Fi in the venue is patchy making the connection with our fellow online delegates difficult and, at times, frustrating. The venue is huge and its layout is not exactly intuitive, meaning that many of us spend a lot of time looking for rooms and often getting lost. 

Getting basic things done like eating and going to the bathroom is a challenge. There are huge lines everywhere, limited options and, well, a general sense of disorientation.  

The silver lining 

This is not an easy space or context to operate in but, in a way, the massive civil society mobilisation can be seen as the silver lining. Like other groups, ACT has organised media ’stunts’ calling attention to our asks and the asks of those missing voices at COP27. In one of those stunts we acted out detectives looking for missing loss and damage financing. I never fail to be impressed and inspired by the energy and passion brought by the different ACT delegates and partners. Their successes in driving transformative and structural messaging, their relentless work and unwavering dedication to climate justice demonstrates that ’united we can and will overcome this massive crisis’. 

The (steep) road ahead 

What’s next? Well, we are still looking for the missing climate finance! Many countries have announced pledges which, although encouraging from a political perspective, are not anywhere near the level of finance needed to address the current challenges.

Stay posted for outcomes after week two at COP27.

Dr. Marianna Leite is ACT Alliance’s Global Advocacy and Development Policy Manager. She attended the first week of COP27 in Egypt. Stay posted for more reporting on outcomes following week two.    PHOTO: Dr. Marianna Leite.