Queer feminist climate activist Rachitaa Gupta on how Israel’s war in Gaza and the repression of pro-Palestinian protests has affected Germany’s standing with the climate justice movement in the run-up to COP29.
During last year’s climate change negotiations in Dubai, Israel’s military response to the October 7 massacre was a key issue. For the vast majority of the international climate justice community, the link between climate justice and Palestine is clear. In Germany, however, the debate is more contentious, and many of those defending Palestinians’ rights and calling attention to the atrocities committed by the Israeli military have faced stiff opposition. This was illustrated by the suppression of the Palestine Congress in Berlin in April, the excessively forceful clearing of the protest camps at Berlin universities, and in the political and media vilification of academics who defended the rights of students to protest and to exercise free speech.
All this is happening in times where the level of trust between the countries of the Global South and Global North has weakened due to the lack of commitment by industrial countries to act on the climate emergency and commit to sufficient climate financing to support the Global South. To discuss how these perceptions affect Germany’s standing amongst the international climate justice community in the climate change negotiations, David Williams and Katja Voigt from the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung spoke with Rachitaa Gupta, Lead Coordinator of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ). DCJ is a network of over 200 climate and human rights organizations working at the international, regional, and local level on issues of climate justice and a just transition.
What are the main issues civil society groups are organizing around in the run-up to the UNFCCC climate change negotiations (COP) in Baku?
Urgent and radical economic and societal changes are needed to confront the climate emergency and strive for a world built on justice, equity, and sustainability. Time is of the essence, and action is needed now to avert an impending planetary catastrophe. Climate justice demands systemic change at all levels — local, national, regional, and especially global. As we head for the COP in Baku, civil society organizations are demanding that rich countries uphold their commitments under the Paris Agreement and pay their historical climate debt through reparations.
This year’s COP is being called the “finance COP” due to the negotiations around the New Common Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) and our member groups, along with the global climate justice movement, are organizing to demand a clear, science-based outcome of the NCQG. It is essential to ensure that parties agree to a climate finance goal commensurate with developing countries’ adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage needs. DCJ and its members have raised a demand of 5 trillion USD per year as the NCQG goal that developed countries must deliver to the Global South. The developed countries need to ensure that this new, additional, non-debt creating, and predictable source of finance is channelled through democratic, transparent, and accountable mechanisms. It is also imperative to end harmful climate financing through carbon markets, not only because of its devastating impact on the communities on the ground in the Global South, but also because carbon markets are just tools for developed countries to not have ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Without adequate finance, developing countries will not be able to address climate challenges or transition their economies. The 100 billion USD pledged at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, undelivered so far, is not nearly enough compared to real needs. It is estimated that developing countries need at least 5.9 trillion USD by 2030 just to implement their climate plans, with further funds needed to cover the costs of climate change-induced losses and damages. It is therefore critical that a financing goal based on needs be developed and delivered, focusing not only on increasing the pace and scale of funding, but also in solving existing qualitative problems with climate finance flows. The climate justice movement raised these demands this year at climate change negotiations in Bonn and also launched a new global campaign to escalate the fight for climate finance.
However, these are not the only issues civil society is organizing around. We are demanding that governments deliver on the commitment to transition away from fossil fuels with a fast, fair, feminist, fully funded, and forever phase out. We are also demanding that, as countries move towards a just transition, this transition should uplift all, including workers, impacted communities, and all emerging positions from every constituency, community, and country. This also means that developed countries must ensure sharing of safe, appropriate, as well as ecologically- and socially-sound technologies with developing countries to advance the transformation to equitable, democratic, post-carbon systems.
As countries work towards this transition, it is imperative that we prioritize real, just, accountable, gender-responsive, community-led, nature-restoring, proven, and transformative solutions to be implemented rapidly and justly. We need to stop the implementation and pursuit of false solutions and dangerous distractions like “nature-based solutions,” including carbon trading; market-based approaches to managing forests, soil, and water; large-scale geo-engineering and techno-fixes; as well as nuclear energy, mega-dams, agro-fuels, large tree plantations, biomass energy, waste incineration and “clean coal”.
Lastly, we want an end to corporate capture of climate policy and we want to Kick Big Polluters Out of climate negotiations. We must end the ability of polluters to write the rules of climate action and end their ability to bankroll the climate talks.
Just as we did last year during COP28, the global climate justice movement will also be raising our voices to call for an end to Israel’s genocidal attacks on Palestine, war crimes in Lebanon, and illegal annexation in Syria, as well as in support of other communities living through conflicts worldwide. We are demanding that all countries stop the sale of arms and apply economic sanctions to countries such as Israel, Sudan, and others that are in violation of international law. Those resources should be redirected towards tackling the climate crisis.
Civil society organizations have sought to bring the impact that armed conflicts and wars have on the climate crisis into the negotiations and political debates for a long time. Why is this so important?
In the last decade, military spending has increased by 25.9% —2.2 trillion USD in 2022 alone — largely led by the rich countries. Meanwhile, the attempts of these countries to mobilize climate finance, especially for loss and damage, has been woefully inadequate. At the same time, the world’s militaries produce an estimated nearly 5.5% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Such spending and high emissions take away from the resources needed for global climate action, while escalating geopolitical tension makes multilateral climate action more difficult.
The Middle East is one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in the world. The continued conflict in the region, often perpetuated or exacerbated by Western nations for their own greed for more fossil fuel, reveals the true priorities of the rich countries. The relationship between fossil fuel expansion and regional and global conflicts is well established. When these conflicts occur in an “energy-rich region,” countries focus more on securing their oil and gas stocks rather than working together to transition away from fossil fuels — the important first step to ensure the world moves towards decarbonisation.
How is the situation in Palestine impacting climate negotiations?
Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and war crimes in Lebanon have further revealed the deep relationship between military spending and the ongoing climate crisis. Since 2016, the US has given Israel 3.3 billion USD worth of military aid every year. Since October 7, the US has spent 17.9 billion USD on military aid to Israel, the country which is responsible for the oppression and occupation of more than 5 million Palestinians, including the displacement of more than 2 million people in Gaza. In 2022, the US did not meet its climate finance obligations, yet continued the delivery of the 3.3 billion USD in military aid to Israel.
The International Court of Justice’s opinion in January stated that it is potentially the case that Israel is committing genocide and that Palestinians in Gaza have a plausible case under the Genocide Convention. In July, they stated that the occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful. And yet, several companies and most Global North countries continue to provide fuel and arms to Israel to continue the atrocities in Gaza and now in Lebanon. Germany’s own defence exports to Israel rose nearly tenfold in 2023 over the previous year.
When you see countries historically responsible for the ongoing climate crisis continue to fund and support a war that most of the countries in the world oppose, it breaks trust and makes multilateral climate negotiations more challenging. Another major concern for the climate justice movement is that COP29 host Azerbaijan is the leading supplier of crude oil to Israel, via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, majority owned and operated by BP, and is fuelling its war machine further. All this makes the promises of these countries to support climate action, cut emissions, and mobilize lifesaving climate finance sound hollow.
The safety of climate activists coming to Bonn in June for the intersessionals was also a strong focus. How did it feel travelling to Germany during the current geopolitical tensions?
Bonn plays a key role in international climate change negotiations, as this is where the intersessionals that serve as a precursor for the larger COPs take place. Travelling to Germany every year for meetings is always tough for people from the Global South, due to the long distance as well as the challenges around procuring a visa. Adding to those challenges, there is now widespread concern within the larger movement about the climate of censorship and suppression in Germany and the violent crackdown on pro-Palestine activism as well as on the climate justice groups. This year was also challenging due to fears for personal safety and security within the climate justice movement, especially for the safety of people from more vulnerable communities given the increase in racism against Arab and Muslim communities in Germany.
As a person of color from the Global South, there is a constant fear of being questioned, harassed, intimidated, or even denied entry due to my solidarity with Palestine as well as my association with an organization that has openly called on Israel to end its genocidal attacks on Gaza. We were forced to self-censor in public, take extra measures to protect ourselves, and set up additional systems and precautions to ensure our safety and security. I don’t believe we have experienced something like this in the past.
I come from a country that was colonized for centuries and where freedom movements were violently suppressed. India gained its freedom in 1947. Just one year later, Palestinians experienced the first Nakba in 1948. Because of this history, India has always stood in solidarity with Palestine. In 1974, India became the first non-Arab state to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and in 1988, India became one of the first countries to recognize the state of Palestine. Due to growing relations between Israel and India’s far-right regime, there has been a significant shift in India’s international diplomacy — but one that is not shared by activists on the ground or in the broader civil society in India. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon in their struggle for freedom. Given all that, to see another colonial state like Germany continue its support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and war crimes in Lebanon has been infuriating.
How does the climate justice community view the German authorities’ response to pro-Palestinian activism?
During COP27, the global climate justice movement put out a public statement spotlighting Egypt’s terrible track record of persecution, demanded the immediate release of individuals arbitrarily detained for exercising their rights to freedom of association, assembly, and expression, and called for the opening up of civic space in Egypt. This call was vociferously supported by almost all of the Western world, including Germany. But now, Germany — a country that talks about upholding fundamental human rights, but carries out the large-scale crackdown, suppression, surveillance, and police violence against pro-Palestine activists and Palestinian voices — has laid bare the truth of Western ”moral superiority.”
The active silencing of prominent pro-Palestinian activists, including banning the entry of British-Palestinian doctor Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta and shutting down events like the Palestine Congress, shows that this is a systemic issue within Germany and not a matter of a few isolated events. As Rosa Luxemburg said:
“Freedom only for supporters of the government, only for the members of one party — however numerous they may be — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of ‘justice’ but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege.”
For centuries, the Western nations have subjected Global South countries to brutal colonization, looting, plundering, and the destruction of entire cultures and communities to feed their capitalist greed. Our communities have fought these colonial powers and continue to fight the extractive, capitalist system that is the fundamental reason for the ongoing climate crisis. We fight against the systems of injustice that view black, brown, and indigenous peoples as disposable, to be sacrificed by racist and colonial systems of exploitation and domination.
We see the struggle of the Palestinian people against occupation and apartheid as part of our collective struggle for climate, racial, gender, economic, and political justice and for a world where everyone has the right to live with dignity, free from oppression. The global climate justice community will forever stand in solidarity with Palestine and with the people of Gaza and continue to hold Western countries accountable for their colonial past as well as their ongoing support for the colonization, oppression, and genocide of the Palestinian population.
German authorities have prevented individuals from speaking publicly on the Palestinian issue, and even issued entry bans to the country. How did this affect the logistical arrangements for civil society representatives coming to Germany back in June?
Germany’s crackdown on civil society in general, especially climate groups, has significantly increased recently, but this suppression of the pro-Palestinian movement is not new. In fact, the country has seen quite a few pro-Palestine activities shut down since 2017 — a trend that has only increased since 7 October 2023.
All of this has led to significant concern among global civil society and climate justice groups. For the first time, extensive efforts were put into organizing safety and security briefings for climate activists from the Global South, especially for Arab and Muslim campaigners as they travelled to Bonn. The international climate justice movement seriously considered limiting mobilizations outside the UNFCCC venue — where German law applies and climate activists can be subjected to intimidation and harassment by German police — and restricted them to within the UNFCCC venue where UN law applies and affords better protection and security for campaigners. Several prominent climate justice and human rights activists who have publicly expressed their support for Palestine did not travel to the Bonn negotiations this year because of the potential risk of being denied entry to Germany and the larger implications for travel within the European Union, as happened to Dr. Sitta.
Much has been made of the rift both within German climate activist groups, as well as with international climate activists. Do you see the negotiations in Baku as an opportunity to rebuild some of those bridges? If so, under what conditions might this be possible?
The German government’s response to pro-Palestine solidarity, while infuriating, is to be expected given the history of suppression and censorship of Palestinian and Muslim voices in the country. We understand Germany’s shameful history makes antisemitism a highly sensitive societal issue. However, the conflation of criticism of the Israeli government with anti-semitism — that stems from a culture of remembrance that is in parts misconceived — has led to rampant discrimination against Palestinian and Muslim communities. Political forces, particularly from the conservative spectrum, are instrumentalizing what they call the fight against antisemitism to further enforce discriminatory policies based on racist stereotypes against Palestinian and Muslim communities. Germany’s support of a far-right Israeli government, including the lack of critical questioning of Israeli government positions and statements in German media and public discourse, has contributed to the silencing of pro-Palestinian voices in Germany at a time when over 42,000 Palestinians have been killed.
The lack of support and solidarity from German civil society and climate activists has been surprising and heart breaking for the global climate justice movement, especially in the Global South. One of the principles of any social movement is international solidarity. History is witness to several people-led movements that won crucial fights for human rights and social justice through global solidarity. Civil society in the Global North, especially in Germany, needs to stand with the peoples and movements from the Global South to hold their own governments accountable for their role in the oppression of vulnerable and marginalized communities.
These rifts don’t exist just between German climate activists and the global movement, but also internally within Germany. There are definitely pockets of pro-Palestinian climate activists within Germany who have been trying to uphold the call of “No climate justice without human rights,” and have been fighting alongside the global climate justice movement. There is a deep understanding within the global movement that climate justice cannot be fought for in isolation. The fight for climate justice is a fight for human rights, for racial and caste justice, for gender justice, for economic and development justice, and for social justice. Our movements are pluralist and intersectional, and it is high time that the German movements got on board with this vision.
It is important for the German movement to repair bonds within its own movement and strengthen internal solidarity before building bridges with the international community. The German climate movement will need to rebuild trust and legitimacy among the larger global movement. A willingness to learn from their counterparts in the Global South can be an initial step. Like Rosa Luxemburg also said, “The most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening
