While we are still fighting, there is still hope for climate justice

Islamic Relief’s Senior Policy Advisor on poverty reduction, Jamie Williams, reflects on the tense final days of the United Nations June Climate Meetings in Bonn.

Eventually there was success. After negotiations extending way past the scheduled time, the  Bonn Climate Conference agreed to finish the process of finding ways to measure progress against the Global Goal on Adaptation. 

For 2 long weeks it had looked as if there would be deadlock. Low-income countries said they had to see money to implement the goals, while rich countries held out that that should be discussed elsewhere.

Islamic Relief and its allies agreed that finance for adaptation action was vital. We went through the detailed notes of the meetings and forged new wordings that might be acceptable to everybody. We published articles in the daily conference newsletter. We sought out negotiators to listen to their arguments and put forward our suggestions. We even organised demonstrations with banners and slogans to put across our point:  Adaptation Finance Now!

But it was to no avail. Islamic Relief saw no movement as parties met again and again, playing out the same disagreements. But still our colleagues persisted, trying new ideas, planning conversations with everybody they could think of, and standing silently with their banners as delegates filed in for yet another negotiation.

And then, past midnight of the last day, after Islamic Relief had crawled back to our accommodation and gone to sleep, wrapped in the air of failure, there was a breakthrough. A text had been agreed. 

The fight will continue at the Conference of Parties (COP) in November, but the groundwork is done: The global goal on adaptation was to be measured in terms including finance.

So, it seems that delegates were swayed, even shamed, into doing the right thing by the dogged determination of our fellows to convince them that there is a world outside that will fight for climate justice.

Well done them. 

We can be cynical and despair. Or we can fight on. And while we are still fighting, there is still hope.

Islamic Relief works to see justice for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people in the face of the climate crisis. Please help us in this vital work. Donate now.