Demands of Pacific Women – Rise for Climate Justice, Every Day!

By Noelene Nabulivou

Pacific Women are fed up and mobilising in growing numbers.

Enough of climate inaction, enough of the lies and enough of finance promises without delivery. Most of all, enough of the duplicity.  Rich countries and corporations and elites in the economic South – you have already taken too much from the majority world through racist, heteropatriarchal, colonial and post-colonial capitalism.

Women from the Pacific are speaking back and taking action*. We have had enough.

We do not accept that others will speak, act or coordinate us. We are now moving quickly and with care, to do no harm.

OUR URGENT DEMANDS:

Demand 1. Get off all fossil fuel. Time is short. This includes you #Australia

You have not so far had the courage to stand up to the fossil fuel companies owned by Gina Rinehart and others. You must.

You are too slow to reject Adani Coal Mine, which if it happens is the equivalent of a carbon bomb, with emissions blasting us away from the 1.5-degree maximum greenhouse gas target globally, that will keep small islands safe.

You are too slow in protecting the Great Barrier Reef, in your care.

So far, you are failing the Pacific. Stop saying you care Australia if you care more for your companies and the grossly under-taxed profits of the elite.

Demand 2. Ensure an urgent and just transition to renewable energy democracy. 

Safe renewables are the future. This is a necessity.

Coal and fossil fuels are obsolete  – This is a chronicle of a death foretold.

So simple – you must now keep all fossil fuels in the ground. You must also take steps to reduce the damage already done by emissions that we did not create, but that fuel your lifestyles and those elite pockets. Your affluenza is our loss and damage. By the way, from what we see, it is not working for you either – this neoliberal capitalism.

Australia – STOP ADANI. You have among the highest per capita emissions rates on the planet. (Map below, 2016 rates. Our World in Data). Surely it is time to stop harming yourselves and others, and especially Pacific small islands. Do not open the planned Adani coal mine in Queensland. So many citizens are against it, Indigenous peoples of the area it covers are fighting it. So are we, and we will just get louder.

Also, other developed countries –  you have agreed in multilateral spaces that you would pay for damage caused through a rapacious historical industrial project and this mass consumerism. So do it. No excuses. This is not charity, its due to past action. It is reparations. Its common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) which you already agreed on in the Paris Agreement, and Agenda 2030. Don’t embarrass yourselves. Pay up.

And when we say renewable energy, we don’t mean nuclear energy. Do no more damage. Go for real ecologically sound strategies, not brown energy in green packaging. 

So even if your rightwing elite corporate fossil fuelled friends are angry and it is very clear they are, take the political hit now. Do not sacrifice generations to come, and potentially our species, because you are unclear, afraid, greedy or have limited vision.  Think of the majority world and who is destroying us. Then act.

Demand 3. Protect environmental & climate defenders. Protect Women Human Rights Defenders,  and LGBTQI+ Human Rights Defenders too. 

Pacific Women say – Affirm and protect those who are defending us, other species and the planet. They are working for us all. Governments, the State is the primary duty bearers for human rights. Yet too often you are the ones colluding with, or ignoring, the corporations that are killing, harming and making our work harder.

Demand 4. Eliminate all forms of sexual and gender-based violence and discrimination.

Angry women, LGBTQI people, people of the economic South, allies in the economics North and others are already changing the world. Because we must.

We are clear on the connections between sexual and reproductive health and rights,  political economies and globalisation, Political restructuring and social transformation, and political ecology and sustainability (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era – DAWN, Interlinkage analysis).

We are also clear that we have to push harder than ever before, as feminists, to reveal the core problems that drive this climate chaos. We are clear this means we work for universal human rights, that we defend civil space and the Commons, that we fight commodification and patriarchy in all its forms. It means we fight all forms of sexual and gender-based violence, work in all areas of society.

It means we are very clear that climate change and ecological damage is the symptom, not the cause of the trouble we are now in, as a species.

Demand 5. Build gender just, equitable societies, economies and end poverty.

Pacific women say: Inequality in the world is huge. 8 white men own more than 60% of the world’s population. LET’S FACE IT AND FIX IT.

Stop fiddling around the edges. Stop the civility politics. That is not change. That is fakery.

MOBILISE NOW.

We do not have time for realpolitik, which is after all, not real at all.

All ecosystems are linked, and the ecosphere is showing signs of serious damage. We are violating planetary boundaries. We are not listening to our scientists, but to Capitalist charlatans. Stop it.

We need major social, economic, ecological shifts to bring about the kind of change to adequately face this climate chaos. Because so much damage is already done. So when the time is this short, resist false solutions, use new tools, and dream large visions.

ACT. WHEREVER, WHENEVER. BUILD WITH CLOSE ACCOMPLICES, BROADEN MOVEMENT WITH ALLIES. HAVE SHORT, MEDIUM AND LONGTERM STRATEGIES. QUESTION POWER AND ELITES. MOVE.