The Women and Gender Constituency reflects on the outcomes at COP28. We foreground our work as we have in this space with a deep commitment to dismantling oppression and inequalities, bearing witness to genocide and occupation—to the atrocities perpetrated on Palestine, Sudan and Congo and in many regions around the world, which are performed by militarized, fossil fuel driven colonial powers. We demand that there can be no climate justice on occupied land, no climate justice without human rights—and we call to cease ALL fires now.
The outcomes at COP28 reaffirm a process that only serves communities worldwide in desperate need of a historical course correction to ensure our collective survival. As movements, we fought hard—and continue to fight—for the end of the era of fossil fuels in a just and equitable manner and towards a transition that centres human rights, gender equality and care. It should not have taken this many years to call for a shift away from fossil fuels. While critical, this outcome, full of false solutions and dangerous distractions, threatens any hope of keeping 1.5 alive and undermines the very survival of people on this planet.
An outcome that does not clearly state an end to the extractive system that has been harming, murdering, and destroying lands and bodies across the majority of the world cannot be applauded as delivering gender justice. An outcome that fails to centre ambition in implementation and rebuild the essential trust and global solidarity needed for real climate action—with a clear commitment to new and additional grant-based public finance—is an outcome with no equity, no gender equality and no climate justice.
On Just Transition:
“As feminists, we view a just transition as crucial to achieving systems change, addressing planetary health, resolving the climate crisis and associated injustices, transforming social institutions, reconfiguring power in public and private spheres, and reinventing global governance with a central focus on well-being over material wealth. We had high hopes and specific demands for the Just Transition Work Programme, including that it deliver consideration of care work, respect for human rights, respect for labour rights, robust provisions for social dialogue and civil society participation, and strong, implementable decisions to facilitate international cooperation on accelerating the global just transition under the principles of equity and CBDR. We are deeply disappointed that the Just Transition Work Programme has become another talking shop without proper outcomes – where rights are removed, ignored, watered down, or absent altogether. We emphasize the need for a Just Transition Work Programme that prioritizes care and delivers strong outcomes, meaningful social dialogue and respect for human and labour rights.” – Ayshka Najib, WGC MENA Feminist Taskforce.
