Welcome back to Movement Mondays in which we discuss all things climate. In these posts, I share information and typically offer an action you can take on behalf of people and planet, with a focus on frontline communities that are enduring the worst effects of the climate crisis. Today, I’m not offering an action but am sharing information that’s just as much for me as my readers. The topic is “COP28” which I’ve been avoiding learning about because the particulars make my head want to explode. We’ll get into those specifics, but first: what is COP28?

The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are the world’s highest decision-making body on climate issues and one of the largest international meetings in the world. The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or Conference of the Parties (COP28) is happening right now, hosted by be the UAE (United Arab Emirates).

Okay, I mentioned avoiding this whole topic because it stressed/angered me. Why? Well, as climate writer Emily Atkin points out [COP28 is ] “being run by a literal fossil fuel baron: Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the head of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), which also happens to have one of the biggest oil and gas expansion plans in the world.”

Atkin further writes: “. . . Al Jaber’s self-proclaimed “game-changing plan” to achieve progress at COP28 is to give oil and gas companies more influence over the climate change summit, despite warnings from the U.N.’s former climate chief that the approach is “dangerous” and “a direct threat to the survival of vulnerable nations.”

Atkin shares other more damning conflicts of interest and I encourage you to read the entire piece from Atkin: COP28 sucks. Pay attention anyway. The fossil fuel interests attempting to corrupt the high-stakes summit would love nothing more than for us to look away.

Why should we pay attention? Because whenever we avert our gaze from the climate crisis, it most dramatically affects those in the Global South. People living in that part of the world have been facing the effects of climate change for decades already and they cannot afford to look away –think low-lying islands and rising sea levels– and their very survival depends on what’s decided at COP28. As Atkin writes: “For the nations most threatened by that future, negotiations over how to structure a Loss and Damage fund to compensate for damages, as well as negotiations over how to mend previously broken climate finance pledges by the Global North, are too consequential to be ignored.” Go here for the opening plenary statement delivered by the Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus.

International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change Opening Elder Ceremony. Photo by Willi White for NDN Collective.

It might not feel meaningful to learn about COP28 via Atkin’s piece or this by Bill McKibben, but knowledge is power. Even if there’s no direct action connected to our reading, by educating ourselves we’re forging a connection with the planet’s most vulnerable populations. We’re acknowledging their worth and implying our solidarity with their struggles.

Thank you for being here. I appreciate and welcome all thoughts, so please share in the comments. Until then, solidarity! ✊🏽