#UN Environment Conference

[odinsblog]

Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading exporter of oil, has become the biggest obstacle to an agreement at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where countries are debating whether to call for a phaseout of fossil fuels in order to fight global warming, negotiators and other officials said.

The Saudi delegation has flatly opposed any language in a deal that would even mention fossil fuels — the oil, gas and coal that, when burned, create emissions that are dangerously heating the planet. Saudi negotiators have also objected to a provision, endorsed by at least 118 countries, aimed at tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030.

Saudi diplomats have been particularly skillful at blocking discussions and slowing the talks, according to interviews with a dozen people who have been inside closed-door negotiations. Tactics include inserting words into draft agreements that are considered poison pills by other countries; slow-walking a provision meant to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change; staging a walkout in a side meeting; and refusing to sit down with negotiators pressing for a phaseout of fossil fuels.

The Saudi opposition is significant because U.N. rules require that any agreement forged at the climate summit be unanimously endorsed. Any one of the 198 participating nations can thwart a deal.

Saudi Arabia isn’t the only country raising concerns about more ambitious global efforts to fight climate change. The United States has sought to inject caveats into the fossil fuel phaseout language. India and China have opposed language that would single out coal, the most polluting of fossil fuels.

…Saudi Arabia has stood out as the most implacable opponent of any agreement on fossil fuels.

“Most countries vary on the degree or speed of how fast you get out of fossil fuels,” said Linda Kalcher, a former climate adviser to the United Nations who has been in negotiating rooms this week. Saudi Arabia, she said, “doesn’t even want to have the conversation.”

Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment.

(continue reading)

[thoughtlessarse]

World leaders are gathering in the French city of Nice tomorrow for the United Nations Ocean Conference. As the world’s oceans face increasing threats from climate change, overuse of marine resources and pollution, leading marine experts are calling on governments to use this opportunity to protect fragile underwater ecosystems. Taking place from 9 to 13 June, it is the largest ocean summit ever organised and could provide a vital chance for key agreements to be finalised, promises to be delivered upon, and new pledges to be made. What is the United Nations Ocean Conference? Co-chaired by France and Costa Rica, the conference aims to confront the deepening global ocean emergency. Scientists warn that climate change, plastic pollution, the loss of ecosystems and the overuse of marine resources are all pushing our oceans to the point of no return. In an effort to spark collaboration and subsequent solutions to some of these problems, UNOC is bringing together world leaders, scientists, activists and businesses. Specifically, it focuses on the implementation of UN Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water. The overarching theme of this particular conference is “accelerating action and mobilising all actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean”. This is the third UN Ocean conference, and over 10,000 people will be in attendance. It is set to welcome leaders like Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula and France’s President Emmanuel Macron will be in the spotlight.

continue reading

No doubt it will be filled with fine words but few actions.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

But what, with the eyes of the watching world, was actually achieved for the future health of oceans?

The most important accomplishment was that enough countries either ratified or formally committed to ratifying the high seas treaty. Once ratified, this agreement will help achieve an agreed global target of protecting 30% of the world’s seas by 2030. It will provide the first legal mechanism for the creation of protected areas in the high seas, international waters that cover almost two-thirds of the ocean.

The treaty is expected to now come into force by 1 January 2026, said Macron. This alone is an achievement: the early stages of the high seas treaty took 20 years of negotiations before agreement was reached in 2023. Now it could be months away from becoming a reality.

António Guterres, the UN secretary general, called the pace of progress “a record”. “I see a momentum and an enthusiasm that was difficult to find in the past,” he said.

The summit does not carry the weight of a climate Cop, the annual UN climate change conference where governments and other stakeholders gather to discuss and negotiate on climate action, nor is it legally binding. But it has come at a critical moment for threats facing the seas.

In April, Donald Trump made a move to fast-track deep-sea mining under US law, sidestepping international efforts to regulate the industry. The conference saw four new countries – now 37 – joining France in calling for a moratorium, pause or ban on deep-sea mining, amid warnings of “irreversible” damage to ecosystems should it go ahead.

Trump’s actions, which were criticised by China, which also wants to mine, have had the effect of “strengthening people’s commitment to multilateralism” and building alliances at a key moment, says John Hocevar, oceans campaign director at Greenpeace USA. “In July, the International Seabed Authority meets to discuss, hopefully, a moratorium on deep-sea mining.”

More than 90 ministers issued a symbolic statement in Nice reaffirming their support for the strongest possible plastics treaty, to be negotiated when talks resume in August.

Moetai Brotherson, the president of French Polynesia, announced the creation of the largest protected marine area in the world. It will cover 5m sq kilometres, the nation’s entire exclusive economic zone and will restrict destructive activities such as bottom trawling and deep-sea mining. A fifth will be designated a highly or fully protected area, where only traditional Tahitian boats, ecotourism and scientific exploration are allowed.

At the start of the conference, the French president found himself under fire for failing to ban bottom trawling in protected marine areas. France announced that instead it would “limit” the practice and seek to protect 4% of its metropolitan waters.

One of the strongest critics of France’s role in the summit, was the granddaughter of Jacques Cousteau. France “over-compromised and under-delivered”, she says.

“This was the moment for France to lead – and they missed it,” says Alexandra Cousteau, also an adviser to international oceans organisation, Oceana. “President Macron promised action on bottom trawling in marine protected areas but delivered only artificial limits and empty words. That’s not leadership – that’s evasion.”

Despite its achievements, the summit highlighted how much is yet to be done. A study by National Geographic Pristine Seas and Dynamic Planet found, for example, that in order to meet the global target of 30x30, 85 new marine protected areas would need to be created daily. So far, less than 3% of the ocean is given this extra protection.

Yet, overall the mood was high, boosted by a surge of enthusiasm for protecting the world’s seas.

[susiestamps]

UNO New York 1982 40¢ Sun, plant, water, earth (stylized)

[movingtothefarm]

The following conversation was recorded in March 2024. It has been edited for clarity and length.

Peter Watts: In this corner, the biosphere. We’ve spent a solid year higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius; we’re wiping out species at a rate of somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 annually; insect populations are crashing; and we’re losing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, no matter what we do at this point. Alaskapox has just claimed its first human victim, and there are over 15,000 zoonoses expected to pop up their heads and take a bite out of our asses by the end of the century. And we’re expecting the exhaustion of all arable land around 2050, which is actually kind of moot because studies from institutions as variable as MIT and the University of Melbourne suggest that global civilizational collapse is going to happen starting around 2040 or 2050.

In response to all of this, the last COP was held in a petrostate and was presided over by the CEO of an oil company; the next COP is pretty much the same thing. We’re headed for the cliff, and not only have we not hit the brakes yet, we still have our foot on the gas.

In that corner: Dan Brooks and Sal Agosta, with a Darwinian survival guide. So, take it away, Dan. Guide us to survival. What’s the strategy?

[jjmyeonz]

15 - Are you Jia's sister?

wc: 972 words

(not proofread)

The first day of the conference went better than expected, there was less of a catastrophe, the students didn’t ask to go to the bathroom as much and you were in charge of the forums rather than handling the stuff going on in the background of an MUN conference. It was an easier day.

For you, at least.

Heeseung on the other hand had to handle the heavy duty work.

He knew he needed the hours so he wasn’t so mad about being an admin, but never actually understood how hard it was to be working as one. It was no wonder you complained so much when you weren’t in the forums.

Back to the present day, it was the second day of conferences. You arrived there before the students to help set up the desks, arranging everything to the way it was supposed to be. There was no reason to be shocked, this has happened before. Admins not showing up at their supposed time.

Most of them were late, hell you could practically count the ones who actually showed on time in one hand.

It was Haechan, Jaemin, Giselle, Chaewon, Heeseung, and you. Just the six of you, so maybe the one hand was an exaggeration. But still, not the point. The teachers who were there were quite disappointed that they didn’t show up at the correct time but brushed past it, saying those students will have a conversation with them later on in the day.

Today though, the teachers separated you and Haechan because the two of you ‘talk a lot’. They were right though, but still, no one wants to be away from their friends in this environment. Instead of Haechan, or Jaemin, take a wild guess on who you were with. Chaewon? No. Giselle? No chance. Heeseung? BINGO! 

It’s not like you hated him or anything, it’s just that you would much prefer to be with friends. Still, you just need to suck it up and get it over with.

Surprisingly, you guys actually spoke with each other. In school. For the first time.

You guys were in the forum Leana was the president of, which is the Junior General Assembly or JGA shortened. The middle schoolers were always handful, the previous years you were bombarded with the question–

“Are you Jia’s sister?” Yeah, that question. One that somehow you could never escape. The most confusing part was that Jia wasn’t in middle school anymore so it couldn’t possibly be her classmates asking like it used to be.

You heards a chuckle from behind, a very familiar one at that. Hands in pocket, hair somewhat styled and a grin that you could never get away from. “Looks like your sister is more well known than you”. The redhead teased.

Before you could respond to him, someone interrupted you. “Are you Heejoo’s brother?” Oh now it was your turn to laugh. “Looks like your sister is more known than you”. He rolled his eyes playfully and leaned back against the wall behind him.

Following his steps, you turned your head towards him. He was already looking at you, that same grin never leaving his face. “What made you sign up as an admin? I thought Model UN ‘wasn’t your thing’”. You asked, mocking the way he said it a few years back.

“My friends signed me up. They said I needed those extra curricular hours”. A small smile crept up on your face as you looked away from him. “Oh yeah, I heard from your mom that you like to do the hours after the first semester”. You shook your head at the thought of him doing that.

There was a comfortable silence between the two of you before he moved away to pass the notes of students.

It was nice that you guys managed to break the ice that had always been there, and it certainly didn’t go unnoticed by Leana, because almost immediately after it was called for lunch she didn’t hold back on teasing you about it.

“I see you and Heeseung getting more comfortable with each other”. She said with a wiggled brow, nudging your arm slightly before laughing. “I mean, what are we supposed to do? Stay silent the whole time and be awkward?” your words made her laugh even more, making you confused.

“Yn, that’s exactly how you two act all the time. I think it’s forced proximity that makes you guys talk.” Maybe she was right, but not quite exactly, because looking back at most of your interactions, you only talk to each other when it’s only the two of you.

If your parents were around he would practically be attached to the hip of his mom and so would you with yours, and if your sibling were there, the two of you would only talk to make fun of and tease them.

There was a voice calling out for Leana in the distance, making you snap out of your thoughts.

You knew almost immediately who it was, Jake Sim. The very much obvious lover boy. He came over to you guys with a huge smile on his face, clearly eager to speak to the brunette. With a chuckle you dismissed yourself, letting those two enjoy their small little conversation. 

Just as you turned around, your eyes locked with Heeseung’s. He gave you the same look as before and smirked, making your eyebrows raise. “Lunch duty–

“NO!” You whined out before reluctantly dragging your feet towards the cafeteria. He chuckled slightly as he walked beside you, his footsteps and pace matching yours.

Throughout the rest of the day, his facial expression didn’t change even the slightest whilst he looked at you. That stupid grin, those eyes that you genuinely cannot process what it was for, and it somewhat made you feel things.

prev | m.list | next

sypnosis: No one really knows what it’s like to be a teachers kid. The topic is rarely ever brought up, there are things that you might not have known about being a child of a teacher and that is what yn and heeseung are. teachers kids.

The first year yn had transferred into the school, heeseung was this scrawny kid that hasn’t hit puberty yet. He was short, immature and all she saw him as was just the son of her parent’s friends. Yet the following year, over a single summer… heeseung grew a foot taller than he was before. Puberty. Everyone’s best friends or enemies.

a/n: ayyyy chapter 15!! so sorry for not updating in so long... i was somewhat in a slump, but because of that I went on a spree so here is 7 new chapters!! oh and taglist are open, dm or comment to let me know you want to be added!

taglist: @sol3chu, @starry-eyed-bimbo, @v1shwa-xo, @yeonmuse, @wintereals, @hoonkishoe, @firstclassjaylee

[swp2023]

SWP Account

TW: transphobia, transmisogyny, SA, gaslighting/manipulation, general trotskyist bullshit

I first joined the SWP as a minor during the Honor Oak demos. When I attended one of the protests for the first time in May 2023, I knew fairly little about the British left and its intricacies. I joined at a time when I was incredibly vulnerable - I was an isolated trans teenager with a poor home and school life and few friends. I initially joined SUTR but was soon syphoned into the SWP and became a formal member around 1.5 months in. After four months I was lucky enough to meet people outside of the party, find my own systems of support, and start drifting away from them. At the beginning of October I formally left the party and rescinded my membership. I essentially speedran the process. I know that I am not the first to come forward about their experiences in the SWP, and that my account won’t be as horrific or traumatic as others’. But the more I sit with the memories of spending time in the SWP, the more frustrated and angry I become with how poorly I was treated, especially as a trans teenager. A while ago, I compiled a list of everything I could recall about being in the party and its impact on me, and I’m hoping sharing it will draw more awareness to the extent that the Socialist Workers Party hasn’t changed and actively poses a threat to young activists. 

Structural/Functional Problems

Most people are aware of the SWP’s overt focus on recruitment, but within the party it’s even worse than it looks from the outside. Recruitment processes target those new to activism, especially young women and queer people. On multiple occasions, SWP leaflets were purposefully plastered outside my secondary school and other schools in the area. Once you’re involved with the party in any capacity, there’s a lot of pressure to ensure you formally join - if you’re not a member, within a month you’ll have membership papers being shoved in your face constantly. The worst instance of this was when I attended Marxism over the summer while I was in quite a bad place. I ended up having a breakdown in a corner of SOAS, and someone walked up to me when I was visibly upset and somehow tried to use it as a recruitment opportunity. Although far from the worst of their faults, the recruitment means the party is incredibly stagnant and frankly, boring. The same meetings repeat over and over, the same discussions are held, conferences are repetitive and demos are attended only for the purposes of recruiting or selling papers. 

The general attitude towards other, non-SWP activists is extremely condescending and patronising, especially in both formal and informal discussions of anarchism and grassroots organising. I consistently heard anarchists being reduced to a violent, ineffective group of rag tag young un’s who don’t know what they’re doing. I think it must have been in their handbook to describe anarchism as “grabbing 15 of your mates and beating up fascists”, because I heard that exact phrasing used at least twice. The belief that the SWP’s unwritten values and structures are the only correct ones runs deeply, and since I was a teenager my age was often used to dismiss my actions as immature or naive. I was told I was being pretentious for wearing a mask at demos - I’d been doxxed before and was looking out for my safety but apparently this made me appear “hostile and unwelcoming”. 

I can’t emphasise enough how much everyone in the SWP is treated as disposable unless you work for them. They don’t care about arrestee support, accountability, or building safe environments. I was a trans teenager so I looked good for their party, but ultimately they couldn’t care less what I had to say and I was often shut down or told my ideas weren’t appropriate. The SWP consistently seizes the politics of individuals’ marginalised identities to create a more appealing facade, while also discarding the same individuals as soon as they are no longer politically convenient. 

Lack of Accountability

From the beginning, it was clear that there were zero helpful routes for complaints or conflict resolution. I asked multiple times at meetings what their explicit process was for dealing with internal issues, and at best I got an off-hand mention to the central committee. Mostly I was shut down right away and told it wasn’t the right time to ask - a better time never became apparent. There is zero transparency and it didn’t take me too long to realise that I had no faith in anyone in the party to protect me or listen to me if something went south. You’ll hear them talk about their “disputes committee”, which was established as a response to the Comrade Delta coverup, but despite all the time I spent in the party I still have no idea who’s in this committee, how to access it, or whether it’s ever successfully resolved a dispute. 

No one talks about the coverup. This isn’t too surprising but every time I tried to ask about it, I was met with the same awkward dismissal. It’s creepy how everyone who’s been in the party for a while feeds you the same “that was a long time ago and we’ve changed and learned from it” schtick. Even a month in the party would be enough to show you that this isn’t true. The process of covering up the reputational damage from Comrade Delta is very much still active and the more time you spend around them, the more subtly intrinsic it becomes to everything you do. I was walking with a paid member of the SWP and watched him slap an SWP “trans rights now” sticker over one that read “the SWP protects rapists in their party”. No organisation that’s suitably addressed its failures should feel so threatened by the reminder of them. 

More widely, there are never any internal criticisms of the party. When I was in, I was in deep. I went to their weekly meetings, their organising meetings, their conferences - I went to fucking marxism. Not once did I hear a natural critique arise, there’s a complete lack of self awareness. It isn’t an environment where you’d feel comfortable expressing criticisms, and this has led to an echo chamber of sorts in which many members are incapable of conceiving themselves or the party as imperfect. It’s a dangerous amount of self-assuredness and this attitude allows for a culture of racism and bigotry to underlie the party’s supposedly anti-racist fronts - microaggressions don’t get called out, racism gets excused especially in the predominantly white spaces. There aren’t any attempts to actually foster anti-racist mindsets or incorporate it into how they organise, it’s largely just for external presentation and again, recruitment. 

Any issues that do get brought up are met with absurd amounts of gaslighting and guilt tripping. The party runs on guilt and censorship. If you ask too many questions people start acting cold or frame your comment as needlessly confrontational. Even now, I still struggle to process a lot of what happened because I was constantly told it was normal, that I was overreacting, that because I was relatively new to activism I didn’t know what I was talking about. 

Transphobia and Transmisogyny

As I’ve mentioned, my main involvement in the party was based around my identity as a trans youth, but there was very little regard for my safety as it pertained to this. For instance, without any warning a parcel was sent to my house with my chosen name on it. This put me in a bad situation because my parents hated the thought of me going by another name, I had to lie and endure my home life temporarily getting much worse. When I brought it up with someone I trusted in the SWP, it was dismissed without so much as an apology for putting me in a dangerous situation. I spoke to another trans ex-member about this and they told me about going through the exact same thing a few years back - the SWP doesn’t learn or change. 

There is consistent, blatant transphobia in the party. There were too many occurrences to list out here, but it’s so profoundly endemic to the party that I spent a considerable amount of time feeling uncomfortable and objectified. I had someone tell me they wouldn’t use they/them pronouns because “it’s too hard”. I was constantly misgendered, and although it was sometimes a careless mistake it was often very clearly intentionally weaponised. Almost every time it happened there was someone in the room who knew me well enough to know what my pronouns were and correct the mistake, but that never happened. No one stood up for me. 

There’s explicit transmisogyny. In addition to being generally misgendered and sexualised, trans women are often referred to with they/them pronouns and as a “person”. There was a trans woman quite deeply involved with the party who I spoke with a few times, she often got dismissed when she contributed at conferences and one time, a cis dude fully stood up and started talking over her while the chair of the meeting allowed it to happen. 

Contrary to what the SWP would have you believe, there just aren’t many trans people in the party. Certainly not a proportionate amount when compared to the wider left, which isn’t surprising once you’ve experienced being trans in there - there aren’t any attempts to make you feel any less isolated, ostracised, or used. There are, however, plenty of cis people who think that just because they’ve attended a trans demo or two they know more about the experiences of trans people than we do. 

I want to note that all the transphobia I experienced and witnessed took place while London branches of the SWP were spending their time at HO trans rights demos, handing out their placards, using it for recruitment, and taking credit for the work that was mainly being done by grassroots activists. Transphobia is just one example of how hollow their ideals are. 

Non-Existent Consent Culture

When I was sitting in a conference at SOAS, a man I didn’t know sat next to me and ran his hand down my back while we were talking, and then repeatedly tried to scoot closer to me when I moved away. 

A different time, someone tried to get me to sit close enough to them so that our legs were touching. 

Both of these incidents were extremely creepy and uncomfortable, and just to be clear: I was visibly/openly a minor during both. 

In general, physical contact is heavily normalised and sort of expected. There was always an expectation that you’d hug people, that you were okay with being patted on the back or having an arm around your shoulders or whatever. I always felt uncomfortable with this and although some people were fine with it and people’s intentions weren’t always harmful, there’s just generally zero consent culture and most times I wouldn’t have felt comfortable saying no. 

When I was in a transition phase of technically still being in the SWP but trying to spend as little time around them as possible, one of them came up to me at a demo (where, for the record, I’d just been through quite a traumatic incident - not that it should have to matter) and tried to pull me in for a hug without asking. When I flinched away without saying anything other than “hi”, she later commented to a comrade that I was being rude. The persistent entitlement to my body and my consent was disgusting. 

Exit Process

When I started spending less time with the SWP and more time with anarchists and antifascists, they were semi-aware of it so I got lots of calls and messages purporting to be “checking in”, but the undertone was very much “why aren’t you standing with us at demos anymore”. No one ever checked in on me when I was properly in the party. One of the calls was particularly lengthy and pretty much summed up to “we feel like you’re drifting away, we really miss you and you’re our comrade” - more guilt tripping. The feeling that I was trapped because I was constantly being contacted and approached at demos was bad enough to make me actively suicidal. 

The final breaking point for me was a conversation that happened in the South London SWP group chat that had reached an intolerable level of censorship. Someone, very politely, complained about how the branch had made a commitment to doing hybrid meetings but consistently struggled to actually have working tech/mics/etc. They also suggested a possible solution. They got shut down with a curt “our main focus has to be in the room rather than on our phones”, a comment that rightfully got called out as being explicitly ableist, especially since the following messages implied that attending online was insufficient or lazy. This conversation was concerning enough, but the original person then got told they “sounded harsh” (they didn’t - I’ve seen more lively conversations in my extended family’s whatsapp group), and was explicitly told to delete their message. I finally had a good answer to what happens when you criticise anything the SWP does, and this was a fairly mild criticism too. 

Then, a comrade I know very gently expressed their support for the original person - literally just said that they agreed with them and didn’t think they were being harsh. This comrade (also a teen) got two separate DMs telling them that they “misunderstood” what was happening and to delete their message as well. The hierarchies and power structures within the SWP are so obviously corrupt, and this whole incident just made that much more clear to me. 

I sent a final message on this chat, calling out the patterns of behaviour I’d noticed and advising people to do what I had - take a step back and look at who actually gets listened to in the party, at the corruption that’s so deeply rooted in it. Then I left that chat. The next day I was removed from every SWP-related chat I was in - fine by me, I was done. I did get sent one DM telling me that I had misread the situation, was overreacting, etc. It was incredibly infantilizing and blamed the fact that I’d been associating with other people as the reason I’d formed these opinions - clearly the SWP was reliant on my isolation. 

I was out of the chats but I did get the aforementioned comrade to update me on the aftermath, which was mostly damage control. The upcoming conference got plugged, people talked shit about me for being immature and overreacting. I’ve got screenshots of this incident in particular but I honestly don’t think they’re too worth sharing. I firmly believe that painting the bigger picture of the party and how and why it operates like this is much more important. 

I’d say I made it very clear that I wanted nothing more to do with the SWP and its members, but to this day I still have issues with them at demos. I’ve had people come up to me and try to touch me in various ways - hugs, back pats, etc - that I’ve expressed I’m uncomfortable with. There’s someone who winks at me. The general attitude towards me seems to be either glaring me down when I walk by (I don’t mind this honestly), or being overly nice as if I hadn’t been groomed into their cult (this is considerably worse).

I think this summarises it pretty well. It’s not everything - some stuff is hard to talk about, some would involve revealing info about me that I need to be private, and honestly my brain has defensively blocked out a lot of the time I spent around the SWP, so I’m still remembering stuff out of the blue. But please listen to me, listen to everyone else who’s been through their pipeline and made it out the other end. They aren’t just an annoyance with boring placards, they hurt people. They prey on young queers and women and don’t actually give a shit about anyone. Kick them out of your demos, kick them out of your circles, and also - try to get people out! I owe my life to the anarchists who were like “hey, we see you’re in there and you probably don’t want to be - you can hang out with us”. Most of the people the SWP recruits are sucked in before they have a chance to form other networks, and it’s hard as fuck to leave a party when all your activism takes place within it and you’ve got nowhere else to go. The Socialist Workers Party is broken beyond repair and needs to be dissolved, and I would encourage its current membership to resign. Thanks for reading. 

[cookie-nom-nom]

It passed, and beat the amendment that would delay action by two years. There’s definite arguments to make about continuing some investment to maintain voice at these industries and direct them to less harmful actions, but in my opinion I don’t want a voice at these tables, I want to flip the temple tables. And the floor agreed. (there’s more politicking to be done in this area bc there’s another motion that somehow conflicts idk lunch break)

ooo divesting on fossil fuels is on the pcusa docket and got a 2/3rd majority in committee this is looking hopeful.

[coochiequeens]

Ladies, we can participate in their conference by registering on WECAN’s website. It started June 23 but there is still a few days left.

The Ecofeminist Movement Is Surging. Here’s What Its Advocates Want

More women are connecting environmental degradation with attacks on women's rights, seeing both as rooted in similar values. They’re drawing on personal experiences and reams of research to make their case.

By Katie Surma June 21, 2025

Ayshka Najib (second from right), a climate activist based in the United Arab Emirates, protests at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, UAE, in 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Ayshka Najib

It was an audacious moment. During a recent government hearing, allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro berated Brazil’s environment and climate minister, telling Marina Silva she was “hindering our country’s development,” didn’t deserve respect and should “know your place.”

“You just want me to be a submissive woman,” Silva replied. “But I am not.”

A lifelong Amazonian environmentalist credited with helping slash Brazil’s deforestation rates, Silva walked out after further verbal attacks from members of the powerful ruralista caucus—a pro-agribusiness bloc known for pushing policies that drive deforestation and land conflict with the people living in the rainforest. 

For a growing women’s climate movement, the exchange was more than political theater. It revealed a connection between aggressive resource extraction and attacks on women.

Ecofeminism, a theory that emerged in the 1970s, argues that the conquest of nature and the control of women stem from the same values. Brazil’s own history, ecofeminists argue, reflects this: During the 1964 to 1985 military dictatorship, the regime oversaw widespread gender-based violence and launched “Operation Amazonia,” a campaign to colonize the rainforest and eradicate its Indigenous residents.

In the era of climate change, this theory is gaining traction and urgency from the Amazon to the Middle East. Armed with data and their own experiences, women in this new climate movement are pushing beyond calls to simply increase female leadership in forums like the United Nations’ climate talks. They want to take down the systems they see as root causes of climate change, including patriarchy, capitalism and extractivism—the global pursuit of natural resources for export.

“We didn’t just arrive at this moment of climate chaos,” said Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and executive director of the U.S.-based advocacy organization Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network. “It is built upon systems that have created the conditions for us to be at war with our planet instead of living in harmony with nature.”

WECAN, founded in 2009, is one of several organizations convening women across movements and borders around these ideas. From June 23 to 28, the group will hold its 7th “Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice,” a virtual summit featuring more than 125 women leaders from 50 countries. Speakers will include scientists, policymakers, Indigenous leaders and grassroots organizers across two dozen panels covering topics such as food sovereignty, forest protection, land rights, climate justice, alternative economies and the rights of nature. The public can participate by registering on WECAN’s website.

Osprey Orielle Lake (second from left) marches with the Women for Climate Justice contingent at the Rise For Climate March in San Francisco. Credit: Emily Arasim/WECAN

Past participants have included Jane Goodall and Vandana Shiva. This year’s lineup features Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland; Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change during creation of the Paris Agreement; and a wide range of Indigenous and grassroots leaders from around the globe.

For WECAN’s Lake, the movement’s work has never been more urgent. Already this year, the planet has seen climate-fueled wildfire, flooding and triple-digit heat waves across multiple regions. 

“This is not just an environmental crisis,” she said. “It is a justice crisis and a societal crisis, and how we respond and who is centered in that response matters deeply.” 

The Land and Its Heartbeat

Lake and other women in the movement describe climate change not as a glitch in the system, but the system’s logical outcome, the result of centuries of extractive economies built on disconnection from the natural world. For these women, the path forward isn’t just cleaner energy—it’s a deeper transformation that heals the relationship between people and the Earth. 

Ayshka Najib, a climate activist based in the United Arab Emirates, put it this way: “Capitalism is only 500 years old—we created these systems, and we can create newer ones rooted in equality, justice and respect for everyone’s rights.”

To do that, the movement increasingly is looking to women in the Global South—the Indigenous, Quilombola and local communities that have resisted extractive industries while cultivating their own sustainable economies. 

For this, the Kichwa women of Sarayaku, Ecuador, are providing a master class. For decades, multinational corporations have sought to extract oil and minerals from their ancestral lands in the Amazon. With the arrival of industry to the region came workers. And with workers came prostitution, alcohol and violence, said Patricia Gualinga, co-founder of the Amazonian Women Defenders of the Rainforest (Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva).

A participant of WECAN’s Reforestation and Forest Protection Project sorts collected seeds to sow in plant nurseries in Sarayaku, Ecuador. The project, led by Patricia Gualinga, aims to restore trees threatened by extinction and to reforest lands damaged by climate change and extractive industries. Credit: WECAN

“Women a generation before mine suffered tremendous consequences,” Gualinga said in an interview conducted in Spanish. “Many were sexually raped by workers.”

As forests were razed and waterways polluted, women—responsible for cultivating food—bore gendered impacts. Their workload increased, their health suffered and their traditional knowledge became threatened. “We’re always in constant touch with the land,” Gualinga said. “We can feel it, we can feel the land and its heartbeat.”

Driven by escalating threats, Gualinga and others formed Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva, a coalition of women from multiple Indigenous nationalities, around 2012. They organized protests, partnered with groups like Amnesty International and defended their territories by physically monitoring the forest and turning to the courts. Gualinga’s testimony, for instance, helped Sarayaku win a landmark victory based on the Indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2012. 

Their activism has come at a cost: They’ve faced threats, harassment and arson attacks. Still, the women have persisted. 

Patricia Gualinga was the president judge at the 6th International Rights of Nature Tribunal. Gualinga is a Kichwa leader from Sarayaku, Ecuador. Credit: Katie Surma/Inside Climate News

Gualinga and other women in her community have become prominent human rights defenders and promote the idea of the “Living Forest,” a worldview that recognizes the forest as a living, self-regulating being. They’ve launched reforestation projects, held inter-generational trainings and are leveraging their traditional knowledge to build businesses like the creation of all-organic hair products. 

“Ultimately, we are here to support other women and amplify their voices,” Gualinga said. 

Growing Danger for Women

In communities around the world, extractive companies, climate change and pollution hit women and girls hardest or in gender-specific ways, particularly in low-income populations. These impacts range from adverse pregnancy outcomes to likelihood of displacement and heightened risk of gender-based violence. 

More than 842 environmental conflicts worldwide from the late 1960s through 2022 involved “women environmental defenders as visible leaders,” according to an academic analysis of environmental conflicts documented by the watchdog group Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas), considered an undercount. At least 81 of those women were assassinated. 

In the United States, violence against Indigenous women is so widespread it has its own name: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, or MMIW. Many of these cases are linked to the presence of extractive industries, like oil and gas development, near tribal lands. A 2016 federal study found that 84 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime, with more than half reporting sexual violence. 

Osprey Orielle Lake (left) stands with the Indigenous Women’s Tongass Delegation in Washington, D.C., advocating for forest protections. Credit: Melissa Lyttle

The danger isn’t receding. Climate impacts are growing more severe, and the world is on course to exceed the Paris Agreement’s temperature limits. At the same time, governments and corporations are ramping up extractive projects to secure so-called “transition minerals” like lithium, cobalt and nickel, as well as land for carbon offset schemes. The result: a new wave of land conflicts, often in territories that already have a history of violence linked to extractive industries.

Just this month, in Mexico, state police detained Indigenous land defender Estela Hernández Jiménez as she documented alleged abuses against other members of her community, according to the watchdog group Front Line Defenders. At least 10 officers were involved, with witnesses reporting that police used “physical aggression directed at sensitive areas of her body” and that officers “ripped off a button of her blouse, partially exposing her chest, and violently subdued her,” according to Front Line Defenders.

The Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to requests for comment. 

“The Same Systems” at the Root of Problems

Experiencing climate-intensified flooding is what first pulled Najib, the UAE-based activist, into the movement. 

In 2018, when she was 14 years old, Najib was visiting her grandmother in South India when the region’s worst flood in decades hit. Trapped inside their home for days without electricity and water, the family eventually fled to safety. The trauma lingered.

“I was afraid to go to sleep because if I fell asleep, the next time I opened my eyes, I’d be underwater,” she recalled during a recent interview. 

Ayshka Najib speaks with youth climate activists. Najib works with the Untied Nations, focusing on just transition work in the Middle East and North Africa region. Credit: Courtesy of Ayshka Najib

Now, Najib works with the United Nations and other organizations focused on the gendered impacts of climate change in the Middle East and North Africa. There, worsening heat, water scarcity and ecosystem collapse are magnifying existing inequalities. In communities along Egypt’s Red Sea, for example, many women depend on fishing and farming. But marine life is vanishing, crop cycles are shifting and women—often the primary earners—are losing their ability to provide.

That economic strain, Najib said, has a domino effect: a rise in domestic violence, early child marriage and school dropout rates among girls, as well as growing barriers to basic health needs, including menstrual hygiene.

For those who may balk at the mention of the word patriarchy, Najib underscored the bevy of laws in the region that prevent women from owning land, depriving them of revenue and power to make decisions about their livelihoods. 

Ayshka Najib protests at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, UAE, in 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Ayshka Najib

“We have to understand that the same systems that fuel climate change are the same systems that inflict violence on women’s bodies and restrict their rights,” Najib said. 

Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body convened by the U.N., has said that colonization is a reason some places face worse risks from climate change.

Zukiswa White, a Johannesburg-based climate activist, traces her country’s climate vulnerability back to colonial land theft and resource plunder. First Dutch settlers, then the British, pushed Black South Africans off fertile lands to establish mining and agriculture projects for European profit. 

That legacy, White said, persists. Today, extractive industries still dominate the economy and marginalized communities bear the brunt of environmental harm. White works with some of those communities, many of which are impacted by large industries like oil and mining. Those groups, she said, reject Western ideas of progress and are reclaiming or prioritizing other ways of being. 

Zukiswa White speaks at a press conference at the United Nations climate change talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November 2024. Credit: Katherine Quaid/WECAN

“We’ve been sold the lie that there’s only one path to development,” White said. “But we know things haven’t always been like this—and around the world, there are millions resisting a culture of endless growth and exploitation.”

This, she said, is a core struggle for the women’s climate movement: “Big business has captured peoples’ imaginations. We need to break that.”

“They Are the Solution”

What alternatives does the movement promote? 

When asked, Lake began by drawing a sharp line between the dominant extractive economy and the women-led models rising in its place. Extractivism, she said, is rooted in domination of nature and labor of the many by the few. It thrives on hierarchy and treats the Earth as a thing to be exploited. But women-led alternatives offer a different path, grounded in collective care for all and a reciprocal relationship with the natural world.

This ethos has naturally aligned ecofeminists with the growing rights of nature movement, which seeks legal recognition of ecosystems as living entities with inherent rights—like a river’s right to flow or a whale’s right to migrate.

Many tribal nations as well as countries including Spain, Bolivia, Colombia, New Zealand and India have passed such laws, making the rights of nature a gateway to rethinking how societies are structured. The laws aren’t merely symbolic. In Ecuador, a forest has defeated a mining company in the country’s highest court. In Panama, they’ve been used as a basis for establishing a marine protected area for sea turtles. And in Peru, a river basin degraded by decades of oil spills can now go to court, through its Indigenous legal guardians, to fight back. 

Lake pointed to a range of other thriving initiatives: reforestation projects, “well-being economies,” the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, seed saving networks and cooperatives focused on agriculture, locally owned power and childcare. 

“Research is pretty clear that when you take a lot of these community-led solutions, often run by women, they’re highly successful,” Lake said. “When you add them all up, it creates a very large solution that supports local communities and cares for more people than these top-down programs.”

But that cumulative impact, she said, is often ignored or dismissed.

“If you look at one person or community doing a food sovereignty project, you might think, ‘Oh gosh, they’re only feeding 1,000 people. How can that save the world?’ But people fail to mention that if you add up hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions, of these small, local solutions—they are the solution.”

WECAN executive director Osprey Orielle Lake addresses media at the United Nation climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November 2024. Credit: Katherine Quaid/WECAN

Next week’s Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice comes against a global backdrop of backsliding on women’s rights and environmental protection. 

In March, the U.N. reported that one in four countries is seeing increased gender discrimination, weaker legal safeguards for women and diminished funding for gender-related programs—or all three. That includes the United States, where President Donald Trump has championed broad rollbacks, from defunding women’s health services to gutting mentions of “women,” “gender” or “climate crisis.” He has repeatedly dismissed climate change as a hoax and has presided over one of the most sweeping assaults on environmental and public health safeguards in modern U.S. history, including cuts to renewable energy initiatives.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

“It’s called drill, baby, drill,” Trump told Congress in March.

Women leaders in the movement are using the turbulence to underscore what’s at stake and to fight harder. “If we don’t push back,” Lake said, “we will keep losing ground.”

Having honed its organizing process over the past 15 years, WECAN plans to take the insights from next week’s assembly and turn them into a call to action aimed at governments, financial institutions and international agencies in the lead-up to the COP30 global climate change gathering later this year in Brazil. In the past, the organization’s advocacy has contributed to milestones such as the establishment of the first Gender Action Plan under the U.N. climate negotiations.

“What’s really essential in terms of how we create the world we want is to have direct interventions with policy makers and government leaders,” Lake said. “Our narrative, our solutions will be brought into the mainstream.”

[adropofhumanity]

Alexander Smith, a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), resigned from his private sector position on Monday, saying he could no longer perform contract work for the Biden administration after a presentation he was preparing on Gaza's humanitarian crisis was cancelled.

Smith claimed that USAID gave him a choice between resigning or dismissal after he attempted to give a presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians, according to The Guardian.

USAID material online shows that Smith has worked on projects including gender and global health and development and the economic cost of gender-based violence.

"I cannot do my job in an environment in which specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race," Smith wrote, according to a resignation letter referenced by The Guardian.

Smith worked for the Highbury Defense Group, which has a government contract with USAID.

According to The Guardian, Smith was scheduled last week to give a presentation to an internal USAID conference on maternal and child mortality in Gaza and the West Bank.

USAID's Middle East department told Smith to redact multiple sections, which Smith said included a slide on international humanitarian law, language that alluded to a Palestinian state, and references to agencies that have Palestine in their title, like the UN Family Planning Association (UNFPA) Palestine. The US does not officially recognise a Palestinian state.

After disagreements over the edits, USAID cancelled Smith's briefing, and two days later his company told him USAID wasn't satisfied with his work. Given the choice of resigning or being dismissed, Smith chose the former.

Smith's resignation adds to a small but growing list of officials working inside or for the US government who have resigned in protest against the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza.

USAID didn't respond to MEE's request for comment by the time of publication.

[lenreli]

Watt said he had “personally lobbied a number of Unesco ambassadors who will be making this decision” at a UN Oceans Conference in France last week. “Obviously, our government officials are doing that as well. I would say we got a good hearing on our points. I wouldn’t say that people have decided. They’re obviously going to have to think about it and consider the evidence, but we’ll be lobbying hard in favour of the listing,” he said. The Unesco report was released just hours before Watt announced he planned to approve Woodside’s application to extend the life of the North West Shelf development – one of the world’s biggest liquified natural gas projects – from 2030 to 2070. It followed the proposal receiving approval from the WA government in December.

Man, if only you hadn't taken that lobbying money from Woodside and other fossil fuel corps which means it was imperative for Labor to approve a climate bomb, as well as many other gas and coal mines.

What a prick.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

COP30 creates window for multilateral negotiations

Stakeholders gathered in host city of upcoming climate summit bet on coordination as response to challenging geopolitical moment

Ana Toni, the National Secretary for Climate Change at Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment and Executive Director of COP30, believes the summit has the potential to become a positive symbol of multilateralism amid a complex geopolitical environment and actions taken by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“The geopolitical environment is not easy. President Trump has not only announced new tariffs but has also withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Agreement again. However, it's just one country that has exited. We still have 197 countries committed to the [Paris] Agreement,” Ana Toni stated on Thursday (April 3) during her participation at an event hosted by Valor, O Globo, and CBN in Belém.

Given the circumstances, “COP30 can become a symbol of multilateralism,” she added about the UN climate conference taking place in Belém in November. Ms. Toni also expressed regret that uncertainties in the international scenario are leading countries to redirect resources toward wars and national defense preparations, which naturally diverts funds that should be used to combat the climate crisis. “Wars are inherently anti-ecological. They destroy, not build. And, they distract from what we want to achieve regarding sustainable development.”

The executive director of COP30 reiterated that the success of the UN event in Brazil and the negotiations in November are crucial for maintaining trust in multilateralism and reinforcing the unity of world leaders, whether political leaders, civil society, or business leaders, united in addressing climate change. “We need leadership in climate matters to provide joint messages and strengthen multilateralism. To show that we are in collective leadership.”

Continue reading.

[thoughtlessarse]

Following 18 new ratifications on Monday, UN chief Guterres said on Tuesday the High Seas Treaty is "within sight" of taking effect. He warned of a 'hard battle' against 'greed', which denies science to oppose the pact. After receiving historic support for the High Seas Treaty at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday that its entry into force is "within sight". The treaty, which provides a legal framework for establishing marine protected areas and regulating activities on the high seas, gained momentum on Monday. However, its implementation is not yet guaranteed. Guterres urged all remaining nations to ratify the pact quickly to make it legally binding. During his address, he highlighted significant opposition to the treaty's goals.

continue reading

[notwiselybuttoowell]

What has been agreed?

‘Agreeing to agree’ on a new fund

Many developing countries demanded a new bank account to distribute nature finance. They argue that the current fund – which sits within the Global Environment Facility (GEF) – is too burdensome to access and is controlled by wealthy nations. This was the subject of the most tense negotiations.

“Agreeing to agree is maybe not sexy,” said Bernadette Fischler Hooper, global advocacy lead at WWF, “but it is a big achievement.” She added: “We’re going to live to fight another day. That is exactly what that is about.”

Countries will agree what to do on the new fund in 2028. In the meantime, all options are on the table – it could be a new fund, or an existing fund that has been made more palatable.

Roadmap for producing cash

The headline figure agreed on by countries at Cop15 in 2022 was to generate $200bn a year in nature finance. Developed nations committed to delivering $20bn in international biodiversity finance by 2025 – a deadline that has not yet been met. Negotiators agreed a roadmap to raising the money, which includes looking for new forms of finance as well as a push for development banks to increase spending on biodiversity.

For the first time there will be an “international dialogue” between ministers of finance and environment (as happens within the UN climate framework) which will make sure that finance for biodiversity is not siloed within environmental ministries. Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, described it as a “highlight of this deal”.

Monitoring progress

Cop17 in 2026 will be about measuring how countries are doing relative to their targets. In Rome they signed off what indicators they will use to submit their national reports. “The monitoring framework will allow us to do the accountability process at the next Cop,” said Chandler.

Launch of Cali fund

The Cali fund is a way to distribute money from companies who benefit from nature’s genetics. The fund was launched with nothing pledged, but the UN said commitments were coming “very soon”. According to the agreement, companies that met two of three criteria – sales of more than $50m (£39m), profits of more than $5m, and $20m in total assets – would need to contribute 1% of profits or 0.1% of their revenue to the fund.

The deal is voluntary and governments will need to introduce the rules domestically for it to have teeth.

[mariacallous]

After president-elect Donald Trump announced Lee Zeldin as his nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the former Republican representative from Long Island, New York, phoned into Fox News from Mar-a-Lago.

“You know, the EPA has been in some ways an enemy to a lot of these businesses across America, because they’ve had a long arm,” the Fox News presenter said after congratulating Zeldin on his nomination. “What do you plan to do at the EPA?”

Zeldin proceeded to talk vaguely about reversing a slate of regulations that “are forcing businesses to struggle” and sending American jobs overseas. “We have the ability to pursue energy dominance, to be able to make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world,” he said. “President Trump cares about conserving the environment,” Zeldin added. “It’s a top priority.”

And then he returned to what seemed to be his main point: “So I’m excited to get to work to implement President Trump’s economic agenda.”

The second half of the six-minute interview was spent discussing other matters—New York governor Kathy Hochul’s recent phone call with Trump and the indictment against the former president still making its way through New York’s Supreme Court.

The whole conversation offered an indication of what to reasonably expect from the EPA over the next four years: regulatory rollbacks for fossil fuel industries justified as boosts for the economy and platitudes about the importance of clean air and water, without any mention of how those things will be achieved simultaneously. In a similar rhetorical tact, Trump said that Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.”

Without saying it directly, Zeldin signaled a tough road ahead for the thousands of community advocates who have spent years pushing for stronger regulations in the nation’s “sacrifice zones”—towns like Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, where a concentration of fossil fuel infrastructure and petrochemical plants dump cancer-causing pollutants into the air and water.

Zeldin, a 44-year-old attorney and former Army lieutenant, does not have a background in environmental policy. He made his foray into politics through the New York State Senate in 2011, serving until 2014. That year, he was elected to be the US representative for the state’s 1st Congressional District, which encompasses much of Long Island.

As a congressman, Zeldin did not serve on any subcommittees overseeing environmental policy. He regularly voted against progressive climate and environment policies, earning him a lifetime score of just 14 percent from the League of Conservation Voters, an advocacy group that tracks congressmembers’ positions on environmental legislation. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020, he voted against an amendment to block the EPA from finalizing a Trump-era soot standard that would expose communities of color to additional air pollution that studies have linked to increased Covid mortality. The amendment ultimately passed.

In 2021, Zeldin voted against a bill that would require public companies to disclose information about the climate risks of their business models. That bill passed as well. The following year, he supported a failed bill that would have rescinded US participation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a process that encourages international coordination on climate policy and includes participation in the annual UN climate conference.

Notably, Zeldin voted in favor of a bill that would require the EPA to set a drinking water standard for PFAS and PFOA, the so-called “forever chemicals” that accumulate in the environment and have been linked to a range of cancers and other serious health issues. Last year, a local news station found that 33 of Long Island’s 48 water districts have traces of these chemicals in their drinking water.

In 2022, Zeldin ran for governor of New York and lost to Hochul.

Zeldin’s appointment marks a departure from current EPA administrator Michael Regan, whose term will expire when Trump assumes office in January. Unlike Zeldin, Regan has a background in environmental science, and before being nominated as administrator served as secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality and worked as an air quality specialist in the EPA. As EPA administrator, he has overseen the Biden administration’s historic push toward environmental justice, which has included community engagement sessions, the strengthening of national standards for particulate matter, and the overhaul of regulations for many chemical plants.

It remains to be seen whether and to what extent Regan’s initiatives and regulations will persist over the years of a second Trump administration. Zeldin’s nomination will have to be confirmed with a vote from the Senate, which gained a Republican majority in the elections earlier this month.

If confirmed, Zeldin will have considerable power to shape the national direction of climate and environment policy. In addition to overseeing the enforcement of current environmental laws and regulations, he will be tasked with preparing the EPA’s annual budget, which determines how much funding will be allocated toward efforts like state oversight and air monitoring. A more fossil fuel-inclined administrator might choose to gut these parts of the agency, enabling industry-friendly state agencies like the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality or the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to regulate in the dark.

Trump ran on a platform that prioritized minimizing regulatory oversight and maximizing fossil fuel production. Zeldin’s appointment would be key for seeing that through.