Reportage
COP27: civil society cries out in the desert in Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-Sheikh, November 12, 2022. Limited number of participants, course of a few hundred meters inside the COP.
The traditional demonstration of civil society in favor of the climate will not go down in history.
© Geraud Bosman-Delzons/RFI
Text by: Géraud Bosman-Delzons Follow |
Claire Fages Follow |
Jeanne Richard Follow
6 mins
Like every year on the Saturday between the two weeks of the Climate Change Conference (COP), civil society organizes a great mobilization.
This was only a sample demonstration, inside the COP.
The messages spoken have been those of the South since the start of the week: climate justice, an end to new fossil fuel projects and reparations for climate disasters in poor countries.
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With our special correspondents in Sharm el-Sheikh
Only those accredited to participate in the COP will have been able to take part in the traditional march of civil society.
From the start, the Egyptian authorities had warned that no demonstrations would be authorized in the streets of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Anyway, the city is difficult to reach other than by plane, isolated from the rest of the country, between the Red Sea and the vast desert.
So, perhaps for the first time in the history of COPs, the event took place inside the grounds of the COP, a territory obeying the rules by the United Nations.
From the morning, a gathering of about thirty representatives of the Pan-African Youth Climate Alliance - 1,000 climate organizations from 46 countries on the continent - massed at the entrance to the site, as if to warm up the room and the ropes. voice.
“We want a strengthening of the adaptation plan in Africa”
Then, between the hangars of the pavilions and the blue security officers, the procession began its strange circuit: it goes up a long tarred street exposed to the midday sun, arrives at a roundabout planted with a large pillar lined with luminous screens and enters a narrow access ramp.
If the activists regret not having been able to mobilize more, they were still a few hundred in the procession.
Far, very far from the thousands of people counted in Glasgow last year.
The mobilization of the Egyptian COP will not go down in history.
The funny course of the COP27 event.
© Geraud Bosman-Delzons/RFI
At its head, we find media faces such as
Sanaa Seif, the sister of Alaa Abdel Fattah
, a figure of the Egyptian revolution currently on hunger strike,
Asad Rehman, a British activist
involved in climate justice movements and behind, a crowd of anonymous people from Europe, South America, the small islands of the Pacific but above all and very largely from Africa, to warn about the urgency, the large-scale impacts of climate change - storms, droughts, large-scale fires and floods, which many here can attest to.
"
There is so much damage, I'm tired of being afraid of the next typhoon
said a protester from the Philippines.
Cy Wagoner comes from Arizona, he is a member of the NDN collective, the International Forum of Indigenous Peoples, which aims to defend the rights of these minorities.
“
We have mega fires in the American West.
They do enormous damage: they destroy resources and the ashes seep everywhere, into rivers, fields and even into our lungs
,” he says behind his mask.
The threatened islands of the Pacific, arm in arm, represented by his youth.
“United, the peoples will never be defeated,” chanted the demonstrators.
© Geraud Bosman-Delzons/RFI
“
We have already had so much damage... We must help vulnerable countries, We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
We have to get out of fossil fuels... We need to save our world!
Because I can no longer live in fear of the next typhoon
,” pleads this German protester.
So the watchwords are those of the South at this COP27: climate justice, human rights and reparations.
Making polluters pay, the idea is in everyone's mind at this “African” COP.
End also to fossil fuels, for more renewables.
In the line of sight, the oil and gas projects of TotalEnergie in Africa, but the UN rules impose not to mention the name of companies.
“
We have two messages today.
The people who suffer from climate change did not cause it.
These people are mainly in the Deep South
[from emerging countries to those less developed, Editor's note],
where the effects have been seen
: floods in Pakistan, Nigeria, drought in the Horn of Africa... And these people do not receive no financial support to recover from it, this is called loss and damage
” for which “
funding is needed
”, summarizes for RFI the South African Tasneem Essop, director of the International Climate Action Network.
"
Then the governments that are supposed to provide the funding say they don't have the money, because of the economic crisis, because of the war in Ukraine.
In reality, they have money because they subsidize the fossil fuel industry, and it is our money.
She calls on civil societies in the North to put pressure on governments to reduce emissions: “
We have entered a period of loss and damage, because the rich countries have not reacted fast enough and far enough.
We can no longer deny it.
And now they are using the excuse of an energy crisis to go back to fossil fuels.
It's gonna kill us down south.
»
Steps away from the parade, chants and banners, behind the doors of the COP meeting rooms, do delegates from each country have their ears ringing?
In one week, "
things have not progressed,
plague
Christian Hounkannou, representative of 350.org in West Africa
.
We are afraid that if we are silent, they won't make any more progress, that's why we are demonstrating today.
It is necessary that on the fundamental questions, there are decisions the second week: it is necessary to stop oil, gas, coal.
We must promote renewable energies which are competitive and which can create many more jobs for young people.
»
They continue their negotiations behind closed doors and will
ultimately
decide on the policies and actions to be taken.
Halfway through the COP, the demand for global action remains unmet.
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