Anuna De Wever Instagram – I will not be attending COP27 in Egypt this month.
#COP27 will be held in a dictatorship that is systematically suppressing activists.
This conference is becoming a smokescreen with the purpose of hiding the real human rights crisis in Egypt, concealing the violations and killings of thousands of activists who have been standing up for their human and environmental rights over the past years.
It has also become clear that Egypt has no real ambition to push the climate negotiations forward. Protests are criminalized and scientific reports are labeled as ‘fake news’.
In the last few of weeks, a lot of petitions and demonstrations have risen up from the climate movement against the Egyptian government, because our fight against the climate crisis is the same fight for human rights.
I call on all climate activists and government delegates to unite under one key message at COP27: unless political freedoms and the rights of civil society advocates are safeguarded, there can be no real climate justice.
I am in a position in which I’m able to decide not to physically partake in the conference. That is for me, from my specific place in society, at this time.
I do think it is extremely important to continue putting pressure on both the Egyptian government and on world leaders. I will be supporting the activists who are attending the conference and putting pressure on the negotiations where I can, from Belgium.
For that, we are putting final touches to our project with @unicefafrica – which will be showcased in various places (both live and virtual) at COP27. It will serve as an amplifier for the work done by youth on the front lines of the climate crisis in South Sudan and East Africa.
The climate crisis is a human rights crisis, and we must urgently start addressing it as such.
📸 @joachim_blomme | Posted on 31/Oct/2022 21:02:28
