Around 60 events occurred in the space, bringing together the eight foundations and their grantees, but also public authorities and representatives of the private sector. “The contribution of the RCF pavilion was crucial because it allowed civil society, the private sector and government representatives to interact”, agreed Maria Netto, the executive director of Instituto Clima e Sociedade, from Brazil. “This included dialogue on the climate finance agenda, in particular the country platforms, and so talks on new solutions, for example in the agricultural sector and also in the area of green industries and energy”, explained.

Some aspects — as the energy just transition and the challenges to financing climate action — were approached from the angle of many of the countries that are represented in the pavilion, creating a diversity of point of views that is useful to improve the projects that are already being developed. “It was important to see how we are trying to implement actions in Brazil that relate to actions in other countries, such as South Africa, Mexico, China, India, Singapore and Indonesia. It was also nice to have the European Climate Foundation to exchange experiences that are sometimes more sophisticated in the global north”, completed Maria.

Netto also highlights the opportunities for bilateral dialogue. ‘We discussed biofuels with India, renewable energy and the green industry with several countries”.

For those organisations that were the proponents of the panels, the Regional Climate Foundations Pavilion was also a space to interact, share experiences and enhance network. “Thanks to the RCF Pavilion, Iswe Foundation was able to organize a conversation on accelerating climate action through increased citizen participation”, says David Levaï, from the Iswe Foundation.

“The visibility provided by the pavilion made it possible to establish new partnerships and highlight the importance of an inclusive and territorialised approach in the fight against climate change”, says Waleska Queiroz, from the executive committee of COP das Baixadas, a decentralized discussion around climate change that occur in the outskirts of Belém.

Road to COP30

Both Waleska Queiroz and David Levaï took theire events at the RCF pavilion as a road to COP30, in Belém. Queiroz plans to “place the Amazon at the centre of climate negotiations, valuing traditional knowledge and meeting the demands of local populations, including peripheral, quilombola, indigenous and riverine populations” — something that she already do with her COP das Baixadas and wants to make bigger next year.

Levaï presented in the pavilion the Global Citizens’ Assembly for COP30, an initiative endorsed by the Brazilian government that aims to drive “individuals and local communities to take action but will also bring grassroots energy to the COP process and pressure leaders to deliver on their promise of a just, fair and equitable transition”, according to him.

In this sense, the foundations that held the pavilion also hope that this experience will serve to strengthen the ties between them, in preparation for more incisive action at COP30. “Now we can think like a network, especially considering the difficulty in reaching agreement that we are seeing at COP29 between countries. This could be critical for COP30”, says Maria Netto.

“It’s essential that civil Society unite efforts towards the next climate change negotiations. It will be our Latin American COP, so, I think it’s a good opportunity for civil Society within Latin American region to raise voice on the needs and priorities”, concludes Mariana Gutiérerez Grados.

La entrada RCF Pavilion was a space for dialogue in Baku and prepared civil society for COP30 in Belém se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

The action is part of the exposition ‘Building Hope’, which could be accessed in the PCF pavilion during all the days of COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, and that closed its doors this Friday (22). The main idea was to use the emotions of COP’s participants to remind them they are fighting for a collective goal, for a better world for all living beings on the planet.

“Our aim with this exposition was to remind people why they were at the COP, and people’s reaction showed that it worked. There were many texts and comments showing that there is hope in this fight”, says Eduardo Carvalho, the curator of the exposition and the RCF pavilion. Besides the post cards, the exposition had an interactive wall with hidden inspiring messages as well photos and texts.

The post cards were so many that the space became small to all of them. Some had only words of encouragement — “You are doing great”, or “Stay strong, girl” — and others highlighted reasons to stand up: “For the girls in rural Ethiopia who couldn’t make it, I’m here”, or For a world where all types of life can co-exist <3”. 

There were post cards saying general messages for the humanity: “Differentiated by culture, united by humanity and ethics”, wrote someone from Egypt. And others really personal: “I came to not feel alone while doing the cook and simultaneously built a global community of activists, advocates, policy makers, artists, etc. I’m so thankful”, registered Gunjam.

Some of the texts addressed specific topics of the climate agenda: the NDCs, energy, climate justice,  nature based solutions, youth and women, indigenous people. “People felt re-energised in our pavilion when they saw that the keywords of the negotiations were also reflected there, in a more poetic way”, registers Carvalho.

Mostly of the messages were written in English, but there were also texts in Portuguese, Azeri, Mandarin and other languages. Post cards were ‘sent’ from Pakistan, Madagascar, Colombia, Brazil, Brazil, Europe. “We have fulfilled our role of using culture as a platform for the climate agenda. And we’ve only just begun”, promises Eduardo Carvalho, that is also a researcher on the intersection of climate and culture agendas.

He launched during the COP a report about the issue and aim to improve this connection during next year and in particular at COP30, that will be in Brazil, his country. “We aim to be able to use the soft power of culture in Belém to transform people’s imaginations, to create the world we want to build for all species and for our descendants”, conclude.

La entrada Thanks for making the world a better place: letters from the future in the RCF pavilion se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

In ‘Unlocking fiscal constraints for climate action: sovereign debt, climate risks, and clean energy-fueled growth opportunities’, speakers approached the vicious cycle in that the least developed countries are stucked. They are struggling with social and economic challenges, and at the same time, the most vulnerable countries to climate change. And they need to apply a significant amount of money to recover from each extreme climate event that hits them. “With these expenditures, they have little fiscal space to invest in climate action — and with no adaptation or mitigation, these countries will suffer with future extreme events again”, explained Fahmida Khatun, the executive director at Centre for Policy Dialogue, from Bangladesh.

These countries have a financial need, but to access credit is not easy precisely because, with little fiscal space, they end up classified by financial institutions as high-risk countries for investment. And a loan will cost more.

The way out is to change the way this classification is done, accounting not only for the risks of vulnerable countries, but also for the benefits they will derive from climate action. “We need to create a virtuous cycle. If we can show that there is less risk, or more benefits, borrowing will be cheaper, and those countries will create fiscal space to invest and growth with climate projects”, said Michael  Jacobs, from ODI Global think-thank.

This is precisely what Brazil is doing with a national programme for the recovering of degraded pastures — earlier, this year, the country announced an agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for finance, in low interest, producers that wants to recover their degraded pastures. Japan will be the first country to contribute to the project, that aims to recover and convert for agriculture  up to 40 million hectares of low productivity pastureland in ten years. The main opportunities and challenges of this type of project were discussed in the panel ‘Financing Green Futures: Strategies for Restoring Degraded Pastures in Brazil’.

“Brazil is not only one of the largest agriculture exporters in the world. We are also home of the largest rainforest on the planet, and we aim to increase our production combating the deforestation”, explained Bruno Brasil, a director of the Department of Sustainable Production and Irrigation at the Agriculture and Livestock Brazilian Ministry. One of the requirements for the farmers to get the loans with low cost is that they can’t deforest their lands, even if they get a permit to do it.

The panellists highlighted that not only money is necessary to cope with a project like this. Also, availability of technology and capacity building is needed. But the challenge doesn’t stop there, as explained Pedro Cunto, Special Advisor at the Brazilian Ministry: “I want to highlight the high cost of the hedge operation. As we get the money in dollars, we need to secure the operation, and this increase too much the cost oh the operation”. According to Cunto, the initial interest of 1.7% per year turns a rate of 13% after the hedge operation. “There are money available for this kind of partnership. But we need a solution for this gap”, claimed. 

Despite the challenge of absorbing the hedge cost, the pioneer project shows from a good perspective how to find financial solutions for environmental restoration and climate action. “We are discussing in this multilateral forum that is the UNFCCC how to finance climate action. And this project connects perfectly the discussion inside the COPs with real life”, celebrated Thais Ferraz, a program director at Instituto Clima e Sociedade.

“It is an example and a unique opportunity to increase productivity generating social development and climate impact”, concluded.

La entrada Green solutions could unlock climate finance, but the cost for South countries is still high se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

This was the context of the panel ‘Just Transition and Climate Ambition: How Committed Are the BRICS Countries?’, that approached the national realities of Brazil, South Africa and Russia to discuss what to expect in terms of climate ambitions from the group. “There are many challenges to understanding how can we see BRICS climate policies in a decolonised way”, summarized the panel moderator, Maureen Santos, who is the coordinator of Socio-Environmental Platform, at the BRICS Policy Center (read below).

The debate echoed in the following activity, ‘Towards a just energy transition: Lessons and challenges from the Global South’, which brought together experts from India and South Africa (but also from Colombia and Mexico) to debate how to manage the impacts of big renewable energy projects assuring social and economic development to the nations. 

India and Brazil were also represented in a third panel at the Regional Climate Foundations this Wednesday (20). They discussed, together with Malaysia, how to act in the local level to improve thermal comfort in the cities that are facing heat waves in the world. “We need to develop strategies to finance innovative mechanisms both to appliance industry and local and cheaper solutions, as the creation of green areas in the cities, that can reduce the surroundings temperatures”, explained Victoria Santos, the energy and industry manager at Instituto Clima e Sociedade, from Brazil.

More or less ambition?

In the panel about the BRICS climate commitments, Brazil, South Africa and Russia exposed the particularities that need to be considered in the analysis of the climate ambition of each country. “All and each country is making its decisions considering it context, that is different from the other BRICS”, observed Romy Chevallier, from the South African Institute of International Affairs.

So, while Brazil is tackling the climate crisis through a low-carbon economic plan, given that its energy matrix is mainly made up of hydroelectric plants, South Africa is betting on a project that guarantees energy security for the entire population. Russia, on the other hand, could focus on nuclear generation. “Russia was a pioneer in nuclear power plants, but the tripling renewable goal is leaving behind nuclear clean energy sources”, expressed Milena Megrè, an expert in Russia from E+ Energy Transition Institute.

The main point about the energy, however, is to understand what would be the position of the group of countries with the recent enlargement, which has made the club more heterogeneous with the new members. The initial 5 countries are oil and gas producers, but the new partners are very intense fossil fuel producers. According to Megrè, in this new configuration, hold something around 50% of oil and gas reserves in the world.

“Perhaps they are thinking in influencing better how the climate policies will be shaped. Perhaps they want to slow down the ambition, but this is also potential to influence the debate in a more realistic global south perspective”, the Russian expert added.

Thinking in the climate negotiations, BRICS never acted as a group, despite some common interests. “Now, under this new conformation, it would be more likely the G77+China, with a huge diversity and plenty of differences. And so on, new challenges”, said Maria Beatriz Mello, from the Socio-environmental Platform. “In the other hand, they can push for more action in the common topics, as the finance just transition. This could be a way of reaching better results”, concluded.

La entrada BRICS+ have large oil and gas reserves, but can push for transition finance targets se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

The first conversation was around the CBAM — the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism that charges import products by the carbon emitted during its production. The CBAM will apply in its definitive regime from 2026.

“CBAM is not a commercial policy, it is a climate policy that can help many countries to make its transition to a low carbon economy”, said Wenbo Zhao, advisor at Agora Energiewende.

The panel approached the impacts of the regulation on China, Brazil and México. According to Zhao, only 3% of the Chinese commercial trade will be impacted by the CBAM. For México, this amount is 1.5%, according Luisa Sierra, the executive director of Instituto de Desarrollo, Energía y Ambiente. “Despite the low immediate impact, we know that CBAM can be applied in other regions, as Japan and Canada”, said. “We saw opportunities in the CBAM, to improve our industry performance”, completed.

Brazil is also debating a creation of its own CBAM, said Simone Klein, a industry specialist at E+ Energy Transition. The country has a clean energy matrix, and this gives an advantage to Brazilian goods: “But at the same we are exporting green premium products, we are importing high carbon emissions products”, explained. “So we are discussing a Brazilian CBAM to balance this situation”, added. 

Joanna Pandera, the president of Forum Energii, an European think-thank from Poland reminded that “CBAM is not a process to impose higher costs for the production, but to reduce the global emissions”. “The Eu industrial and power sector reduced its emissions in 37% since 2008. But as the emissions go up in other countries, this is a mechanism to avoid the carbon leakage”, concluded.

Strong NDCs with local governments help

Another talk around the future of climate debate discussed what is the role of local and regional actors in the new round of the NDCs (the National Determined Contributions, the goal on carbon emissions’ reduction of each country). As the name says, it is a target established by national governments, but that impacts all levels of administration, and regional and local governments are aim to impulse the common objective.

“As local governments, we are that ones that are closer to the population, and we can feel their needs, and act properly to make these goals be a reality”, said Kenalemang Rose Phukuntsi, the mayor of Tswelopele, a city in South Africa. Besides leading action to implement the NDCs, local and regional governments can help the national governments on the task of writing the new NDCS, and also negotiate with local councils to create the necessary laws and rules. 

Even in countries that have already presented their new NDCs, there is a big role for local governments. This is the case of Brazil, that presented its NDCs in the COP29, but that is planning to launch, by next year, seven sectoral plans on climate issues — one of them, to reach the cities adaptation. “The new NDCs are the beginning of the process”, said Ana Cavalcante, the director of climate governance at the Brazilian Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

The Brazilian diplomat Danilo Zimbres, who manages the international affairs and institutional relations at the president Lula’s office, explained that the national government created a council where it supposed to have representatives of all the 5,565 municipalities in the country. “Brazil has some municipalities that are bigger than Belgium. They need to be included in the process”, said.

But although there is a lot of enthusiasm for national and local governments, there is a need for regulations on the role of each entity in climate policy and action. 

“We need a climate federalism, with the rights and duties of each government and actor to make it happen”, claimed Walter de Simoni, the climate policy and law manager at the Brazilian Instituto Clima e Sociedade.

Demands for the COP30 

As COP29 is coming to a close, on next Friday, all eyes are on the next Climate Conference, which will be held in Belém do Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon. That’s why activists debated at the Regional Climate Foundations Pavilion what aspects should not be left out of the event. 

A group called for the phaseout of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) commitment in the next climate conference. Another one, for a democratic and popular participation at COP. 

The LNG is being understood by the governments and economic actors as a “transition fuel”, but it releases methane in the atmosphere. “Methane stays for a short time in the atmosphere, only 20 years, but is 87 times stronger than the carbon”, explained Elissama Menezes, the global director of ‘Say no to LNG’ campaign.

Rejecting LNG and other methane-based fuels as a climate solution is the purpose of Beyond Methane Pledge.The signatories of this pledge commit to stop any activities or plans that will expand the use of LNG and other methane-based fuels, immediately and no later than 2025. Signatories also commit to stop all LNG and methane-based fuel use and a complete phase-out by 2030.

In the debate ‘Decentralising the COP’s discussions‘, panellists told their experiences in organising parallel COPs at Santiago de Chile and Madrid, to allow more people, and more diverse to participate in. In Brazil, a group that already organised two editions of COP das Baixadas in Belém — that is focused on peripheries populations — is aim to  organise a new one next year.

“I think it’s important for the peripheries to occupy spaces like this, the official COP. But more important than that is democratising access to this event, bringing this debate to our territories”, said Jean da Silva, that is a leader of the project Yellow Zones, from Brazil.

La entrada Panels offer perspectives on the future of the climate debate se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

That’s why activists called for the preservation of biodiversity hotspots — as the underwater ecosystem in the Southeast Asia. And also for income alternatives that would allow traditional people to sustain themselves without having to adhere to unsustainable economic activities. For example, agroecological supply chains in the Brazilian Amazon.

The first panel at this Monday (18) focused on the Southeast Asia ocean biodiversity and the people who rely on it. This region harbours the Coral TRiangle, a biodiversity hotspot, comprising 1,5% of the ocean’s surface, but where appear 76% of the coral riff and fishes species in the world. This richness ecosystem serves for many traditional communities as the main source of income and assures food safety in all the region: 26% of the world fisheries production comes from this part of the planet, and 39% of the local population protein consumption relies on the ocean (the global average is 19%).

But the economic expansion in this area — with a booming GDP growth — is leading to more demand for electricity and for new plants and projects on coal and gas. “Despite the mechanisms of the just transition, fossil fuel projects are increasing in the area”, said Gerry Arances, the executive director ate the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, that mapped the financial institutions that are leading the expansion.

Only in the Coral Triangle marine region, there are 100 blocks of natural gas active and other 450 being explored by potential extraction. “The existing and planned blocks comprise an area bigger than the land mass that forms the archipelago of Indonesia”, said Martha xxx. “If all this plants are developed, 15% of the Coral Triangle will be affected”, completed.

Over 100 million people depend economically on the area, but this expansion treats their activities. Some studies show the eater quality is decreasing due to toxic metal, and the warming of the oceans can kill the richest coral. “When we enter the COP29 space, we see that big sign at the entrance that says ‘it is time to act’, ‘let’s maintain the 1.5 goal alive’ and that no one life will leave behind”, remembered the bishop Gerry Alminaza, from Caritas Philippines. “But governments and financial institutions are doing the opposite. They are expanding fossil fuels”, completed.

Pakistan indigenous

In Pakistan, indigenous communities way of life is also being threatened by the coal production. But to assure the coal phase out combined with just transition in the region, experts gathered at a panel in the afternoon called for non-state actor action — reverberating the previous debate and highlighting the importance of the finance agreement to allow this process. 

“In Pakistan, the north is well developed, but the south is still developing, with some parts that are not developed at all”, said Khalid Waleed, a research fellow at Sustainable Development Policy Institute.

These people, remembered Lidy Nacpil (photo), the coordinator of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, are responsible for a very small part of the climate crisis, but are suffering it worst effects. “There will be no any global solution unless we take climate action locally, and this requires financing. The entire planet depend on the actions we will take in the global south”, concluded.

Family farmers will supply COP30 food services

In the Brazilian Amazon, indigenous, riverside people and quilombolas communities will be the main supplier of the COP30 food services — a way to assure their traditional way of life be preserved. “The Amazon biodiversity is a result of the way of living from people who wave being there for many centuries”, said Paulo Monteiro dos Reis, who is the president of the small farmers association in the Amazon which has 75 partners. “We have açaí,  cocoa, casaba”, exemplified.

But 80% of the food consumed in Belém, the Brazilian city that will held the UN Climate Conference next year — came from other parts of Brazil. A coalition of social movements is working to assure the family farmers that lives in the Amazon supply the food at COP30. Their work was detailed in a debate this Monday (18) afternoon.

“Climate conferences are always about energy, fossil fuel phase out, transportation. The food systems are responsible for 30% of the greenhouse gas emissions, but they don’t receive the same attention as other sources of emissions”, completed Maurício Alcântara, from the Brazilian institute Regenera. In Brazil, deforestation is the main source of emissions — and it is connected with the food system based on commodities as soy and beef.

Lana Weidgenant, from ProVeg International explained that the movement is trying to achieve a more sustainable food services at COPs since many years. At COP23, they’ve implemented an action with the ‘sustainability task-force’ that exposed the carbon emisions of different types of foods. “In that moment, people started to thinking a while”. 

At COP24, a step back: food service had intensive emission and that “called teh attention” on the participants. “Since COP26 the menu start to be more low emission, more plant based, last year particularly”, said.

“We already had the confirmation from the COP30 organizers that all the food will be sourced from local family farming. But we want to build pathways to include these foods in Belém supply chain beyond the COP”, explained Maurício Alcântara, from the Brazilian institute Regenera. 

As well as guaranteeing a market for these farmers at major events such as the COP or at local fairs, we need to invest in ecological transition and the creation of local production chains. “We need to educate the population about how we are feeding ourselves and show the connection between this and the preservation of biodiversity”, concluded Anália Barreto, from Instituto Mapinguari.

La entrada Solutions to save ecosystems and traditional communities from the climate crisis se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

Afterwards, a session showed excerpts from documentaries made in the Kashmir region of India and a film whose virtual reality technology took the audience inside the floods that swept through southern Brazil in May.

“Many times we are challenged to be creative in finding new ways to tell our message”, explained Juliana Tinoco, the executive coordinator at Socio-Environmental Funds of the Global South, which developed the Funding the Planat’s Guardian game.

In the game, three groups assume a different vulnerable community identity and need to solve problems to get more money, attention or human resources to the cause. In each step of the game, they receive a card with the challenge and options to overcome it. “There is no right or wrong answer. This is a dynamic to engage people with the work we do”, continued.

Engage people with a cause is also the main objective of the documentarists Sara Ramos de Ávila, from Brasil, and Syed Jazib Ali, from the Himalayan region of Kashmir. Both are involved in projects that dive into the realities of communities affected by climate change in their countries. Ávila is the director and creative producer of the Immersed Reality project, that offer a Virtual Reality experience that carry the spectator to the floods in Rio Grande do Sul, that destroyed 95% of this state in Brazil. 

In the occasion, over 600,000 people lost their homes, and the film present some of them in their destroyed homes, as so allow the spectator to navigate in boats that substituted cars in the flooded streets of the capital, Porto Alegre. “We have the images of the floods, as well the sounds. All bring new emotions, taking the person closer to the situation. This leads to feel empathy, it is a strong tool to raise awareness about the climate change’, said, evoking a discussion made the day before in the RCF pavilion.

Syed Jazib dedicated himself to amplify marginalised voices and to promote sustainable practices and climate justice trough documentaries. He agrees that media and cultural narratives can bridge the gap between local actions and global climate solutions. But also mentioned that his films produced a sense of community among the population. “My community was never represented in a piece like this, they felt connected and identified”, said.

Completing the team of speakers was the Colombian researcher Andrea Ramírez, that works on capacity projects that teach small communities communication abilities — from social media management to drone pilot and filming with mobile phones. “It is not about the technology and the gadgets, but about the interest in telling their stories”, she concluded.

La entrada How to save the world with the help of entertainment and communication se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

All of them met into the Regional Climate Foundations Pavilion last Saturday (16) in different events that approached their vulnerabilities in the face of climate change — but also their strengths. “The lack of resources affects us equally, but there are opportunities for capacity building. If we organise ourselves, it will be much more easily to deal with climate change than if we do it individually”, said Bruno Sirote, from the youth organisation Jóvenes por el Clima Argentina, one of the speackers in the panel ‘Weaving networks of cooperation: the youth climate movement’.

“A just transition it is not an automated, computerised process. It supposes a fair and equitable mechanism, which means that every community or population will be treated according to their condition, with different measures for different people”, observed Ruchi Chaudary, a leader at Climate Action Network South Asia, who participated in the debate ‘Just Energy Transition: Securing the Rights of Marginalized Communities through an Inclusive Mitigation Pathway, Addressing Gender, and Intersectionality’.

In the first panel, the young leaders of their generation remembered the unprecedented growth of the youth climate activism — including some considerable impacts. One of them was the judicial victory in Mexico that guaranteed homes for the families of the first recognized community displaced by climate change: the El Bosque village, that is being uninhabitable due to rising ocean levels. 

“Climate change is the background music of our generation, we are its most affected victims because we will be under its effects longer than any other generation”, said Camila Campillo Sangines, from Nuestro Futuro, an organisation os young lawyers in Mexico. “We have a distinct and legitimate interest in demanding adaptation and compensation. But it is very difficult to get the courts to recognize that our voices must hear”, completed.

The movement, however, faces significant challenges that limit its medium and long-term development, such as a lack of international visibility and sustained financial support. To overcome this condition, they are making alliances. Sirote, for example, is involved in creating a coalition of youth in Latin America to prepare young people to the COP30: “It will be held in our territory, and we want the youth movement shine in Brazil”.

“We have a lot of energy for activism. We will arrive at the next COP articulated and with a clear position”, said Wara iris Ruiz Condori, an indigenous woman from Bolivia that works with UNICEF.

South Asia united for just climate transition

As the Latin American youth movement, researchers from the South Asia asked for more visibility to the vulnerable people from this region. Mohammad Emran Hasan, the head of Climate Justice & Natural Resources Rights at Oxfam Bangladesh remembered that even though his country contributes with a very little percentage of the greenhouse gas emissions, its population is in risk. World Bank research from 2021 claims that since 2000, the GDP of some of the most vulnerable nations in the world has decreased by more than 20% due to climate change. By 2030, climate change might force an extra 132 million people into poverty, primarily in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Many people needed to migrate to urban areas to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Now they are engaged in a system of informal jobs, facing extreme heat in poor conditions”, explained.

These people should be included in the loss and damage program, but there is no money, the experts of this panel said. And now, they are being victims for the second time, as the local economy is based on fossil fuels that need to be extinct to limit the Earth temperature — but people aren’t being trainned to get the jobs in this new economy. “The transition is needed, but people should be compensated”, completed.

The International Labor Organization estimates that by 2030, the shift to a green economy might generate up to 24 million new jobs worldwide. “We need to reflect on whether we are really offering equal and fair opportunities to everyone. Only by changing the entire system will we guarantee a truly just transition”, said  Ruchi Chaudary, a leader at Climate Action Network South Asia.

The panellists highlight specially the conditions of women in that society that is mostly headed by men. According to a UN Women report from 2022, women are disproportionately impacted by climate change, particularly in rural and low-income areas, and are 14 times more likely than males to die in disasters due to climate change. Women who have disabilities, who are indigenous or social excluded, and live in remote geographical are the most vulnerable. “This aspects also need to be considered”, completed Banasree Mitra Neogi, Program Director, Manusher Jonno Foundation.

“No one life can stay behind”, the experts claimed.

Lima+10

Also on Saturday, the Lima+10 meeting took place, celebrating the first decade since COP20, held in Lima in 2014. This was the climate conference that laid the foundations for the Paris Agreement, which was signed the following year in the French capital.

The meeting brought together the president of COP20, then Peruvian environment minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the former environment ministers of Brazil, Isabella Teixeira, and Mexico’s international relations minister, Patricia Espinosa, as well as Gonzalo Muñoz, ex Climate champion under the chilean presidency in 2019.

The speeches echoed the progress made in this decade, stressed the importance of multilateralism for the agreements to be implemented and recognised the importance of civil society participation in the COPs.

La entrada The most affected join hands and demand their rights in the face of climate change se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

Koyok discovered this statement in practical when he realized that his painting of the environment that surrounds his Temuan tribe in Selangor state was effective in giving attention to the deforestation. “When I started painting, all the threes were in place, but soon they had disappeared. And my paintings showed it”, explained.

Aware about this potential, two Brazilian cultural producers joint efforts to make the first research on the status of culture and climate intersection in the country. “Actually, is probably a pioneer research in the Latin American continent”, explained Eduardo Carvalho, director at Outra Onda Conteúdo and Head of RCF Pavilion.

The extensive research included a comprehensive scientific literature revision, a mapping of public policies that approach this intersection, interviews and article writing from many experts in the area and, finally, a list (that is being updated) of concrete initiatives that cross the two fields. The main results of the research are published in a report (available in Portuguese, Spanish and English), and that can be accessed online. 

“In most countries, especially in the Global South, investment in plans and programs that integrate culture, climate and sustainable development is non-existent or incipient”, conclude the research.

Additionally, explained Mariana Resegue, the executive director at C de Cultura, countries are not prepared to protect culture in the climate change context — including cultural heritage or immaterial cultural aspects. 

“Cultural heritage isn’t just something to preserve. It’s a vital tool for driving climate solutions. Let’s make sure it gets the attention it deserves”, said Gunjan Nanda, a eco-communicator, global digital organizer, culture advocate, and community builder. Nanda also launched in the COP29 her research ‘Legacy Solutions, cultural heritage in global climate action’ (also available online)

Lack of data

A huge difficult on researching culture and climate is a lack of reliable data to analyse. And specially when it comes to Brazilian reality, this problem is even big.  “Talking about evidence, there is a big gap in Brazil. Almost all the references that we found are produced in English, and in Brazil less than 1% of people are English speakers”, lamented Resegue. 

The concern of all the panellists is that, as the next COP will be held in Belém, an Amazonian city in the north of Brazil, it is critical to produce national knowledge about the intersection between climate and culture — considering all the cultural diversity of indigenous people in the country, where there are more than 200 different indigenous language alive. 

“Evidence is power, and we must construct bridges for amplifying the debate”, claimed Resegue. 

Eduardo Carvalho remembered that it was only at Sharm el-Sheikh COP27 that culture was included as an item in the agenda of UNFCCC: “In that historical moment, we were able to include a paragraph in the climate agreement to create a formal discussion about this issue. It was a long way”, said, expecting that this COP29 define the next steps in this agenda, including workshops to prepare the next UN climate conference. 

‘Artivism’

During the conversation between the speakers, a concept emerged: the ‘artivism’, and the ‘artivists’ — the production and the creators that work with a clear objective to transform reality. 

“For me, there is no separation between art and activism. Every art is political because it moves you in a way, whether you like or not”, said the Malaysian artist Koyok.

The Regional Climate Foundation Pavilion was created with this concept, of giving to the COP29 negotiators and observers reasons to believe in the future and in their role at Baku. All the walls of the pavilion held cultural messages. The exhibition “Building Hope” shows pictures and text messages representing the Earth’s biodiversity and the human role in the just transition. It is open to the public during all the days of COP 29 in the Delegations space, in the Blue Zone.

As the Climate and Culture report says, the perception of the climate crisis is beginning to change, but the debate around solutions is still restricted, with technical language that is not very understandable. “Through culture it is possible to humanize messages, with empathy as the raw material, to create context about facts and policies that influence all aspects of life”, says the text, calling for the humanity to awaken to being part of the solutions.

“We are only beginning. The climate fight is not only this formal agenda developed during the COPs. We need to touch the minds and the hearts outside the blue zone to make the difference, and to save our future”, concluded Eduardo Carvalho.

La entrada Art translates negotiation terms into poetry and brings hearts and minds to the climate fight se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

On the stage, there were three women who lead the environmental departments of their states in South Korea, Brazil, and Nigeria. In the audience, two other representatives from Argentina and Australia took the microphone to also say some words. Besides being subnational actors, the three speakers had in common the fact that lead extremely vulnerable communities, either by their localization or the social situation.

The Jeju, for example, is the southernmost province of South Korea and consists of 63 islands: the “most affected area due to climate crisis” in the country, said Ae-suk Kang, who is the director general of Climate and Environment Bureau of the local government. Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil, from where Kauffmann came from, had 95% of its territory devastated last May by an extremely strong flood. And Taraba state, located in the east of Nigeria, is vulnerable because of the lack of awareness of its people for the climate change. “My people are very ignorant, they live in denial of climate change”, lamented Aishat Barde, the local commissioner for Environment and Climate Change.

Naturally, the three of them had challenges to overcome. But they were unanimous in saying that not only money is required to climate action when it comes to the subnational level. “I make a call for support networking. We must know the best practices, we need that collaboration, to make this happen”, asked Barde.

Nigeria and Brazil also stated that they know that money is available, but to access it can be really difficult. Kauffmann remembered that after 10 extreme climate events in Rio Grande do Sul, in the last years, the local government decided to organize a task force for adaptation projects in the municipalities. But they couldn’t find personal in those areas with the required ability to make those projects. “Institutions need to support us not only with financial resources, but also with training and project development”, said the Brazilian representative. 

A way to move forward was suggested by Kang, from Jeju province: “We are witnessing daily the nature signals of climate change. We must all work together and share experiences”, she concluded.

COP’s outcomes not only rely on negotiations

The request of subnational representatives for local action connects with another debate held in the RCF pavilion. A conversation about how to make the action agenda to be implemented fasten and efficiently. “Some years ago, the UNFCCC realised that to get a consensus, they need to involve other actors in the COPs that it wasn’t just the negotiating states”, introduced Nigel Topping, who was the High-Level Champion for COP26. “So, they decided to bring other voices as cities, states, regions, businesses, investors and civil society”, completed.

Nigel remembered that since them, the so-called “action agenda” was able to build up strong transformation, with commitments and progresses made in line with the NDCs, but executed by this other partners that don’t participate in the negotiations. 

⁠Daniela Lerário, a director at Climate Champions Team, remembered, for example, that the target established in COP28 of tripling renewable energy was preceded by serious commitments made by electricity companies of reducing their greenhouses gas emissions. “We have a lot of work to do, but it is also important to notice that actually we already did so much”, said.

⁠Pedro Mariano, general-coordinator for Cooperation at Brazilian Ministry of Environment, assure that COP30, that will occur in Brazil next year, will have a strong commitment with the action agenda. “Brazil has a political tradition in working with civil society, with other stakeholders. So it is clear that COP30 will keep this characteristic”, said.

The speakers that work in the Climate Champions teams highlighted that action agenda is about listening and including people. “Things are happening, and 

we need to make sure that the decisions are being made for people. We need empathy, humbleness and collaboration”, completed Lerário.

Projecting the impacts of climate policies

Besides collaboration and empathy, mathematics can also help to meet the targets. In another panel this Friday, Travis Franck, who is a director at Climate Policy Laboratory detailed a methodology of calculation that can show the impacts of climate policies both in economic and social contexts. The tool allows calculate the GHG emissions reductions also how the policies can contribute to GDP, jobs, and health co-benefits, among others. Using this model, policy-makers can study future scenarios, and adjust the targets.

Luisa Sierra, from the Mexican Institute of Development of Energy and Enviroment, and Agus Sari, chief executive officer at Landscape Indonesia presented the results their institutions got from the model. 

Other countries are using the tool, including subnational governments in China, for example. This tool is relevant for identifying the policies needed to comply with the NDC and long-term emission reduction targets. It covers different sectors such as energy, transport, industry, buildings, and can incorporate market instruments such as carbon price, green taxes and subsidies that can boost the penetration of clean technologies and alternatives.

La entrada Subnational governments call for financial support and networking to fight climate change se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.