COP28 – UN Climate Change Conference 2023

November 30 – December 12, 2023

The 28th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will convene from 30 November to 12 December 2023 in the United Arab Emirates.

When Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) formed to create a new center of gravity in the climate movement, it was also due to the recognition that there was a need to strengthen democratic representation of frontline community leadership at national climate movement tables, as well as in international spaces such as the United Nations Climate Change conferences.

The yearly UN climate conferences are held in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was established in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Its mission is to stabilize “greenhouse gas emissions at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

The first formal meeting of the UNFCCC parties (Conference of the Parties, COP) took place in 1995 and established the Berlin Mandate, which declared portions of the 1992 Rio Convention “inadequate”. COP1 emphasized the importance of setting specified time frames, and acknowledged that developed nations must play a larger role. The Berlin Mandate led to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, adopted at COP3.  The Kyoto Protocol focused on reducing emissions and increasing contributions from wealthier nations, setting a goal of overall emissions reductions of 5 percent below 1990 by 2012, though militaries were given an automatic exemption from emissions reductions, following a pressure campaign by the US government, who never ratified it, citing potential damage to the US economy (watch a video of It Takes Roots putting demilitarization back on the agenda as a climate justice issue in a Grassroots Global Justice-led protest during last year’s COP27 in Egypt).

It Takes Roots delegation at COP21 in Paris.

The Paris Agreement followed at COP21 in 2015 and introduced efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C. While the agreement emphasized the need for mitigation and adaptation measures and the need for financial contributions, and technology transfer by developed nations to developing nations, the Paris Agreement never mentioned the need to curb let alone phase out extractive energy, and the goals it set were far below those needed to avert a global catastrophe. The agreement signed by 196 countries did acknowledge the global urgency of the climate crisis, a reflection of the strength of the climate movement. But the accord ignored the roots of the crisis, and the very people who have the experience and determination to solve it. It also relied heavily on “false solutions” such as carbon markets and other offset schemes (promoted in Article 6 of the accord).

COP26 in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland culminated in the Glasgow Climate Pact. The Pact committed to maintain the 1.5°C goal identified in the Paris Agreement, and for the first time in the history of the UNFCCC, the COP decision called upon Parties to accelerate the phasing down of “unabated coal and inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels.” Specifically stating that fossil fuel emissions lie at the heart of global climate change is a step forward. However, confronting the climate crisis will require the complete phase-out of all coal and fossil fuel subsidies. False climate “solutions” such as carbon trading, carbon capture and storage, and market-based mechanisms are upheld in the Glasgow Climate Pact as well. Read the It Takes Roots statement on the COP26 decisions.

COP27 in 2022 in Sharm El Shaik, Egypt established a loss and damage fund at COP27 as a historic and welcome first step, but the conference failed once again to confront the vice-grip of the fossil fuel industry. Many countries named the root causes of the climate crisis in coal, oil, and gas, but a handful of Parties shut down needed progress. COP27 was attended by more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists linked to major oil and gas companies, a larger number than the delegation of any single nation. The naming of Sultan Al Jaber, the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (one of the world’s largest oil producers), to preside over COP28 doesn’t bode well for progress in the United Arab Emirates.

Climate Justice Alliance member groups and allies such as Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indigenous Climate Action, Just Transition Alliance, La Via Campesina, The Black Hive at Movement for Black Lives and others have played pivotal roles in strategic interventions during the conferences to demand strong international agreements that protect and benefit the people most impacted by the climate crisis. Together, we speak truth to power as we confront global leaders, help redefine climate leadership, and ensure that community voices are heard at the highest levels of decision making to keep false solutions off the table.

​In order to achieve the policy shifts we need in these UN climate conferences, even the best inside strategies are not strong enough if we don’t organize powerful, grassroots pressure on the outside as well. True climate solutions are coming not from a formal UN negotiation process, but from the growing pressure and power of our collective struggle. Climate Justice Alliance is in unity with blossoming social movements across the globe, led by the people most impacted by the climate crisis. We are pressuring governments for more meaningful action, while implementing our own real solutions on the ground and planning for how vulnerable communities can best survive severe impacts of climate change.

Listen to the conversation between Cooperation Jackson’s Kali Akuno and Kevin Buckland of the Artivist Network about what left social movements could and should do in the wake of the failure of COP27. The conversation was hosted by the Institute for Social Ecology.

Click here for Part 1 of this conversation with Dorothy Guerrero of Global Justice Now and Kali Akuno.

It Takes Roots is a multiracial and inter-generational effort led by women and gender oppressed Indigenous Peoples, Black, Latinx, Asian Pacific Islander, and poor white communities on the frontlines of racial, housing and climate justice across Turtle Island. The collaboration began during the organizing for the Peoples Climate March in 2014 and has since continued to build a Visionary Opposition.

Today It Takes Roots has alliance members in 200 organizations and in more than 50 states, provinces and Indigenous territories, nationwide and in Canada, Guam and Puerto Rico.