A lone olive tree along the Israel - Palestine border
As the un climate negotiations in Cancun head towards their close what we have always known, always tried to hide from, and yet never quite managed, is becoming more and more clear.
These negotiations are not about policy, or process. They are about politics.
And yet when we leave these halls, when we return to the real world, when we confront the face of climate change that hides behind the endless acronyms, we see clearly that climate change is not about process, or policy. And it’s definitely not about politics.
It is about people.
It’s about the people now unable to farm their land, it’s about the people walking further and further each day for water, it’s about the people whose homes are slowly disappearing into the sea.
When countries come to the un they are representing their people, they vote on behalf of their people. In this way supposedly every person on the planet is represented here. But what happens if your country isn’t a country, what happens if your land is contested, what happens if politics once more get in the way.
Climate change considers no geographical or political borders, yet when we as humans impose them, then invariably contest them, it is the people who loose out.
Palestine pretty much embodies the word politics, an occupied land with contested borders. Yet Palestine is also on the front line of climate change, an arid land with scarce water resources. If we put the politics aside how are the people of Palestine, the people facing the harshest of conditions, the hardest of lives, how are they able to engage, to have their voice heard in the un climate talks?
Officially Palestine is an observer country at the unfccc. This means they are allowed to take part in all meetings and can speak on the floor, but at the end of the day they cannot vote. In practice this doesn’t always run as smoothly. They have a different colour badge to parties (an olive green vs the party pink) and they have an official letter from the secretariat confirming their ability to attend closed meetings. However when confronted with a security guard with one set of instructions, the different colour is all it takes to be locked out of meetings. Even just being here to participate is more difficult for them. The unfccc funds 2 delegates from every country, not so for observer parties, and they are often left scrabbling for funds at the last minute.
But they are here and they are participating. They are here because back at home it is their land and their families who are bearing the brunt of the onset of climate change. One negotiator I spoke to told me of his family, of his farm. For 30 years they have planted the land, they have lived off what they grow. Now water is scarce, there is not enough of it to irrigate, what they have is too precious to put on the crops. Now they can no longer plant, they can no longer grow. And it is not just his land, in the margins between the West Bank and the desert, in land where herders have lived for thousands of years, there is no longer enough water to grow the fodder to sustain the herds. Land is becoming desert, and as the land goes so does the livelihoods of those who rely on it.
As water becomes scarcer and irrigation a pipe dream all the farmers can do is rely on rain fed agriculture. But the last 7 years have been 7 consecutive dry years. Even the olive trees are dying.
Climate change is a reality in Palestine, the people there are already facing it head on. There is no reversing what has happened, all they can do is live with the consequences. They must now adapt.
Of course adaptation is a huge part of the unfccc, back here in Cancun I am sat with the draft text in front of me, text that should one day lead to developed countries facing up to their historic responsibility and providing funds for developing countries.
But when your country is not a country, when you have no say and are forced to observe, when your people are not represented, then you also don’t have the right to this money.
As an observer not a party to the unfccc process, the people of Palestine have no access to the billions of dollars of funding that will one day soon hopefully start to flow. No access to funds that could mean the difference between life and death. For Palestine this is not a political issue, it is not geographical, it is not even environmental. For Palestine this is a humanitarian issue, another humanitarian issue on top of the many they are already struggling with. As their negotiator said “We are not less than other countries and we are not more, we are equal.” Adaptation funding is not about politics, it is about people. Regardless of politics, the people of Palestine deserve access to funds that could save their life. Palestine is prepared, they have a national adaptation strategy, but without funds they can do nothing. The farmland will continue to be swallowed by the desert, the people will begin to starve.
“Geographically we are part of this world, our people need to be counted, that’s all we want here.”
Regardless of politics, regardless of country status, regardless of the colour of their negotiators badge here at the unfccc, the people of Palestine, the people who have done little or nothing to contribute to climate change, deserve access to funds, access to the means to sustain their way of life.
For an olive green badge are we going to let the olive trees die.
This is not about politics, this is about people.
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Joshua Wiese
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Wael Hmaidan
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http://twitter.com/Mau_IvanX Ivan
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Nedal Katbeh
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Aman
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Ayman Thaher
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Jameel Mtour
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Dr Yousef Abu-Safieh
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Imad khatib
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Ayman Thaher
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Ayman thaher
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Paulina Monforte
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