Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice Highlights, The Daughters for Earth Project, Climate Champ Charlene Aleck, Milan’s Climate4Youth Conference Recap

HIGHLIGHTS FROM WECAN’s GLOBAL WOMEN’S ASSEMBLY FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

Last week The Climate Daily told you about the Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice, Hosted by the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN). It ran from September 25 through September 30th.

We had a chance to attend some of the sessions, and are pleased to bring you some highlights of the people and organizations who presented. We’re dedicating the next handful of shows to stories spotlighting those people and those organizations.

One of those folks was Justin Winters, who The Climate Daily has highlighted for her work as a serial climate change organizational fighter. She started at the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, helped found Earth’s Call and One Earth, too. Well our error. We missed the fact that Earth’s Call joined forces with One Earth last year. Earth’s Call joined forces with One Earth last year.

She was very gracious, but also to the point. And that’s our point, when we make mistakes at The Climate Daily, we’ll correct them and let you know. 

Her big news is the imminent launch of Daughters for Earth!

DEEPER DIVE: WECAN

DAUGHTERS FOR EARTH LAUNCHING SOON

Yes, at the end of her remarks, in addition to expressing gratitude for participation in the Global Assembly…., Justin Winters announced the launch of Daughters for Earth. Why Daughters for Earth?

According to its website, “Grassroots efforts are our key to land preservation and are in urgent need of resources. Who are the frontline warriors driving these efforts? Women. Research shows that women are more likely to be impacted directly by climate change than men. ”Research also has revealed when women anchor the environmental protection model, community development has the largest dollar-for dollar traction, and community-led preservation automatically follows as a natural byproduct.

The Climate Daily has reported on the success of such women-led models, like the The Katakhali Project. So, Daughters for Earth aims to support and mobilize women at the grassroots level to achieve meaningful on-the-ground land preservation efforts by women globally.

It’s led by some real philanthropic powerhouses. Jody Allen, co-founder and president of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and CEO of Wild Lives Foundation; Rachel Rivera, COO of Wild Lives Foundation; author Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International; and Justin Winters, co-founder and executive director of One Earth.

There is an argument to be made that if women ruled the Earth, we wouldn’t be in this mess. And part of that is based on the traditional (if stereotypical) role women play as natural caretakers for the land. In highly extractive, linear economies, that role has pushed land-caretaking—and women–to the margins. So too, argue Daughters for Earth, have women been marginalized in the planetary effort to solve the climate crisis.

And that’s why Daughters for Earth matters to us. Its goal is to flip the script—change the dynamic. Each year, Daughters for Earth will select three community-based, women-led efforts which focus on land preservation in ecologically high-risk areas, and provide funding in partnership with One Earth.

This year, the three target areas are Peru, the United States and Zimbabwe.

Deeper Dive: Daughters for Earth, Katakhali Project

CANADIAN CLIMATE CHANGE CHAMPION, CHARLENE ALECK, TSLEIL-WAUTUTH NATION COUNCILOR

In a lot of ways, Canada is leading the United States big time in the areas of indigenous people’s rights and climate conservation. And it’s often being pulled in the right direction by its indigenous peoples. One such group is the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. Known as the “people of the inlet,” the Tsleil-Waututh Nation occupy Vancouver Island and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Charlene Aleck is an elected councilor for the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, and she made a great presentation at WECAN’s Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice last week. It was on the topic of Sacred Trust Initiative.

The Sacred Trust Initiative was created by the Tsleil-Waututh Nation to stop the proposed Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) tanker and pipeline project ending at the Burrard Inlet. The Burrard Inlet and TMX project lie within the Consultation Area of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. Unlike in the United States, sovereign nation status of its indigenous peoples is more seriously considerd in Canada.

This has been an ongoing fight for more than a decade, beginning around 2009. In 2015, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, through the Sacred Trust Initiative, undertook and published an independent assessment of the proposed TMX tanker and shoreline project.

Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) reviewed the TWN Assessment and found that “based on evidence filed by Trans Mountain and intervenors, a large spill in Burrard Inlet would result in significant adverse environmental and socio-economic effects. Evidence filed by parties such as the City of Vancouver, City of Burnaby, and the Tsleil-Waututh Nation indicate the potential extent of such effects.

This was a win on paper only because the NEB also determined that the likelihood of a spill during the proposed 50-year lifespan of the project would occur. Charlene Alec, and the Tsleil-Wauthuth Nation continue to fight the good fight. In their own words, “Our obligation is not to oil. Our obligation is to our land, our water, our people, our life.”

DEEPER DIVE: T-W Nation, Sacred Trust Initiative, TWN Assessment Report

MILAN 400’S YOUTH4CLIMATE SUMMIT SUMMARY

We end the show with the powerful showing of the 400 delegates who descended upon Milan, Italy last week for the three-day Youth4Climate conference.

As was widely reported, the delegates, 400 chosen from an applicant pool of 9,000, felt constantly constrained and frustrated during the event–one meant to give them a platform to speak their minds about the climate crisis — and the lack of action from leaders to address it.

But having been invited from around the world specifically to express their views ahead of the vital COP26 climate summit in later this month, many participants in Milan did not feel they were being listened to.

Part of their charge in attending the conference was for Youth4Climate members to draft a document to be presented at COP26. However, during the conference, many youth members were barred from the room. In fact, some were actually detained by police. Those in the room were presented with an already drafted document and asked to sign off on it. This precipitated one of the youth activists to hold up a sign behind the Italian PM during a photo op that read, “The emperor has no clothes.”

Rikke Nielsen, a 20-year-old activist from Denmark, said in an interview with France24, “I think it’s weird that they are scared from a bunch of young people, just because we were protesting and don’t agree with the greenwashing,” 

Italian activist Martina Comparelli said that the officials gathering for the pre-COP discussions found young people’s voices “scary.” “Maybe it is because it is the truth and the truth is always a bit scary, COMPARELLI ADDED.

DEEPER DIVE:  Milan Youth Detained, Youth4Climate, Al Jazeera, France24