The hypocrisy Vera called out was perhaps best highlighted by the US – and UK’s – refusal to contribute their fair share to the “loss and damage fund” designed to help developing countries implement climate mitigation and adaptation measures. The UAE, to many the villain of Cop28 due to its fossil fuel-funded economy, pledged $100m to the fund to help cover the costs of irreversible climate impacts that developed countries are mostly responsible for. And the US, the biggest oil and gas producer this year? An embarrassing $17.5m (with the caveat of Congress approval, of course). The UK’s $75m pledge, meanwhile, turned out to be money taken out of a climate finance pot already promised by the government.
A few days later, the hypocrisy was underscored further as the US vetoed a UN security council vote calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, where at least 15,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombardment. The UK abstained. The Biden administration followed this by bypassing Congress to sell Israel almost 14,000 tank shells at a cost of $106m.
The destruction of the Palestinian population and land has been very much on people’s minds here in Dubai. But while a handful of world leaders and negotiators have directly or indirectly called out the unfolding nightmare, it’s been largely left to activists like Francisco Vera to connect the dots between human rights and climate justice. Despite strict UN conditions that include a ban on flags, mentioning Israel and Palestinian freedom slogans, the sanctioned protests have been powerful and Indigenous peoples, grassroots conservationists (and journalists) have wept together in collective grief and anger.
But activists globally have been divided on whether Gaza is an environmental and climate issue, with some lambasting Greta Thunberg, who boycotted Cop28 because it is being run by an oil executive, for speaking out on the Israel-Hamas conflict. As a climate justice reporter, it is difficult to see how you can separate the demand for climate justice from the targeting of water sources, agricultural land and renewable energy projects, or the greenhouse gas emissions and pollution generated by military machinery being used in the conflict. As a Palestinian official told me: “how can we do climate adaptation in Gaza when there is nothing left?”
And it’s not just Gaza. Access to water – a basic human right, and a key environmental and climate issue – has long been restricted for Palestinians. Even before Hamas attacked Israeli civilians on 7 October, Israeli settlers and soldiers had targeted water sources in the West Bank more frequently than Russia targeted civilian supplies in Ukraine.
David Boyd, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, told me that environmental consequences in Gaza should not be seen as secondary to the civilian suffering. “The Palestinian people will bear the costs in terms of illnesses and premature mortality for years after the conflict has ended,” Boyd said.
“Wars exacerbate the climate emergency and push humanity even further beyond planetary limits that are already breached, meaning that even regional conflicts have global consequences for everyone’s right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.”
Read more from Cop28:
