COP27, the UN Conference of Parties 27th meeting, was held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt from November 7th – 20th, 2022. COP27 was designed to address climate mitigation and the damage and loss sections of the Paris Agreement, ratified in 2015. Unfortunately, instead of adopting a comprehensive framework that would support the nations of the Global South already reeling from the accelerating manifestations of climate change, the US and its European allies, limited the negotiations to a push for IMF and WB loans and the underwriting of carbon markets to protect their advanced economies and positions within the present capitalist world system.
Kali Akuno held two dialogues with other activists to report back from and analyze the experiences of COP27: Part 1 with Dorothy Guerrero, the head of policy and advocacy of Global Justice Now; and Part 2 with Barcelona-based arts-activist Kevin Buckland.
Dorothy Guerrero is Head of Policy and Advocacy of Global Justice Now since January 2017. Originally from the Philippines, her background is from anti-dictatorship and anti-globalization social movements before campaigning against mega-projects in Asia, where many climate justice activism started in the region. She works on corporate power and accountability, climate justice, trade and investment, China, migration, and other related economic justice concerns. Before moving to the UK, she previously worked with the Transnational Institute (The Netherlands), African Women Unite Against Destructive Resource Extraction (WOMIN in South Africa), Focus on the Global South (an Asian regional organization with offices in Thailand, Philippines, India and Cambodia), Asienhaus (Germany) and the Institute for Popular Democracy in the Philippines.
Kevin Buckland is an arts-activist who has spent the last 15 years supporting creativity inside the global climate justice movement. He has helped organize ArtSpaces to support actions at 10 different COPs. Kevin is based in Barcelona, and active in European and Iberian climate justice movements, and a co-founder of the Artivist Network and Gastivists Collective.
