Farah Kabir, the Country Director for ActionAid Bangladesh (AAB), is one of the leading voices in the fight for climate justice in the country. In this interview, Kabir spoke about the work her organization does in relation to climate change, as well as on issues related to climate justice.
Can you give us a brief overview of what Climate Change related works ActionAid Bangladesh does in the country, and if this is among your main areas of focus?
ActionAid Bangladesh decided to prioritize climate justice back in 2008 when the organization realized that the issue was proving detrimental to its development and humanitarian response work. It started from the perspective of disaster risk reduction and disaster preparedness but then was swiftly moved on to resilience building, adaptation as a part of our project interventions and climate justice as a part of the advocacy at both national and global levels. The organization does activism, campaigns, advocacy, and training, organizing dialogues and conferences. We also have strong communication and working relations with youth networks, women networks and South Asian networks.
As someone who has been working for climate justice for a long time, how do you define or how do you frame climate justice?
Climate Justice is about picking up equity-ness. We want people to understand how climate change affects different communities based on their gender, location, economic condition, or even political position. Also now we unanimously agree that climate change has become a global crisis because of the development paradigm and approaches of the rich countries initially, and then the following of the same model by the developing countries of the south. So there is a responsibility agenda here. We want to make sure there is differentiated responsibility and differentiated actions that need to be taken by different countries. We feel strongly that the commitment to keeping the emission levels below 1.5C should be at the centre of all the thinking and action. It is important wherever there is technology, knowledge and tools, it should be shared and not limited to only the rich because the impacts of climate change don’t select anyone or leave anyone behind.
ActionAid Bangladesh is supporting the ‘EarthWalk’ campaign to rally up support and solidarity in order to push leaders to take action at COP26. What are your thoughts on this?
We are trying to take up different campaigns to make sure the agenda of climate justice remains on the table and the global leaders understand what the demands are. Through the EarthWalk campaign, we want to rally up support, solidarity and put our demands in front of the global leadership at COP26. People from different countries, from the north to the south will be marching with the same demands.
What are some specific actions that ActionAid Bangladesh is taking to ensure climate justice for the most vulnerable communities?
Action Aid Bangladesh mainly focuses on the adaptation side as a solution for climate change impact. The organization is also doing some policy advocacy and campaigns. Supporting the communities to build up their resilience and listen to them and understand the indigenous knowledge they have and how to utilize them to address some of the climate change issues is another objective. ActionAid Bangladesh has also been advocating for Gender justice as an essential ingredient of climate justice. The organization has represented Bangladesh in the sessions on Gender and Climate Change at multiple COPs. Since 2016 AAB has lobbied with the Bangladesh government and facilitated the coming together of non-government actors on this issue, leading to the engagement of relevant ministries as well as the PPPA recently.
We are actively making our demands to our political actors at the national level. As I said earlier, climate justice has been one of our agendas since 2008. We were there, involved in the advocacy for setting up a national fund, something Bangladesh celebrates in being one of the first countries in doing so. Then we were involved in the national adaptation plan, and now in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). In all of these areas, we are trying to take the learnings from the communities and put them at the table for the leaders to understand and formulate policies based on that.
What are the key aspects to work for or focus on in climate justice?
When we are working regarding climate justice, we want to make people understand there is an existing inequality in the society, infrastructure, institutions and systems. So when we now take any action or design any program it has to be gender sensitive. It has to understand how climate change impacts women and girls, and how young people are losing out. If you constantly have to move, you basically become a climate refugee. These have traumatic impacts, which is why we want to keep talking about these issues with policymakers and also at the same time we want to find innovative ways to address them. It is not enough just to raise awareness. You have to give the people the information and tools to deal with it also.
Drawing from your experience and the work ActionAid Bangladesh has done, what do you think are the major hurdles in achieving climate justice?
The major hurdle is that the fossil fuel industry is very strong. They haven’t worked or committed enough to realize the Paris Agreement. The emission level hasn’t gone down. Then, the targets that have been set up speak of 2030 and 2050 but the world is already burning, already being flooded. We have seen wildfires burning from California to Australia, which is why we need serious commitment. We need to ensure that the $100 billion per year proposal actually materializes, and the money is used for adapting, mitigating and loss and damage. Infrastructures won’t sustain in the face of constant disasters. How will the private sector’s factories and infrastructure survive? So there has to be vulnerability assessment, risk planning and anticipatory action for all stakeholders involved.
Do you think COP26 can play a crucial role in climate justice going forward?
We are all putting our hopes on COP26 but we also have to be realistic. There have been some good initiatives and there have been encouraging statements from different parts of the world but at the end of the day seeing is believing. Once we see the action, the commitment, then next year I can tell you COP26 was a success. But for COP26 to be a success, they must have participation of women, young people and marginalized communities. Given the long history of government inaction and avoidance, it may be too ambitious to expect too much from COP26. We want global leaders to come forward and say these are our commitments, these are our actions and they should be target-bound, time-bound; and clear monetary figures should be mentioned. Having said that, this must be for the women, girls and young people because they are being affected the most, we all are being affected but their futures, in particular, are so uncertain. The planetary crisis has become an existential crisis.