Het onrecht

Tijdens de Klimaatmars van 12 november, was er op het Museumplein een spreekster die tussen de Palestijnse activisten en Greta Thunberg door, bijna onopvallend haar verhaal deed. In een korte toespraak legde Tinebeb Berhane uit Ethiopië helder uit hoe de klimaatverandering vooral Afrika treft en in Afrika vooral vrouwen treft.

Dit is haar toespraak. Kort, krachtig en niet mis te verstaan.

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​"As an African woman, a mother, a leader and member of civil society, I am standing here today. For many years now, in countries and regions labelled as developing and least developed, the lives of many have not been stable, have not been peaceful, have not been safe and enjoyable.

Rather, people are in despair; hungry and thirsty, they have been displaced from their villages or forced to migrate far away, leaving behind their beloved families, neighborhood, and their countries.

In the Horn of Africa, where I come from, we are facing the most severe drought in 40 years. For 6(!) consecutive years we have been experiencing rain failure. In these years people's livelihoods have been destroyed and it is women who are bearing the heaviest burden.

In Borana, a region in Ethiopia, it is women who now must walk 18 kilometers to fetch water, even when they are pregnant. It is women who must take over the care of the children as the husbands are trying to look for work elsewhere. It is women who are sparing food out of their mouths to feed their children.

Women are disproportionally affected by the climate crisis. They are being exploited, sexually abused, and more at risk for gender-based violence.

The dire situation in Borana, proves the case in point.

Creating urgency
The African continent houses 17% of the world population, but does not even emit 4% of world carbon emissions. The smallest share of all world regions. The smallest contributors, are paying the highest price. 48 countries in the Sub-Sahara Africa, excluding South Africa, have only contributed 0.6% to the global Co2 emissions in the last 2 centuries, whereas the Netherlands on itself has already contributed 0.7%.

Even though Africa and other regions in the global South have barely contributed to this crisis, they do bear the brunt of it and pay the highest price. This is the injustice of the climate crisis.

The Global South is paying by being made the host to an increasing number of fossil fuel and industrial agriculture developments such as gas wells, oil pipelines, coal-fired power plants and monoculture plantations blasted with agrochemicals. They pay through the large losses they suffer, and they pay, even with their priceless lives. Also here, it is women on the African continent that bear most of the burden.

Call to action
It is proven that far more of the world’s money is still flowing to the causes of the climate crisis than to its solutions. It is time that governments stop financing a corporatized, transnational, under-regulated and dominant mode of production that reduces human beings to machines and the entire planet to a ‘factory floor.’
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It is time the Global North significantly steps up its climate ambitions and takes its historical responsibility. Starting with phasing out all fossil fuels and paying for the loss and damage it
has caused.

​We need global climate justice now!"

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Tinebeb Berhane is directeur van ActionAid Ethiopia, een NGO die wereldwijd opkomt voor vrouwenrechten