African People’s Counter COP 2 (APCC) 2023
Reflect! Resist! Rise!
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The Africa Climate Justice Collective (ACJC) has hosted the Africa People’s Counter COP (APCC) twice since its formation in 2020. This year ACJC is hosting APCC 3.0 which is the third one from the 18th to the 29th of September 2023. The innovative APCC also known as the Counter COP is a key event on the ACJC Calendar as it is used to send out a loud message as the name suggests, that the COP process which will be the 28th of its kind this year, is failing to address the climate justice issues that Africa and the global South face and there is a need for an alternative which ACJC is pushing for as part of the broader climate justice movement.
Our APCC 2023 Approach
The ACJC will conduct a hybrid-style event that will feature online sessions and People’s Assemblies to be held throughout the African region between 18 and 29 September 2023.
About 20 People’s Assemblies will be hosted in different parts of the region during the 2 weeks. The People’s Assemblies that will be hosted at the community or national level will develop their own programmes which will resonate with the theme of the Counter COP.
Self Organized Online Sessions will be hosted by convenor organizations, partners and allies on various thematic topics and presentations that link with the theme for Counter COP 3.0. A maximum of 3 self-organized sessions will be held each day over the 2 weeks.
For 6 sessions in the two weeks, people from around the region and globally will be able to ‘connect’ virtually with the communities that will be participating in the People’s Assemblies. The self-organised online sessions over the two weeks will be open for everyone in the world to join in.
People’s Assemblies should be structured as follows
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To be within the APCC period 18-29 September 2023
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To focus on communities that are negatively affected by extractives, false solutions, and the climate crisis
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The majority of the participants should be members of affected communities, with a minority of NGO type of participants who are mainly attending in a supportive role
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The Assembly should have the necessary technology to connect to the online Counter COP for specific sessions – such as the opening and closing sessions
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The assembly should incorporate affected women and a feminist analysis and approach
Why a People’s Counter COP in Africa?
For 27years, Climate negotiations have been blocked and curtailed at every turn, instead of taking decisive actions to address the root causes of the crisis, big corporations, with the support of some scientists and powerful governments, have used the space to promote and propagate false solutions, which would provide them with the means to expand their control over the global populations and our common natural resources. They don't want to take financial, legal or any other responsibility for the damage caused, or to genuinely transform in the face of climate change as that would bring in less profit.
Even as we face an impending global food crisis brought on by climate crisis and exacerbated by the current armed conflicts and global proxy wars, powerful forces keep escalating land grabbing and attacking Africa food and seed systems, further risking the biodiversities of our foods and territories.
Against the fraught backdrop, Africa is already facing the brunt of the impact of the climate and other intersecting crises and stands to face the brunt of their impacts despite having historically contributed least to them. The way out of this crisis to heal the land, fairly compensate those who are most directly affected for this activity to support a real transition towards a sustainable energy system, the detoxification of the global food and the shortening of food value-chains of agriculture and a rapid reduction in wasteful consumption in all parts of the world.
Just like the previous COPs, again COP 26 failed us. Do we continue to expect change from this year's COP 27 in Egypt? We urgently need to push for a total overhaul of the captured and corrupted COP process and to fight for a real transformation of our global system away from a capitalist, patriarchal, racist and neo-colonial order. The people of Africa are called to come together to REFLECT, RESIST AND RISE UP!
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We are a group of African civil society organizations, movements of women, peasant communities, African citizens and more, that are fighting for climate justice, and standing in solidarity with the people of the world, especially those in the front lines of the impacts of the climate crisis. We see the urgent need to organize the progressive flank of the broadly defined ‘climate justice’ movement in Africa, to strengthen our voices and demands for systemic change from capitalism and its twin forces of racism and patriarchy that created this pandemic.
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Who is the African Climate Justice Collective?
