Climate Justice

Civil society group urges for gender-responsive climate finance that engages Indigenous knowledge and ensures inclusive community participation in shaping climate decisions across Asia.

The side event, "From Voices to Action: Indigenous Leadership in Achieving Affordable and Clean Energy," was one of the side events of the 13th Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development held in Bangkok, Thailand.

In this second theme of the SEA Through Feminism dossier, we look at how climate change, agriculture, and land seizures are deeply gendered. Across Southeast Asia, women and rural communities often face the hardest impacts of environmental crises while carrying the vital work of care and nurturing. 

The existing climate finance arrangements are deceptive and harmful. Its lack of enforceability allows developed countries to evade real accountability, turning climate finance into a tool of soft power rather than reparative justice. 

Amidst wider understanding on the need for urgent and decisive action in order to avert the worst of the climate crisis, there is a nascent global and intersectoral approach for the creation of policies to address climate change that goes beyond just the state-led international negotiations, which has become prominent in the last two decades. 

The new Loss and Damage Fund (FRLD) aims to support climate-vulnerable countries against escalating damages. Despite meeting setup milestones, key questions on funding scale, the operational model, and access policies remain unresolved. Can the FRLD truly deliver?

In 2004, Cambodia's electricity grid was dominated by fossil fuels -primarily heavy-fuel oil and diesel; by 2013, it was completely transformed with 82% renewable sources: mostly hydropower. The government has also committed to net-zero by 2050, making this plan difficult to achieve as energy emissions keep increasing.    

On 19 March, the Global Climate Strike Day, activists from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand share their priorities for climate action in the region in 2021, the second year of the Corona virus pandemic.