It took Samoan activist Tunaimati’a Jacob Netzler three flights and a bus ride within 24 hours to get to the big climate summit. The plan was to join nearly 200 other campaigners from nearly 40 countries to discuss the fate of the planet.
But Netzler was not going to Baku, Azerbaijan, for COP29. Instead, he headed to Oaxaca, Mexico, for the Global Meeting for Climate and Life that organizers called the “anti-COP.” This meeting would have a completely different tone than its official United Nations counterpart. Luxury hotels and private jets have opened up to lodging and composting toilets that signaled the activists’ intent to create a more equitable environment.
“It really brought together people who wouldn’t normally be involved in the formal COP process,” said Netzler, the Pacific campaign partner for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. “Bring those in the best communities.”
Last week’s event was the result of a feeling that, after nearly 30 years, COPs are doing too little to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. Even the former head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which oversees the annual meeting, has called the stormy events—which draw everyone from heads of state to oil industry tycoons—”disturbing.”
Activists in Oaxaca also encountered a similar sense of exclusion from the international confab, and concerns that the solutions that come out of it harm communities. Anti-COP aims to provide “a place to present our struggles and propose concrete alternatives [to the status quo].” The five-day gathering concluded with a final statement outlining the organization’s next steps—including plans to improve cooperation among stakeholders and a proposal to send activist caravans to next year’s COP in Brazil.
One main goal of the event was to promote understanding between the climate and land protection movements that have historically worked in relatively different areas.
“There is a lot of skepticism from indigenous groups to work with environmentalists because they are considered a white movement, or a movement from the Global North,” explained Dianx Cantarey, global coordinator of Debt for Climate, one of the organizations. grassroots organizations that helped host the anti-COP.
In addition, the gathering tackled four major themes: The impact of large clean water projects on the communities around them, the global water crisis, “remediation of life,” and the forced displacement of Indigenous peoples. It also clearly rejected what activists see as government inaction in the face of the climate crisis. Participants described the gathering as a response and antidote to COP gatherings, which they say often prioritize money, power, and fossil fuel interests over human life—a point emphasized that Elnur Soltanov, the head of this year’s event, captured leveraging the summit to make oil concessions.
“If you are sitting on your tenth opening statement [at COP]and it’s the same, it’s frustrating to think that no other world is possible,” said Xiye Bastida, executive director of the Re-Earth Initiative, a youth-led nonprofit organization focused on making the climate movement accessible and inclusive. He went to Oaxaca because, “for us, it’s not about the parts of a million in the air, it’s about how our communities have evolved.”
Bastida, Netzler, and others in the anti-COP felt marginalized by the COP. He described youth hotels infested with cockroaches at a one-year conference, and one participant recalled being turned away from an indigenous tent. It wasn’t like that. In the early 1980s and 1990s, climate negotiations were among the most inclusive and inclusive governmental processes.
“In the beginning, the climate was extremely open, accessible, and transparent,” said Dana Fisher, director of American University’s Center for Environment, Community & Equity, who did not attend the anti-COP. But, he said, that began to change in 2009, when Danish police clashed with, and arrested, hundreds of climate protesters at COP15 in Copenhagen. Since then, civil society has been increasingly marginalized, a phenomenon that has been particularly evident in the last three COPS, held in authoritarian states: Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and now Azerbaijan.
“There has been a reduction in opportunities for NGO observers and community members to participate,” said Fisher. “When we arrived in Egypt . . . they could not enter the real hall.”
Once disbanded, advocates lost confidence in COPs, creating what Fisher calls a “collaborative effect” that led to the deepening of mistrust that fueled efforts like the anti-COP. Although it was the second time for this group, this year’s was very big and it was the first time to produce a guide for future work.
Anti-COP participants have called for everything from drawing financial interests behind large clean projects that affect indigenous communities to creating a database of the best, most effective ways to protect the world and criticizing the election of Donald Trump. There were also meaningless declarations, including the declaration that “All COPs are Bastards!”
However, the anti-COP was held a week before the official COP for a reason: Some of those who gathered in Oaxaca planned to be in Baku.
“For me, the role of the COP is to read the negotiation documents and make sure that it includes and protects as many people as possible,” said Bastida, admitting that it will definitely be an exhausting experience. But, he added: “If I didn’t go to the anti-COP, I couldn’t go to the COP knowing that I was doing my part to add voices that weren’t there.”
This article appeared on Grist, a non-profit, independent media organization dedicated to telling the stories of climate solutions and a just future. Subscribe to its newsletter here.
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