Ms Elizabeth Wathuti:

I thank the committee. I am a climate activist from Kenya. Right now, it is evident that the people least responsible for the climate crisis are bearing the biggest brunt. We are already witnessing devastating loss and damage from the devastating flooding across west and central Africa to the prolonged drought that has hit the Horn of Africa and has seen five consecutive rainy seasons fail. These impacts are impacts of climate inaction and they are claiming lives and livelihoods and displacing people from their homes. Millions are facing climate-related starvation. As the impacts of climate change start to land, the education and empowerment of women and girls also suffer because climate change is forcing girls out of schools. It is clear that loss and damage are critical issues at the moment that need to be addressed; they are becoming the priority and defining issues for COP27.

At the opening ceremony of COP26, I held world leaders to a moment of compassionate silence for the billions of people not present in that room whose stories were not being heard and whose suffering was not being felt. We still left COP26 with nothing more on loss and damage than a promise to have an annual dialogue. We left COP26 still on course for 2.7°C of global heating. This is going to make larger parts of my continent uninhabitable. Since then, I have been spending time with communities in my country, Kenya, who are also severely affected by the nature, food, and hunger emergency caused by the devastating droughts across the Horn of Africa. Our natural ecosystems - our life support systems - have been pushed beyond breaking point. People tell me the only thing left to lose is hope, yet wealthy countries with the greatest historical emissions are not acting fast enough to help frontline communities to cope with the devastation they are facing. This is not what climate justice looks like. Climate justice is not abandoning frontline communities to their fate. That is why I was compelled to launch a public campaign letter a few months ago calling for climate justice and calling on leaders to help frontline communities by delivering loss and damage finance. This letter has now received over 100,000 signatures worldwide.

I was compelled to write this letter after spending time with the people of Wajir County in the north-eastern part of Kenya. During my time there, I completely understood and felt their human lived experience of the climate crisis. This includes terrifying levels of water and food insecurity and thousands of livestock animals dropping dead from thirst and starvation - livestock that provides 80% of people’s livelihood. Young girls are being pulled out of school because their families can no longer afford to pay school fees. I also saw decimated wildlife populations in the same region and babies struggling to stay alive because their hungry mothers cannot produce enough milk to feed them. These communities need to recover, reconstruct, rehabilitate and even build their resilience. They are not sitting back and doing nothing, despite receiving no support. They are showing every day what real climate leadership and solutions look like. The women, for instance, are having to walk distances as long as 12 miles in search of food and water. They are also restoring degraded forest lands and finding ways to grow drought-resistant crops. Frontline communities are clearly coming together, creating movements for change, educating themselves on the climate crisis and even offering clean energy solutions, among others. Frontline communities need our help because they are also the solution to the climate crisis. They have the strength and solutions that they know work for them.

Having heard that, we cannot ignore the fact that COP27 must put justice at the centre of negotiations. Justice is not forcing countries into further debt due to climate disasters they did not cause. Take the example of Mozambique, which was forced into further debt when the cyclones hit. Most of the climate finance delivered to the most impacted countries, if it is not in the form of pledges that have been made and not met, is in the form of loans, which is driving them into deeper debts. That definitely is not what climate justice looks like. Justice means delivering on promises that have been made and not met. It also means that rich countries, who have greatly profited at our expense, should provide the resources they promised in order that countries like mine can develop in a just, sustainable and resilient way.

Justice also means we must be honest and take responsibility.

Small island states raised the need to address loss and damage 30 years ago. We can clearly say that 30 years of climate inaction have led us to the scale of loss and damage we are experiencing today. It is time for leaders to take responsibility for that inaction and pivot further towards solidarity. In practical terms, that also means establishing additional financial support for loss and damage and finally establishing a loss and damage finance facility. We do not want to leave COP27 with only another promise to keep talking about it. That is not acceptable.

This is not only about money because money can never replace what the people I met in Wajir have already lost. This is about justice. COP27 is our chance to bring justice to impacted communities through global solidarity and co-operation.