By UN Rep Ayuska Motha
December 14th: The past two weeks attending COP25, I have been waiting for decisions to be made in order to report on it. But even now as I write from back home, it is not over. During the first week, negotiators from all the different countries were not able to come to an agreement on several critical issues. They ended up having to pass those decisions on to their ministers who arrived during the second week. It was then up to the Chilean COP presidency to work with the ministers to see if they could come up with an agreement. The text that is now being proposed does not include basic human rights language and does not reflect the urgency of the climate crisis adequately. So diverse civil society organizations, who have been joining forces, are collectively dissatisfied and therefore decided that no deal is better than a bad deal.
At the Closing Session of COP25, representatives of civil society coalitions were given the floor. Their unanimous call was "People Power, Climate Justice!" You can see the video and hear their powerful statements here.