Author: Amuna Wagner
Yearly in November, the climate crisis makes global news when world leaders assemble for two weeks at the annual UN Climate Change Conference (or Conference Of the Parties). People worldwide take advantage of this event to make their voices heard by protesting on the street. At COP26, held in Scotland last year, more than 100,000 protesters took to Glasgow’s streets. Globally, over 300 rallies have been held in countries that allow open public dissent. While the summit is usually attended by old men with much talk and no action, Glasgow’s protests were led by young women and indigenous people, illustrating how the climate change movement has become an umbrella for a broad range of causes.

This year, COP27 tests how serious climate activists are about social justice. From November 6-18, world leaders are gathering in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh, a decision welcomed by African governments as the continent is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world. However, choosing Egypt, which is currently being ruled by brutal military dictator, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi, was controversial. Both its human rights and environmental records are horrific, and as expected, the authorities cracked down and arrested anyone suspected of planning a protest ahead of the summit. As we watch the confrontation between governments and civil society activists unfold, we must ask ourselves: what does climate justice mean?

El-Sisi’s Egypt

Egypt had a revolution in 2011 in which civil society forced long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak to resign. The public democratically elected Islamist Mohamed Morsi to the presidency, but he was deposed in 2013 by a coup d'état led by the minister of defence General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Since then, el-Sisi has positioned himself as the head of an authoritarian government estimated to hold 60,000 political prisoners and executed people at an unprecedented rate. Although few high-profile prisoners have been released in recent months since el-Sisi unveiled a new pardon committee, a new report by Amnesty International focused on how Egyptian authorities have used a National Human Rights strategy launched a year ago "as a PR tool to deflect attention from its real human rights record". Still, it remains that protesting, even the thought of it, is prohibited, with no room for exceptions, including raising awareness about climate change. On November 1, local media reported that since the beginning of October, Egyptian authorities arrested hundreds of people for calling for anti-government protests on November 11 during the conference. Some of those arrested reportedly face charges of "misusing social media" and "joining a terrorist group." Individuals were picked up from their homes and workplaces, and the number of arrests is rising daily. According to Mohamed Lotfy, the director of The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, "What we see is toughening of the (security grip) even on civilians passing by on the streets and interference in their personal lives and breaching their privacy by forcing them to open up their mobile phones and inspecting their political views."

This violation is enforced by the Egyptian military, which is continuously showered with European green cash in exchange for its promise to keep Africans, an increasing number of whom are climate refugees, from reaching European shores. These are the same Africans that El-Sisi claims to speak for as the host of COP27.

Acceptable climate action

In preparation for the summit, the authorities added security measures in Sharm El-Sheikh, including mandating the installation of cameras in all taxis, allowing security agency surveillance of drivers and passengers. Summit protesters have been assigned a designated area which critics say is far from where negotiations are taking place and carefully controlled. According to the Egyptian COP27 website, anyone who wants to plan a climate demonstration in the designated area must submit a request 36 hours in advance and include a description of the purpose of the protest, the date and the organising body. The protest can only occur between 10am and 5pm during the site's operating hours. For demonstrations anywhere in Sharm El-Sheikh, organisers must provide notification 48 hours in advance along with other details. While foreign attendees struggled with these rules, many local environmentalists could not register for the conference in the first place. "As a result, the list of accredited organisations does not include a single human rights organisation and none of the independent human rights groups in Egypt, including those that are working on the nexus of human rights, environmental justice and climate justice," said Hossam Bahgat, head of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). Research by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on instances of repression against environmental groups found that government restrictions amount to human rights violations, leaving Egypt's ability to meet basic climate commitments in doubt. Even though Egypt is extremely vulnerable to climate change, environmental research is gagged by laws that require all political research to be signed off by the regime and make it nearly impossible to work in the field. As HRW reports, "In 2014, President el-Sisi amended by decree the penal code to punish with life in prison or death sentence anyone requesting, receiving, or assisting the transfer of funds, whether from foreign sources or local organisations, with the aim of doing work that harms a 'national interest' or the country's independence or undermining public security or safety."

The women fighting for Alaa Ebd El-Fattah

The Egyptian government has been trying to eradicate all forces of opposition since Egypt's nationwide uprising in 2011. The hashtag #FreeAlaa has become synonymous with Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British-Egyptian author, software developer, and activist who has been imprisoned for his writings for most of the past nine years. Abd El-Fattah's life has been at risk after he escalated a hunger strike he had maintained since April 2022. "I've taken a decision to escalate at a time (the beginning of COP27) I see as fitting for my struggle, for my freedom and the freedom of prisoners of a conflict they have no part in, or they're trying to exit from," he wrote from his prison cell, "For the victims of a regime that's unable to handle its crises except with oppression." Egyptian journalists Eman Ouf, Mona Selim and Racha Azab launched a hunger strike on November 7 in solidarity with Abd el-Fattah and thousands of other political prisoners. Additionally, they staged a sit-in inside the Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate in Cairo, calling for the "opening of the public sphere in Egypt" and an end to the "ongoing security crackdown against those expressing their opinions".

The women in Abd el-Fattah's family have campaigned relentlessly for his release. His sisters, Mona and Sanaa Seif; his mother, Laila Soueif, a human rights defender; and his aunt, celebrated novelist Adhaf Soueif. Ahead of the summit, Mona Seif tweeted, "The reality most of those participating in #COP27 are choosing to ignore is … in countries like #Egypt your true allies, the ones who actually give a damn about the planet's future are those languishing in prisons." But it seems that through the activism of Egyptian civil society at home and abroad, foreign activists are aware of the mirage el-Sisi is trying to project by making COP his PR event. Sanaa Seif is now mobilising young people at the summit in ways many did not dare to. She is a 28-year-old human rights defender who launched the popular independent newspaper "Al-gornal" at 17 to address issues at the heart of the Arab Spring. She has served three prison sentences in Egypt on charges that fellow activists condemned as bogus. In the past weeks, Sanaa Seif camped outside the UK parliament to campaign on behalf of her brother before flying to Sharm El-Sheikh. She has been meeting with civil society groups and leading protests despite the government's ban. As a result, activists got UN permission for their activities outside the designated area. On November 12, Sanaa marched in the front line under a banner reading, "You Have Not Yet Been Defeated" – the title of Abd el-Fattah's book, which has become a rallying cry for summit activists. Behind her, hundreds of human rights and climate activists chanted, "free them all" and "no climate justice without human rights".

Indigenous voices

It is worth noting that the natural world suffers wherever there is an attack on human rights. A common practice at COPs is that local communities offer "toxic tours" to foreign attendees, showing them what lies beyond the host nation’s curated green facade. Organising such events would land Egyptians in prison for spreading "false news". "You will have activists from everywhere in the world coming to COP, but Egyptian activists are blocked from going, or they're in jail," a leading human rights campaigner in Cairo told the BBC, asking not to be named for fear of reprisal. In a different world, a climate conference held in Sinai, home to Bedouin communities, could be a fertile ground for information exchange and collaboration within the climate movement. Egyptian Streets reports on the message from Bedouin tribes to COP27. A resident, Faraj said, "We want to share our knowledge of the natural world and offer guidance on how to live sustainably. The topic of climate change has been co-opted by big businesses and politicians. They are creating fear to push people to switch to buying electric cars or other products and technologies for profit. Still, they are ignoring the local knowledge that communities have." The article continues, saying that "Traditional Bedouin gardens, for instance, are just one of the examples of how Bedouin culture can offer guidance in living sustainably through its approach to rainwater harvesting, which can provide a sustainable mechanism for boosting food security in arid and dry regions." Egypt's indigenous communities can teach the rest of the world indispensable knowledge about living and understanding nature, but their voices are not centred at the conference because they are marginalised.

Showing solidarity and #FreeThemAll

COP27 is a controversial event, but there is much to gain by paying attention to Egypt. There will be no climate justice without social justice, and there can be no inclusive climate debates while the voices that need to be heard are in prisons. COP27 can be an important lesson in understanding how vast and complex climate justice is. If we are willing to unsee the realities of real people to debate a ‘bigger issue’, this sacrifice zone mentality will ruin any opportunity for progress. Egypt is not merely a backdrop; it is a country with real people who want us to understand that authoritarianism impedes climate action. This is a lesson that citizens worldwide should be aware of as fascism is rising and crossing borders. In the ways they can, activists at COP are showing solidarity with the Egyptian people and disobeying the regime’s strict limitations on freedom of speech and expression. Before the rally on Saturday, November 12, several attendees had dressed in white on Thursday, November 10, to show solidarity with Egyptian political prisoners. They gathered far from the designated protest zone, which many campaigners refuse to use. Ahead of the summit, fifteen Nobel laureates published an open letter calling on governments, environmental groups and businesses to call for the release of Egypt’s prisoners of conscience during COP27. They asked perhaps the most potent of all questions: “If COP27 ends up a silent gathering, where no one risks speaking openly for fear of angering the COP presidency, then what future is being negotiated over?”

Defending human rights is inextricable from defending a liveable planet. It seems that the young climate movement understands this. At Saturday’s rally, protest organiser Asad Rehman read a statement from Sanaa Seif as she stood silently next to him. “I came here thinking I would be alone,” read the statement. “I am sure that those in power thought that my voice would be drowned out and ignored. Instead, I found that my family was already here waiting for me.”

Author: Amuna Wagner
Yearly in November, the climate crisis makes global news when world leaders assemble for two weeks at the annual UN Climate Change Conference (or Conference Of the Parties). People worldwide take advantage of this event to make their voices heard by protesting on the street. At COP26, held in Scotland last year, more than 100,000 protesters took to Glasgow’s streets. Globally, over 300 rallies have been held in countries that allow open public dissent. While the summit is usually attended by old men with much talk and no action, Glasgow’s protests were led by young women and indigenous people, illustrating how the climate change movement has become an umbrella for a broad range of causes.

This year, COP27 tests how serious climate activists are about social justice. From November 6-18, world leaders are gathering in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh, a decision welcomed by African governments as the continent is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world. However, choosing Egypt, which is currently being ruled by brutal military dictator, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi, was controversial. Both its human rights and environmental records are horrific, and as expected, the authorities cracked down and arrested anyone suspected of planning a protest ahead of the summit. As we watch the confrontation between governments and civil society activists unfold, we must ask ourselves: what does climate justice mean?