$5trn Debt: Pay Up, Climate Activists Tell Rich Countries At Cop29

Civil society organisations from across the world, including Africa Make Big Polluters Pay (MBPP), have held a people’s plenary with the theme; ‘Pay Up, Stand Up: Finance Climate Action, Not Genocide’ at the COP29 United Nations climate talks which ended on Friday, November 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Speaking with one voice, they shared their pain at and condemned incidents of injustice perpetrated by the Global North, including neocolonialism, genocide and the excessive appetite of Western civilisation for fossil fuel.

Similarly, they affirmed their resolve to stand together to fight for a better world. The plenary featured climate activists from indigenous communities, women groups, labour unions and people with disabilities, among others from both the Global South and North, who affirmed their resolve to stand together for a more equitable world.

Gathered in the Caspian Plenary Hall, just outside negotiation rooms in which world leaders failed to hammer out an acceptable global climate finance deal, the civil society organisations displayed and read out the names of Palestinians who have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon, the civil war in Sudan and also demanded an end to eco – cide worldwide.