Sustaining All Life at COP25 in Madrid, Spain

December 2 - December 8, 2019 (español)

Sustaining All Life (SAL) has returned from COP25 in Madrid, Spain (moved from Santiago, Chile). We attended with a 30 person delegation. Our goal was to bring our tools of listening and emotional healing to the COP and to make clear the connection between climate change and capitalism, racism, sexism, classism and oppression of indigenous peoples and young people. We also held daily forums highlighting the voices of Latin Americans on issues of climate change and the intersection with social justice.

At COP25 SAL offered a series of events where we shared our understandings, and our tools of listening and healing. We had our own exhibit booth, which served as a focal point for our work. We offered workshops on the following themes: Eliminating the Effects of Racism in Our Work, Young People at the Forefront of the Climate Movement, Indigenous People and the Fight for the Environment, Climate Change and Institutional Violence, Women and Climate Justice, Sustaining Ourselves as Activists and Organizers, Parents Take Action for Climate Justice, Expressing Climate Grief, and The Environment and Health.

We also held forums (inviting people to come speak from their own experiences) for young people, Indigenous people, Latin Americans, and addressing the impact of climate change in Latin America.

Daily we held meetings for young people, and at the end of our time there we gathered interested people for a more detailed introduction to RC.

We held one event in the Blue Zone (the governmental area), in partnership with some other groups. Our three speakers spoke about our basic theory and oppression in Latin America, under the umbrella of “Expressing Climate Grief.” (We offered this workshop “climate grief” workshop a number of times.) Iliria Unzueta, RRP of Mexico, leader of the delegation (along with Diane Shisk) gave a very inspiring talk at the end of the event, and I want to share it with you all here. The other two people from our delegation on the stage are Nancy Callañaupa, a Quechua woman from Cusco, Peru, and Daniel Vela, young adult man from Baja California, México.